Wirelessly Sync Google Calendar With Your iPhone
I live and die by my Google calendar and have always hated the fact that I could not wirelessly sync it with my iPhone. I’ve tried every method in the book, and finally have found two methods to wirelessly sync your Google calendar to your iPhone.
NuevaSync
The first method is free and uses a service called NuevaSync. NuevaSync allows over the air synchronization to the built in iPhone calendar. It seems like a great service, but I could never get it to work because it requires the iPhone Exchange account to work (you are only allowed to have one Exchange account per phone and mine is used for work email). My roomate has successfully set it up on his phone and he reports that it works well. NuevaSync does not require the user to install any third party software, but does require the user to create an account on the NuevaSync website (security risks?). Instructions for configuring NuevaSync can be found here.
SaiSuke
The second method, SaiSuke, can be purchased from the iTunes App store for $10 and installs a separate calendaring application on the iPhone. After downloading and installing, it literally took me five minutes to set up (set up your Gmail username and password inside the iPhone menu Settings > SaiSuke). The program allows you to toggle which Google calendars are visible, and whether you want to sync 1 way Google-to-iPhone only, 1 way iPhone-to-Google only, or 2 ways. The color coding of the calendars stays intact, making reading a whole lot easier. There are a myriad of views including: list, day, week, month, and year, but I tend to stay in the default month view with the summary of the day below.
If you can get away with using NuevaSync, and do not mind giving your Gmail username and password to a new kid on the block, then try out NuevaSync. If you want a more robust, secure method, I highly recommend SaiSuke.
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#1 Swaroop says:Nemus sync for the jail broken phones is a boon for over the air sync
#2 Ben Seven says:“but does require the user to create an account on the NuevaSync website (security risks?)”
What?! I use Nuevasync and it uses Google’s token authorisation (similar to authorising apps to connect to your Flickr account) meaning the Nuevasync team only have access to the data you enable eg. calendar data, not your Google username and password.
No need to put people off a great service just because you haven’t actually used it and don’t fully understand it!
#3 Ben Seven says:Nuevasync account information:
When you register with Nuevasync, we will request some personal information, including your first and last name, email address, a username, and password to create your account. You are not required to provide your name. We use your name only to greet you personally if we need to communicate with you. Your username, e-mail address and password are required to provide the service.
Provider account credentials
When you configure a provider for your Nuevasync account (for example Google calendar) you give us your provider username and credentials (either your password or a security token depending on the authentication system used by the provider). We use these credentials only to access your information in the provider’s service on your behalf, in order to provide the syncronization service.
(In the case of Google, security tokens are used).
Taken from http://www.nuevasync.com/policies/privacy.html
#4 CST says:I do this by running BusySync on my desktop, then letting MobileMe do its thing - this has a couple of advantages in that a) there are no third parties involved and b) I only need to configure one machine for sync in order to have it available on my phone, laptop, home desktop and office desktop with a minimum of hassle.
#5 Andy Fuchs says:Hm - I use the integrated caldav synchronization of iCal to my Google calendars and MobileMe. That works great for my multiple Macs AND the iPhone.
So it seems I don’t understand why we need another app…
#6 CST says:@Andy Fuchs - MobileMe will sync your CalDAV calendars? For me, it will only sync calendars that it thinks are local - how did you get that working?
#7 Ben Seven says:@ Andy Fuchs - an additional app (or rather, service in the case of nuevasync) can be useful if your situation suits it - for instance my Fiance and I are subscribed to each other’s Gcal, and the minute one of us adds an item on the iphone it is available on both our iPhones. No syncing to the computer or MobileMe required.
I don’t quite follow exactly how your setup works, all I know is using NS to handle the sync-to-iPhone part negates the need to pay for MobileMe, making this a free setup.
Obviously MobileMe is much more than calendar sync, but the only thing I ‘Need’ that it offers is calendar sync. So might as well use a free solution for that!
#8 Crap says:The only that is bad about NuevaSync besides the security issues is that you can’t sync multiple calenders!:( If you could, I would actually use it!
#9 Rick says:I have my home (iCal) and work (Exchange) calendars syncs with Google Calendars already. For iCal, I use caldav (weren’t you guys the ones that suggested it?). For Exchange, I use Google Calendar Sync. Works great for me…I like using Google Calendars to manage events, but I feel the iPhone Calendars interface is more convenient than the Google Calendars iPhone Web app. I wish Google Apps were available as native iPhone apps but given Andriod I can understand why they are not motivated to do this.
#10 Ben Seven says:@ crap - multiple calendars are supported, they just don’t show up in different colours. Depending on what you use them for, this can be a deal breaker for some.
#11 dizi izle says:The only that is bad about NuevaSync besides the security issues is that you can’t sync multiple calenders!:( If you could, I would actually use it!
#12 zin says:If you use Highrise and you want to have access to the Highrise contacts from your iPhone, my app called hContacts can do just that. hContacts features the look and feel of iPhone Contacts application yet it allows you to keep your Highrise contacts separate from iPhone contacts. With hContacts, you can search contacts, view contact information and contact’s photo, it also lets you call, email or text a contact right from the contact info screen. Please give it a try.
#13 Dennis says:It apparently doesn’t work with GAFYD, or at least I couldn’t it…
#14 Bill says:SaiSuke has a month view with text. I assume that this cannot be done with NuevaSync as it uses the iPhone calender. Is that true?
#15 Sandman says:It does work with GAFYD - you just need to enter your full GAFYD email address, rather than just the user name.
Multiple Google calendars from your account are synched to the iPhone - alas, if you have say 3 different calendars in Google, they seem to be ALL “flattened” into one on your iPhone
#16 Andy Fuchs says:Well I just added an account for my Google calendars to the iCal preferences:
https://www.google.com/calendar/dav//user
and now I can add events directly in iCal and they are synched with Google automagically (and vice versa, of course).
There’s also a small utility called ‘Calaboration’ which easifys the setup for you.
#17 Ben Seven says:@ Andy Fuchs -
As useful as that may be, it’s not really relevant to this article, which discusses two solutions for synchronisation straight to / from the iPhone. Using a workaround to Sync iCal with GCal is useful for auto-sync (i.e without plugging in your iPhone) if you have MobileMe, but otherwise not exactly medal-worthy.
#18 Calendar user says:I think you got the security risks exactly wrong. With NuevaSync I did not have to enter my gmail password. The only security risk I see with them is that they have your calendaring information.
With SaiSuke, you actually need to enter your gmail password. I will never do that.
Both seem to me to be equally “new kids on the block”.
#19 Bill says:But Saisuke is an iPhone app, which I would probably assume that security issues would be a problem to maintain iphone app status, but you may be right. I have Exchange, but the iPhone calendar stinks compared to Saisuke [monthly text view]. So I use both, but rely on Saisuke every day. Entourage syncs with Exchange, which syncs with Outlook on my PC, which syncs with Google, which syncs with Saisuke. I could add in iCal to sync with gcal, and exclude the PC, but I don’t need to update frequently, and everything justs auto updates, then click the sync button on Saisuke, so it’s pretty seemless and doesn’t take much to setup.
I seemed to remember NeuvaSync asking for my Gmail password, but I guess that I must be wrong.
#20 Ben Seven says:@ Bill - you’re right to remember that, as previously Nuevasync required the entry of username and password during setup - however now they have implemented the more trustworthy google service authorization system, and this is no longer the case.
What bugs me is it would be easy for the TAB author to edit this post with an ‘update’ detailing this - a blog as popular as TAB needs to monitor their comments for mistakes and amendments to their articles, like all the major tech / Apple-centric blogs do - this post currently has factual mistakes which without correction discourage the use of somthing which is actually a remarkably stable and useful piece of web synchronisation.
#21 Bill says:Thanks Ben. I wanted to use it, but I would have to delete my Exchange account calender [I think ] and that month at a glance with text was really needed [Saisuke] I got the free version and just kept changing the iPhone date to by one week to get the entire 3 months of my schedule, since the Saisuke free version only syncs one week [current date]. Also, I jailbroke my phone for the heck of it, since I could restore it back at any time. this allowed me to try a few apps, only to find them not very useful, and deleted them [rather than paying and finding them useless].
Thanks
#22 Alex says:In terms of security, NemusSync still appears to be the best solution because it communicates directly with Google via a secure channel. It’s a pity NemusSync isn’t available in the AppStore. I’m looking for a solution that sync with Google Calendar OTA each time there is a calendar insert, update or delete - just like MobileMe but with Google…
#23 Bill says:Saisuke is available at the App store and does sync the Google calendar OTA, but you must click the sync button [when you add or change an entry], which is at the bottom of any page. Note that it will only sync with the date range that you set up in preferences, but a broad range would make it work fine. You can change the date range for syncing when you are at the end of the range, or make it so large that it doesn’t matter.
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