These days, people have multiple calendars on multiple devices – Phone, iPad, Computer. We are in the midst of consolidating our sync methods to take advantage of Apple’s “Event Kit” technology in iOS4 which allows our apps to sync directly with the iPhone, iPod and iPad calendars. The great advantage is that there are some very strong sync technologies that link these devices to others:
- Apple’s own Sync Services – sync via wired connection directly to iTunes on your computer, and from there to iCal, Mobile Me and Exchange.
- iPhone Calendar and iPad Calendar – both of these allow you to connect directly to iCal, Outlook, Mobile Me, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail and any other CalDav calendar. Just go to Settings on your device and set things up. Then connect our apps to your iPhone/iPod/iPad calendar.
- Google’s MS Exchange Server – connects directly to iPhone/iPod/Pad calendar and syncs seamlessly with Google Calendar. This works very well as a “conduit” for syncing some of our own iPhone apps with our iPad apps.
- Toodledo’s Task sync. This is a great way to share tasks with others and to manage some of your tasks from a desktop computer.
Let’s look at the options for our own apps, in a bit more detail.
SmartTime™
SmartTime currently syncs directly to Google calendar over the internet. The advantage of this is you can sync both Events and Tasks to separate calendars in Google. The disadvantage is that people often “mix their mapping” so the next thing they know, they have mapped Events to a Task calendar and SmartTime suddenly starts moving your events all over the place, trying to find better times for them! Another disadvantage is that the Google API is buggy, and the non-MS Exchange connection is not dependable.
SmartCal
This new app features EK sync – direct sync to the iPhone/iPod calendar. It works seamlessly and has the advantage that it can be done without an internet connection. So it’s fast. From your iPhone calendar, you can use Apple’s built-in connections to sync directly to iCal, Mobile Me, Outlook (via Exchange), Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, and any other Cal Dav calendar. We have plans to add Toodledo sync to SmartCal. Read more about it here.
Smart Pad
Smart Pad 1.1 (released Nov 30) now features direct sync to the iPad Calendar. From there, you can use Apple’s built-in connections to sync directly to iCal, Mobile Me, Outlook (via Exchange), Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, and any other Cal Dav calendar. Smart Pad also sync’s tasks with Toodledo.
Syncing between apps
Here is a short explanation of how to connect our various apps to each other, or to share data between them.
SmartTime to Smart Pad
Sync SmartTime events to Google Calendar. Then set up your iPad Calendar to sync directly to Google. Then set up Smart Pad 1.1 to sync with your iPad Calendar (not with Google).
Tasks do not yet sync, but you can import your tasks from your Google Calendar “task calendars” into Smart Pad. They will appear as Events in your Smart Pad calendars. You can then convert each one into a Task by double-tapping on the item and selecting “Task” rather than “Event.”
SmartCal to Smart Pad
SmartCal syncs directly with the iPhone or iPod Touch Calendar,and Smart Pad 1.1 syncs directly with the iPad Calendar. So you are set. You can sync your iPhone and iPad calendars in a number of ways, including via iCal on your desktop. I have both my iPhone and my iPad calendars connected to Google via Exchange (see below) and that keeps everything well connected.
SmartCal 1.1 – due out in mid-December – synchronizes tasks with Toodledo. When that is released, you will be able to share tasks between SmartCal on your iPhone and Smart Pad on your iPad.
Setting up Google’s MS Exchange
In the Email field, enter your full Google Account email address. If you use an @googlemail.com address, you may see an “Unable to verify certificate” warning when you proceed to the next step.
That’s it! Any SmartTime calendars that you are syncing to Google, will automaticall – and seamlessly – be synced onwards to your iPad!
