Multi-platform Calendar sync (inc. Cloud!)
By Ben Robinson on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 4:10 PM PST In Services, The Digital Life
Sync that calendar!
Following on from my numerous investigations, I think I may have a solution that would allow you to Sync a Mac, PC, and iPhone, all with the same calendar – and wait for it – bi-directionally!
Now, you might be thinking … um …. but isn’t that what MobileMe does? Well in theory yes, but in reality, sadly no. The calendar sync doesn’t work from Outlook 2003, and as far as I am aware, you can’t poll multiple email account through your .me email address. Whilst I don’t (yet) claim to have found a solution to email aggregation/push, I’m working on it (!) – but for now, I present an option for multiple platforms calendar sync, using the ‘cloud’ (in this case Google (NSDQ: GOOG)’s cloud) as the information hub.
As you can see, multiple softwares and entities involved – which, you could argue isn’t great, but at the same time I would argue, is more than likely going to work. Things that make this solution irrelevant are if:
- you don’t care about multiple platform sync
- you don’t have a PC in the mix
- you want to sync faster / more often than 10 min intervals
Other than that though, if you are running a hybrid O/S network, or you have more than one element in the diagram, or, if you just don’t fancy using MobileMe, then you could potentially try the above out.
I’m really interested to see what solutions readers have in place, so let us know – comments on the post are the way to go!
Ben
Whatabout Symbian/Windows Mobile!?
One word: goosync. Seems to cover a lot of disparate platforms.
Right now my life is complex enough without adding WinMo and S60 back in the equation
But maybe, in time…….
Interesting solution. Viewing a common Calendar is critically important to me. I fought with this problem for weeks until I discovered a solution for calendar syncing. I’ve found that Plaxo actually does a great job of keeping all my calendars in sync. I do use Mobile Me because I like a lot of the other services it offers, but I’ll bet this could be done without employing MobileMe — I’d have to investigate further to be sure.
My setup:
– a corporate PC running Outlook with corporate Exchange
– a personal MacBook Pro using only iCal for my calendar and Address Book for contacts
– an iPhone
– personal contact list, calendar and email accounts with Yahoo and AIM
I run the Plaxo plug-ins for Outlook on my corp PC and for iCal and AB on my MacBook. I’ve set up Plaxo to sync my calendars and AB with both of those sync points plus Yahoo and AIM. I’ve setup iCal and AB on the MacBook to automatically sync with MobileMe in the cloud and that automatically syncs with my iPhone. Voila!
Pros:
– Everything syncs (Calendar and Address Book)
– Works with corporate exchange calendar (a HUGE plus)
– Very fast. I’ve never experienced more than a few minutes delay propagating events or contacts to all sync points.
– If I add a new contact from my personal Yahoo Mail interface (Y! will do that automatically if you want) it automatically shows up in all my AB.
– Plaxo is free
Cons:
– No email sync (like you, I am still working on that)
– You (might) need a MobileMe account
– Your desktop PC and MacBook need to be running and online in order for all data to sync quickly.
For the record, I know that Plaxo still gets a bad rap from a lot of people for the way their service used behave (years ago it used to be easy to accidentally spam your whole contact list). That issue has long been resolved, though, and their core sync product does work really well on a wide variety of platforms. I’d recommend giving the service a try.