
One of the most common requests from readers of my iPhone and iPad Exchange ActiveSync guides is support for synchronization of tasks. Added in Exchange Server 2003 SP2, wireless synchronization of tasks has not been consistently implemented by mobile devices. Android doesn’t have it, and neither does Windows Phone 7 (yet). But iOS 5 will indeed include wireless, over-the-air synchronization of Exchange tasks using ActiveSync.
iOS 5 will be released in the Fall and includes many new features, including Apple’s own “to-do sharing” feature. But Tasks are commonly used in enterprise environments, and it’s nice to see Apple integrate this feature. It’s been conspicuously absent in iOS for years, even as Palm’s WebOS and Symbian supported it. Interestingly, Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 7 removed the task support previously found in version 6!