iPhone by Steve

As I’ve mentioned several times in this blog, I did quite a bit of research before purchasing my iPhone. I’m super happy with my decision so far, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had some disappointments, too.

One thing that I don’t like about iPhone is the inability to sync my contacts and calendar “over the air,” without the use of wires. I understand that, to sync an extensive playlist of songs and videos to the iPhone, wireless syncing would be slow and problematic, but what about contacts and calendar events? There’s no good reason these can’t be kept in sync over the air, using the AT&T Edge network, Wi-Fi, or, hopefully soon, a new 3G version of the iPhone.

Another thing I’ve mentioned a few times is that I want to be completely free of Microsoft Outlook. I don’t want to use it, period. I want all of my personal information management (contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes) to be available on my phone, and also from any computer anywhere. That means over the air syncing, which isn’t available now. Apple has got to address this if they want to truly complete in the business environment, and hopefully the capability is coming soon.

The main hub of my contact management system has now become Gmail. My Gmail contacts list is central to my wireless strategy, and for Gmail users, at least, it is very important to have the ability to sync Gmail contacts to the iPhone.

Until recently, that wasn’t possible at all without jumping through some major hoops, like exporting your Gmail contacts list and then importing the list into your Apple Address Book if you’re a Mac user like me, or importing into Microsoft Outlook if you’re a PC user. Exporting and importing? That’s not a solution, that’s just a mind-bending hassle. This blog is about practical advice for non-geeks—regular people who just want easy ways to use the iPhone. Anything that isn’t simple doesn’t belong here.

I’m a Mac user, and now, thanks to the folks at Spanning Sync, I’ve got at least a partial solution to the problem, and it’s a simple solution as well. I’ve been a happy Spanning Sync user for about 6 months, now, using the product to keep my Google Calendar in sync with the calendar on my MacBook Pro. Then, by hooking up the iPhone to the MacBook, the calendar syncs to the phone as well, and everything is bliss—calendars on iPhone, MacBook and Google Calendar all happily in sync. Spanning Sync is a subscription service that costs me $25 per year, but halfway through my first year of service, I’ve got no thoughts whatsoever about not renewing. I like the service and especially like the fact that any product improvements they make are passed on to subscribers free of charge.

This solution helps my wife and I to keep our busy lives in sync as well. Both my wife and I can enter items onto one shared Google Calendar, and thanks to Spanning Sync, we’re able to keep both of our computers and also our phones synced. With busy work and family schedules, it’s been a great solution for us.

But, while our calendars stay perfectly tuned, the thing that was still missing was contact syncing. Now (by the time you read this, or very soon thereafter), Spanning Sync has a solution for syncing Gmail contacts with the Mac Address Book on our computers. Although this isn’t over the air syncing, it’s still a pretty good solution. Here’s what this will allow me to do:

• If I enter a new contact into my iPhone, the new contact will sync into my Mac Address Book when I sync the iPhone with my MacBook Pro. Spanning Sync will make sure the new contact is added to my Gmail contacts list as well.
• If, on the other hand, I enter a new contact into my Gmail contacts list (from any computer anywhere, I might add), Spanning Sync will add the contact to my Mac Address Book as well, and that contact will in-turn be added to my iPhone the next time I plug in to sync.
• Here’s where over the air syncing would be great: With over the air, my new Gmail contact could come right to my iPhone. Without over the air, the contact won’t be added to my iPhone until I hook it back up to the MacBook Pro for another syncing session.

Still, without this new capability from Spanning Sync, the only alternative would be to enter the new contact twice, once on the iPhone and again into Gmail. That, of course, would be a royal pain and nobody is good at keeping redundant address lists. Spanning Sync solves the problem at least partially until over the air sync comes to the iPhone. It may take a while, but I believe that OTA will eventually be here. OTA sync is one of the few things I miss from my Windows Mobile phone. C’mon, Apple, let’s get on the stick and get this fixed!