Google said last year it was going to end ActiveSync support for new mobile devices on July 31st. According to The Verge, the company has extended that date to December 31st so Microsoft can adequately prepare its Windows Phone platform for the shutdown. This shut down has the biggest impact on Windows Phone users, who would no longer be able to sync Google contacts and Google calendar events to the their phone.
Google is instructing all mobile phone users to switch to CalDAV and CardDAV for syncing, but previous versions of Windows Phone do not support these protocols. Microsoft just added CalDAV and CardDAV support to Windows Phone and is rolling out the updated operating system to handsets. The company needs until the end of the year to update most of the phones in the Windows Phone ecosystem.
[Via The Verge]