Sync Your iPhone/iPod With Google Calendar and Contacts

I am a big fan of the different Google services (and no, I don’t care that they know that I spend my mornings in a math lecture), so I was quite excited when I found out that it is possible to automatically synchronize your schedule kept in Google Calendar and contacts in Google Address Book with the built-in calendar and address book in an iPhone/iPod Touch. I’ve been using my iPod Touch for organization for a while now and I find it very useful. I even plan to “upgrade” to an iPhone after my current cell contract expires (or when Telus starts to offer it).

Google offers this synchronization service via an Microsoft Exchange server, which could mean that one can synchronize Google with any Exchange-enabled application. I’m currently looking if it is possible to use KDE4’s KOrganizer for this and I might post another guide later. But for now, the steps for synchronizing the iPhone are quite simple:

1. Back up your data! All current entries in your iPhone will be erased!
2. On the iPhone, go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendar -> Add Account -> Microsoft Exchange
3. Fill in the following fields:
   • Email: Anything you want
   • Domain: Leave empty
   • Username: Your full Google email account (ie: user@gmail.com)
   • Password: Your Google password
4. Click next and fill in the following fields that appear:
   • Server: m.google.com
5. Click next and turn Mail off (not supported) and turn Contacts and Calendar on.
6. Click Done.
7. You will be warned again that any current data in your iPhone Contacts and Calendar apps will be deleted. If you agree, press Sync.
8. ???
9. Profit