My new MacBook Pro was up and running with my data in less than an hour, thanks to Google and Dropbox!

I replaced my trusty MacBook Pro last week, the latest in a series of upgrades stretching back over 25 years. In the past, moving to a new computer is a time-consuming process of installing applications and moving data. But things were different this time: I still had the installs to do, but most of the data migrated on its own.

A Cloud of Data

Like many people, I’ve spent years unconsciously integrating my workflow with cloud applications and services. My email was first, and moving it to Google’s servers pulled my calendar and contacts along as well. This kind of data “wants” to live in the cloud, where it can be accessed on my phone, laptop, desktop, or any web browser I happen to be seated in front of.

Over the last few months, I have begin to use Dropbox to mirror my documents off-site. A clever trick allows this cloud-based repository to keep multiple computers in sync as well, and I recently set it up between my desktop iMac and the old MacBook Pro.

My only portable data set that still doesn’t live in the cloud is the collection of music and movies I like to take with me. The iMac maintains a massive iTunes repository on my Drobo, but I like to take a few thousand songs and a few movies and TV shows on my laptop as well. It seems ironic that this data is so stubbornly local, considering that, for the most part, it purchased and downloaded from a cloud service!

That’s It?

The majority of my data migrated automatically to my new computer

Just after buying my new 2011 13″ MacBook Pro, I sat down in a cafe next to the Apple Store to have a look. I was still in range of the Apple Store guest network, so the laptop was already online. I typed my information into Apple’s Mail, Contacts, and iCal applications and watched as Google re-populated them automatically.

But even I was surprised at the ease of moving the rest of my daily data. I downloaded the Dropbox client and entered my credentials. In moments, my entire Documents folder began filling up, and the astonishingly-quick Apple network made short work of a decade of content. By the time I finished my smoothie, I was up and running.

Stephen’s Stance

The ease of this migration is simply amazing: I was up and running quicker than I could have driven home! Google and Dropbox made short work of my “working set” of data, and I could have been literally anywhere on the planet. How times have changed!

Once I returned home, I fired up rsync to pull over the iTunes library and I was ready to retire the old machine. To be on the safe side, I pulled the 640 GB hard disk drive out of the old MacBook pro and installed it in an external enclosure. I’ll replace it with another drive and re-install Mac OS X before handing it down to a family member.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. | How Google and Dropbox Revolutionized My Laptop Migration
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Adaptive Audio Controls and Portrait-Mode Screen Rotation Lock

The double-click task switcher isn’t as well-known among regular iOS 4 users as I would have guessed, but even less well-known is what happens when you double-click the home button and slide right. Rather than listing running apps, the task menu shows some incredibly-useful icons: A screen rotation lock and audio controls!

Double-click the home button and slide right to reveal audio controls and a screen rotation lock

Earlier iPhone OS versions included a pop-up audio control screen, but it wouldn’t appear when no music was playing. This new control screen is always accessible and is a great way to get to the iPod function if you want to replace it with a different app (or a folder) in the dock.

Third-party audio apps can be controlled here, too!

As an added bonus, iOS 4′s unified audio engine allows these buttons to control any other background audio-capable app as well. Run Pandora, MLB, NPR, or any other app that supports the new iOS 4 frameworks and you can switch tracks or pause with a simple double-click!

The screen rotation lock is disappointingly portrait-mode only (as is the multitasking menu itself) but it’s a start. I find myself using the lock switch on the iPad constantly, and it would be nice to have all the same functionality on the iPhone.

Support for Multiple Exchange Servers

It might not be obvious why regular people would use multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts at once on an iOS device. Here’s a hint: Google contacts can only be synced over-the-air with the EAS protocol. Although you may want your email and calendars to use iMAP and CalDAV, respectively, anyone who has contacts stored in more than one Exchange or Gmail account needs this capability!

I’ve covered this topic extensively before, so I’ll just leave it at that. See How To Set Up Multiple Exchange ActiveSync Accounts in iPhone iOS 4 and How To Enable ActiveSync For Google Apps Accounts for more.

Camera Zoom and Movie Refocus

Zoom in to compose better snapshots

The camera app was touched up, too. Photo-takers have been able to tap a spot in an image to refocus (and reset exposure) for quite a while, but tapping now also brings up a zoom slider. This makes composing photos on the iPhone that much easier and improves the resulting image for quick sharing. Image crop and other edit controls in the photo app would be nice, as would more-extensive image controls, but this is a good first step. Digital zoom generally stinks, but the high-resolution camera in the iPhone 4 makes it tolerable.

Apple also enabled the tap-to-refocus square during video recording. This allows for some (gasp!) artistic video shots to be composed, despite the limited depth of field of the iPhone camera. It’s especially useful outdoors, where brightness can vary wildly.

Spellcheck

iOS now detects misspellings and offers suggestions

The iPhone has always had inline spelling correction using popup “tags” as you type, but iOS 4 does this one better. Like desktop computers, the iPhone and related devices will now underline potential misspelled words in red and offer suggestions when these hotspots are tapped.

“Data Detectors” for Dates, Addresses and FedEx and UPS Tracking Numbers

iOS 4 detects dates, addresses, and tracking numbers and converts them into useful links

Users of Mac OS X have gotten used to the “data detectors” embedded in Mail and other apps. They are capable of converting dates, email addresses, and other plain text into smart links. Receive an email that says “let’s meet next tuesday at 10″ and Mail creates a link to create a new appointment for that date and time in the Calendar app.

iOS 4 has this capability as well, decoding dates and addresses as well as popular package-tracking codes. This is incredibly useful: When someone sends you a UPS, FedEx, or USPS package tracking number, the Mail app will convert it into a link for the appropriate web site, allowing you to quickly check on shipment.

Web and Wikipedia Search

“Spotlight” search has been a part of the iPhone OS since OS version 3, though I never used it much. It offers full-text search of all data, including email messages. But most people don’t store more than a month of email on the device, reducing the usefulness of search. Now that we have folders, search doesn’t even save time locating apps.

iOS 4 now integrates Wikipedia and Web search with Spotlight queries

Search for data not already found on the iPhone, and Spotlight will suggest a Web or Wikipedia search option. This is nice, but would be more useful if it also suggested searching the contents of mail servers, LDAP directories, and other more user-specific online data sources.

Simplified “New Contact” Screen

You can select information types in the streamlined "New Contact" screen

The iPhone always allowed one to add a contact from an email address or phone number. But the “new contact” screen was annoyingly limited. It categorized all new phone numbers as “home”, for example, an assumption that is almost always incorrect in my case. iOS 4 adds tap-to-select field categories, allowing you to correctly enter information right from the start.

Resize Photos When Sending

The iPhone camera is a great companion, allowing serendipitous photos from everyday life to be grabbed for posterity. But sharing these photos was a hassle, with the phone automatically compressing any mailed photos to save space.

iOS 4 now gives you the option of compressing photos and videos in mail messages

iOS 4 now gives you the option of leaving your photos in their original size, or compressing them to “Medium” or “Small” size. The same options appear for video attachments, and multiple images are supported as well.

Create Real Playlists in iPod

No more playlists called "On The Go 4"!

iPods have had the ability to create lame “On The Go” playlists for almost a decade, but until iOS 4 none could create a real full playlist, complete with a name. Finally!

Birthday Calendar

Happy birthday to who?

Lots of my contacts included a Birthday field, but there was no easy way to use this information on an iPhone. iOS 4 automatically creates a new calendar called “Birthdays” that automatically includes these in the new unified calendar view.

Stephen’s Stance

There are lots of great features hidden in iOS 4 besides folders and multitasking. Background audio, VoIP, selectable wallpapers, saving PDFs as iBooks, and many others compete for attention. But I found the 10 listed here to be the most useful and surprising to me in everyday use. What are your favorite iOS 4 features?

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | My 10 Favorite Hidden iOS 4 Features
This post was categorized as Apple, Features, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This blog post is probably out of date. If you want to set up Exchange ActiveSync, you should instead consult one my guides:
	iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Setup		iPad Exchange ActiveSync Setup
	iPhone ActiveSync Troubleshooting		iPad ActiveSync Troubleshooting

That's right: I now have five Exchange ActiveSync accounts on my iPhone!

Among the many exciting features of Apple’s version-4 iPhone OS is the long-awaited ability to sync to multiple Exchange ActiveSync servers. The new software, now dubbed iOS 4, can synchronize mail, contacts, and calendars between many different services that use Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol, including Microsoft Exchange 2003, 2007, and 2010 and Google’s Gmail service.

Who Needs Multiple Exchange Servers?

You may be wondering if you need this capability. After all, only business people commonly use Microsoft’s corporate Exchange email server, and they tend to only have a single account. But Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync protocol is widespread: It is supported by Google Gmail, Microsoft Live Hotmail, and many other services. Contrary to expectations, most people actually do have an Exchange ActiveSync account, and many have more than one!

I currently use no less than five Exchange ActiveSync accounts, and I’m very pleased to have all of them successfully synchronized with my iPhone. I use Google’s Gmail service for personal mail as well as two Google Apps domains (GestaltIT.com and Fosketts.net). I also have two genuine Microsoft Exchange server accounts belonging to corporate clients. It’s amazing to have all of these up and running on the iPhone!

How To Set Up Multiple Exchange ActiveSync Accounts

Setting up a Google account as Exchange instead of IMAP brings additional functionality

It’s really quite simple to set up multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts in iOS 4: You just do it. Where the old iPhone OS would complain if you tried to enter a second Exchange ActiveSync account, iOS 4 happily accepts them. It’s not clear what the limit is: I set up five Exchange accounts and see no limit in sight!

Refer to my iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide for step-by-step instructions on setting up Exchange ActiveSync on the iPhone. I’ve also put together an iPad Exchange ActiveSync Guide.

Note that many folks, like me, had already added their extra Gmail and Exchange accounts as IMAP, since the old iPhone OS had no trouble with these. In this case, you should disable these accounts first to avoid trouble. I decided to turn off my old IMAP accounts rather than deleting them, just in case I needed to fall back to this method in the future.

Look at that! A unified inbox! But why all those other inboxes?

Note that iOS 4 also includes two long-awaited features: A unified inbox and threaded message view. These work great with multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts, allowing quick access to all your messages.

Quirks and Bugs

Apple seems to have used an incorrect (too short) Exchange server timeout. If you are running iOS 4.0, you should install the Exchange timeout profile (per Apple TS3398) by clicking here from the iPhone and rebooting.

Although iOS 4 mail is much nicer, it’s far from perfect. Most importantly, all this only works on iOS 4 compatible hardware: The iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4. The original iPhone has to stick with 3.0 and its single-Exchange limit.

Apple may have added a unified inbox, but they made the mail app list even more cluttered by listing everything three times: Once in the unified inbox, again with a line-item per account inbox, and a third time per-account. Odd.

By default, every Exchange account added is named “Exchange” rather than using the email address like other account types. This is ugly, and requires the user to manually change the account name in Settings->Mail to avoid confusion.

It took a while for the Calendar app to synchronize, and it used incorrect calendar names for a while. Also, it seems to only synchronize the default calendar, not any others you might have.

iOS 4 will happily maintain duplicate contacts in one or more lists. I synchronized Address Book with Gmail and Entourage, so all of my contacts were listed four times. It’s probably best to synchronize only one contact list to avoid this situation.

Pay no mind: You won't lose all your Exchange contacts, just those from this account!

When you turn off contact synchronization, iOS 4 pops up a disturbing warning that “all Exchange contacts will be removed.” They won’t. It will only delete the contacts from that one Exchange ActiveSync account.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2010. | How To Set Up Multiple Exchange ActiveSync Accounts in iPhone iOS 4
This post was categorized as Apple, Everything, Features, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

For the most up-to-date information, see my iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide!

This post is part of my series focused on integrating the iPhone with Microsoft Exchange using ActiveSync:

• iPhone OS 3.0 information:
  1. First Look: iPhone 3.0 And Exchange ActiveSync Integration
  2. How To Subscribe To Internet Calendars In iPhone OS 3.0
  3. How To Access LDAP Directories In iPhone OS 3.0
  4. iPhone 3.0 Exchange ActiveSync: Better But Not Perfect
• How To Set Up iPhone Exchange ActiveSync
1. A Few iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Gotchas
2. Can the iPhone Sync With Multiple Exchange Servers?

Note that if you are using Exchange ActiveSync for your corporate email, the iPhone will probably already be able to search the Global Address List (GAL) without setting up LDAP. This didn’t work for me under 2.0, but now that I’m using 3.0 I can search the GAL through ActiveSync. Even if you can do this already, there may be other LDAP servers you need to access. Here’s how!

How To Set Up LDAP Access

iPhone 3.0 includes direct over-the-air use of CalDAV, ICS, and LDAP servers

Setting up LDAP is simple. Follow these steps:

1. On the iPhone, select “Settings”
2. Select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”
3. Select”Add Account…” under “Accounts”
4. Select “Other” at the bottom
5. Select “Add LDAP Account”
6. Enter your LDAP Server’s name (e.f. “ldap.example.com”)
7. You will probably have to enter a user name (e.g. “sfoskett”) for “User Name” and a password for “Password”
8. Optionally modify the description
9. Select “Next” and you’re done!

Your LDAP server should now show up in the Contacts application. You can search and use addresses directly from here, but you can’t edit them or add them to the phone’s address book. LDAP addresses are also integrated into the mail, phone, and SMS apps – just start typing a name and the iPhone will query LDAP as well as any local or synced contacts!

If you have a large LDAP server, you may also have to enter a “search base” to limit the scope of your search queries. You can do this only after you have set up the LDAP account.

1. Go back to “Settings”
2. Select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”
3. Select the LDAP account
4. Select “Add Search Settings…”
5. Enter your search base string under “Base” (e.g. “ou=people,dc=example,dc=com”)
6. Optionally enter a description
7. Select “Base”, “One Level”, or “Subtree” depending on where you want to search
8. The iPhone tries to use SSL by default. If your server doesn’t support this, it will time out and try to connect without.

You can set multiple Search Settings to allow searches in different search bases from the same LDAP server.

There are some limitations to the iPhone’s LDAP implementation, however:

1. You have to enter the search base manually rather than having it automatically filled in by the software. Cut and paste is very helpful here!
2. It doesn’t appear to support Kerberos authentication
3. You can’t browse the directory (it’s search-only) so you have to know who you’re looking for ahead of time
4. LDAP information is limited to phone numbers, a single work addresses, and a single email address

There you have it! Is anyone aware of a useful public LDAP server? I can imagine all sorts of info that would be nice to have while on the go – airline phone numbers, taxi companies, etc.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | How To Access LDAP Directories In iPhone OS 3.0
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This blog post is probably out of date. If you want to set up Exchange ActiveSync, you should instead consult one my guides:
	iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Setup		iPad Exchange ActiveSync Setup
	iPhone ActiveSync Troubleshooting		iPad ActiveSync Troubleshooting

iPhone OS 3.0 is here, offering enhancements for enterprise Exchange ActiveSync

iPhone OS 3.0 was released today, and I’ve had a chance to play with it for a bit now. I am very impressed with the improvements Apple has made, and think that 3.0 will be much more welcome in Microsoft Exchange environments. However, it’s still not quite up to the high standard set by the BlackBerry.

Wondering how to get Exchange working in 3.0? Start here:
How To Set Up iPhone Exchange ActiveSync

For the most up-to-date information, see my iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide!

This post is part of my series focused on integrating the iPhone with Microsoft Exchange using ActiveSync:

• iPhone OS 3.0 information:
  1. First Look: iPhone 3.0 And Exchange ActiveSync Integration
  2. How To Subscribe To Internet Calendars In iPhone OS 3.0
  3. How To Access LDAP Directories In iPhone OS 3.0
  4. iPhone 3.0 Exchange ActiveSync: Better But Not Perfect
• How To Set Up iPhone Exchange ActiveSync
1. A Few iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Gotchas
2. Can the iPhone Sync With Multiple Exchange Servers?

Major Changes

Apple made some significant updates to all three of the components touched by ActiveSync: Mail, Calendar, and Contacts.

• The Calendar has been totally re-done, more smoothly supporting multiple calendars, syncing with local calendars and Exchange at the same time, CalDAV and .ICS natively, and allowing on-phone creation of meeting invitations for Exchange users.
• The Contacts application can now sync with local address books and Exchange at the same time.
• Mail is more flexible, with per-folder downloading of Exchange messages.

As I noted last month, however, OS 3.0 is not all roses. In particular, the following issues continue to haunt the phone:

1. The iPhone only supports full ActiveSync with a single Exchange server. Although you are free to establish as many IMAP connections as you like, including connecting to Exchange with IMAP, you cannot use more than one ActiveSync service.
2. Still no notes and tasks sync (with Exchange). Although iPhone OS 3.0 does allow synchronization of notes with Apple Mail for Mac users, it does not support Exchange or Apple’s own MobileMe over-the-air services.
3. No public folder support.
4. ICS and CalDAV seems to be desktop-sync only.
5. Spotlight does not include full-text search of mail messages.
6. Push email remains slow, flaky, and battery-consuming. This is a very tough nut to crack!

Mail

The mail application gets numerous improvements for all mail servers. Notable among these is landscape mode and spotlight search. When it comes to Exchange ActiveSync, the changes are harder to notice. One thing that struck me was the ability to specify which folders to “push” along with the Inbox. Perhaps this was there all along and I missed it, but I never noticed it before.

Note that the Push settings have been moved under “Mail, Contacts, Calendars” in OS 3.0.

Calendar

OS 3.0 is much more sensible in organizing and synchronizing multiple calendar types

Although iPhone OS 2.0 supported multiple calendars, it was very confusing and not at all integrated with Exchange. OS 3.0 has cleaned things up significantly. As illustrated, the iPhone now organizes calendars into categories: Those synced from the Mac or PC and those synced over the air from an Exchange server.

That’s right – the iPhone can now sync calendar entries over both USB and Exchange at the same time! This is super handy, since iTunes supports CalDAV and ICS subscribed calendars through iCal on OS X, and presumably on Windows as well. I’ve written before about TripIt’s solid iPhone app, and this gives another way to view trips. But the iPhone doesn’t seem to support either CalDAV of ICS over the air, which is something of a disappointment. We can’t have everything, can we? Update: I missed it! iPhone OS 3.0 does include over-the-air CalDAV and ICS!

Of course, the new spotlight search supports calendar entries as well, allowing quick access to appointments.

Perhaps the most-anticipated calendar feature for iPhone OS 3.0 is meeting invite support. I can confirm that it is possible to create a meeting, add attendees, and send invites right from the iPhone, and that this works over the air! This is a specific Exchange feature, so of course it only works for the Exchange calendar. But you can easily change an existing non-exchange item to the Exchange calendar and start inviting attendees, even those not using Exchange.

But there are still limitations. You cannot add invitees to someone else’s meeting. You cannot make any changes to an appointment synced from the desktop (CalDAV and ICS included). You cannot forward a meeting request from the calendar app. You cannot see free/busy time when scheduling. It’s not like you have Outlook in your pocket!

One more weird thing I noticed: Nearly every app now has a landscape mode, including mail and contacts, but calendar is locked in portrait only!

Contacts

Like calendars, contacts now supports both iTunes and over-the-air Exchange syncing

The other application to see some updates is Contacts. Like the calendar app, Contacts can now sync to both local desktop and over-the-air Exchange sources at the same time. The iPhone sync combines desktop sources into an “on my iPhone” category and maintains Exchange contacts separately. It also includes access to an Exchange global address list (GAL), and this seems to work much better now than it used to.

Contact management is somewhat limited, however. If you locate a user in the GAL, you can’t add them to your Exchange or iPhone contact list without copy and paste (did I mention that it works?) or finding an email message from them. The phone also has no de-duplication features, so if your desktop contact list is synced with Exchange already you will have a world of duplicate entries.

Summary

All in all, iPhone OS 3.0 is a worthwhile upgrade, especially for business users. Everything seems to work more smoothly and logically than in 2.0, and the added Exchange calendar invite support is great. The complete set of additions, from copy and paste to spotlight search, are excellent as well. But, like the Mac, the iPhone remains just a bit left-of-center in the world of business and Microsoft Exchange. Maybe that’s for the best!

Check out Paul Robichaux’s comments on 3.0′s mail as well!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | First Look: iPhone 3.0 And Exchange ActiveSync Integration
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

The iPhone doesn't support more than one Exchange/ActiveSync pairing

One of the major advances introduced in iPhone software version 2.0 was the ability to sync over-the-air to Microsoft Exchange servers using Microsoft’s ActiveSync protocol. This was introduced to much fanfare with the iPhone 3G and is available on older updated iPhone and iPod Touch units, too. Google and NuevaSync also offer over-the-air calendar and contact syncing for the iPhone using ActiveSync.

All of these synchronization options seem like an embarrassment of riches for iPhone users. But, like so many things in life, they’re too good to be true. iPhone OS 2 and 3 can’t sync to more than one Exchange/ActiveSync server at a time! Or, at least, not in the way you’d like.

Note: iPhone OS 4.0 will allow syncing to multiple Exchange ActiveSync accounts! See How To Set Up Multiple Exchange ActiveSync Accounts in iPhone iOS 4.

For the most up-to-date information, see my iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide!

This post is part of my series focused on integrating the iPhone with Microsoft Exchange using ActiveSync:

• iPhone OS 3.0 information:
  1. First Look: iPhone 3.0 And Exchange ActiveSync Integration
  2. How To Subscribe To Internet Calendars In iPhone OS 3.0
  3. How To Access LDAP Directories In iPhone OS 3.0
  4. iPhone 3.0 Exchange ActiveSync: Better But Not Perfect
• How To Set Up iPhone Exchange ActiveSync
1. A Few iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Gotchas
2. Can the iPhone Sync With Multiple Exchange Servers?

The Connected iPhone

Let’s back up a minute and talk about how the iPhone integrates with mail, contact, and calendar servers. There are essentially two synchronization engines at work here:

• Like all iPods, iTunes can synchronize your contacts, calendars, and mail account information (though not the mail messages themselves) over a USB connection to the iPhone and iPod Touch. This requires a full copy of Outlook 2003 or later on Windows but works with the built-in address book and iCal calendar on Mac OS X.
• The iPhone can also synchronize some or all components of email, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks using a variety of over-the-air protocols.

Note that when you configure over-the-air sync, you must disable USB sync, and vice versa.

iPhone Email Sync

Configured mail accounts can synchronize email messages in one of six ways:

1. Periodically pulling message content down using the POP protocol – this is what most older ISPs and mail accounts use
2. Periodically pulling message content down using the more advanced IMAP protocol – this is what newer mail accounts, including Gmail, AOL, and Yahoo use
3. Having mail pushed to the phone using a weird combination of hidden SMS and IMAP – this is what Yahoo push mail uses
4. Having mail pushed to the phone using a proprietary notification system of XMPP (Jabber) and IMAP – this is what Apple’s MobileMe push mail uses
5. Pulling or receiving push messages using Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology – this is what Exchange servers, NuevaSync, Kerio, Zimbra, and Google’s over-the-air calendar and contact (but not email) sync use
6. The iPhone’s software seems to support IMAP Idle, which is a realtime message push technology supported by Gmail and some advanced mail systems, but the phone will not use it unless the mail application is actually open on the phone

The iPhone does not support P-IMAP, BlackBerry, or other over-the-air protocols at this point.

The iPhone can sync email messages to any number of IMAP or POP accounts without a problem, but it can only sync to a single ActiveSync server at once. So you can set up Gmail over IMAP, Yahoo over SMS/IMAP, your local provider over POP, a Gmail Apps account over IMAP, etc at the same time as your work Exchange server without a problem. But you cannot set up more than one Exchange server using ActiveSync.

iPhone Calendar and Contact Sync

Calendar and contact information can only be synced in one of (perhaps) three ways:

1. Over a physical USB connection to iTunes (as in the original iPhone 1.0) to Outlook or OS X
2. Using some unknown protocol that MobileMe uses – can anyone identify this?
3. Using ActiveSync to an Exchange Outlook Web Access (OWA) server

Yes, that’s really it. Every over-the-air calendar-and-contact sync system (other than perhaps MobileMe) uses the ActiveSync protocol, including Microsoft Exchange, NuevaSync, Zimbra, and Google’s service.

Now the punch line: The iPhone can only sync to a single ActiveSync server at once. Read that again. Now consider what that means.

So no matter how cool a service is (Google sync, Zimbra), you cannot use it for over-the-air sync if you are also connected to an Exchange server. So even though the iPhone explicitly supports multiple calendars, you can’t sync them with multiple ActiveSync systems. So I guess the iPhone’s calendar system is even more disappointing than I thought!

Pick One ActiveSync Service

The upshot is this: iPhone users much pick one (and only one) ActiveSync service.

• Need to use the iPhone for work? You’ll probably have to use your work Exchange ActiveSync server, and can forget about (usefully) subscribing to MobileMe or using Google sync. Instead, try to sync everything else into Exchange in other ways (like Google’s Desktop app) and then let Exchange handle the iPhone sync.
• A dedicated Mac head? Subscribe to MobileMe and get all of your data there, to be sent to the iPhone.
• None of the above? Google’s new Sync service looks great!

The Big Mystery

There are many mysteries lurking here, but one is really perplexing to me. The iPhone seems to maintain its own set of contacts in addition to any ActiveSync contact store. Although it doesn’t obviously have multiple contacts pools, it must maintain them internally. But you can see that it does in a simple way:

1. Set up an ActiveSync server (like Exchange)
2. Set up an IMAP email account (like Gmail)
3. Add a unique contact on the phone (call him “Steve Jobs”)
4. Add a unique contact in Exchange (call him “Bill Gates”)
5. Add a unique contact in Gmail (call him “Sergey Brin”)
6. Now turn on and off the accounts one at a time

Notice that turning off the Gmail account will, within a few minutes, cause your “Sergey Brin” contact to disappear! Turn it back on and Sergie is back. Now do the same for Exchange and Bill Gates. All the while, your “Steve Jobs” contact should stay put. And this all happens in a single contact list! If you assigned one of these to a “favorite”, their name will be replaced by their number when you remove their account.

So the is iPhone somehow syncing contacts over IMAP? Or does it use some other Google-specific protocol? And how does MobileMe’s contact sync work? Time will tell!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2009. | Can the iPhone Sync With Multiple Exchange Servers?
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.