| SOLVED: bi-directional calendar sync iPhone <-> Google <-> Sunbird |
[Nov. 8th, 2008|02:31 pm] |
Below are the high-level steps executed to get bi-directional calendar synchronization between Mozilla Sunbird (0.9) on an XP box at home, iPhone Calendar (1st generation, 2.1), and Google Calendar. You can skip the Mozilla Sunbird stuff if you just want to sync your iPhone with Google Calendar. I'm attached to Sunbird for some unknown reason (maybe because I like things to be difficult) so I had to make it all work together. Google Calendar is the free hub and nuevasync.com is the free glue.
- Set up a free account with http://www.neuvasync.com which is your standard username, password, email address stuff. Part of the process is granting neuvasync access to your Google Calendar which was pretty seamless.
- Follow the steps at neuvasync.com (requires login) to enable iPhone to Google Calendar synchronization. Basically you are adding a new Microsoft Exchange account on the iPhone to use ActiveSync to sync just your iPhone calendar with neuvasync who will then in turn sync with your Google Calednar. A bit of a warning: this process will delete any calendars you already have on the iPhone. This is a "feature" of the iPhone, not neuvasync. I only selected Calendar and turned off sync of Mail and Contacts.
- Add the Provider for Google Calendar plug-in (0.5.1) to Sunbird and follow the instructions at http://bfish.xaedalus.net/?p=239. Basically you're adding in the software for Sunbird to bi-directionally communicate with Google Calendar. The draw back is the events you wish to be synchronized through have to be created under the new calendar pointing to Google. The good news is you can manually change existing events to use the new calendar.
How quickly does it all synchronize back and forth? That depends on multiple factors. In Sunbird I shortened the calendar refresh time to 5 minutes under Options -> General. The Microsoft Exchange neuvasync account on the iPhone is set to use Push notification. I am unable to set or view refresh settings on Google Calendar. A new event from Sunbird to Google took roughly 3 minutes and Google to iPhone took roughly another 6 minutes to appear on the iPhone Calendar. We'll call it 10 minutes to sync from Sunbird to Google to iPhone without me refreshing anything - just sitting and watching it happen automatically. The reverse test of deleting the new event from the iPhone took only 4 minutes to disappear from Google Calendar and Sunbird. The odd thing about this test was the event in Sunbird disappeared 30 seconds before Google's did. Perhaps that was just a function of Google's AJAX refresh timing. I'm assuming this will all work offline and sync up when online as well.
In summary it works using free glue software albeit slowly. I don't need it to be instantaneous because I'm usually remote with the iPhone which is where most of my events will be scheduled from.
Additional summaries of this whole thing can be found at http://www.ianfernando.com/2008/sync-google-calendar-with-iphone-3g/ and http://itcboisestate.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/seamless-calendar-and-contacts-sync-between-iphone-google-and-thunderbird/
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