Top iPhone Resource

Shriya and I use Gmail and Google Calendar extensively. iPhone’s native Calendar is nice but Google Calendar lets us access our events from our computers as well. Plus, I have tons of contacts already filled out in my Gmail that would be nice to have them in my iPhone.

With Google Calendar, you can also subscribe to other Calendar (CalDAV) compatible services like Remember the Milk, Anyvite, etc.

How to Sync Google Calendar with iPhone?

With this little tip, you can integrate Google Calendar right into your iPhone Calendar using Google Sync. I am going to assume you have upgraded to OS 3.0 and get to 2.2 later.

iPhone OS Version 3.0

1. Open Settings in iPhone
2. Open Mail, Contacts, Calendars
3. Tap on Add Account
4. Select Microsoft Exchange

   

5. In the Email field, enter your full Gmail address
6. You can leave the Domain field empty
7. In Username, enter your full email address
8. In Password, enter your Google password
9. Hit Next and enter m.google.com in Server field

   

10. Press Next
11. Select the Google Services you want to Sync - only Calendar & Contacts supported at the moment
12. Choose ‘Keep on my iPhone‘ to keep your existing contacts and events in your iPhone.
13. And you are done!

Gotchas

• Google Calendar and Contacts will automatically sync if you have Push (Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Fetch New Data) enabled. Push settings can also drain your battery faster so play with it and see how your battery holds up with various intervals.
• You can choose which of your Google Calendars to Sync by going to http://m.google.com/sync in Safari
• You can only create 1 Exchange ActiveSync account. So if you already use one for work you are out of luck. Thanks Apple!
• After the Sync is done, you chose to see All Calendars or just specific Calendars in iPhone

  

• With iPhone OS 2.2, you won’t see the screen where you can chose to Keep your existing Contacts in iPhone. You have to heed the warning that you will lose your iPhone data and hit Sync twice.

Hope you were able to set up your Google Calendar and Contacts in your iPhone with these instructions. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to answer them.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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Amazon recently just launched their new Kindle 2 (Latest Generation wireless reading device) and priced it at $360.

Amazon just launched a free iPhone Kindle App that lets you read Amazon eBooks with your iPhone or iPod Touch.

You can read any Kindle-compatible book you’ve purchased from Amazon’s catalog in your iPhone or iPod Touch. In fact, you can read the first chapter of any book for free if you want to try out the App without buying a book from Amazon Kindle.

It has a lot of the Kindle features like resizing text, bookmark pages, viewing notations you made on Kindle, etc.

The price point for Kindle is kind of out of my league at the moment and I have my entertainment budget lined up for stuff elsewhere this year.

But, the iPhone Kindle App creates a sweet spot where I can buy and read eBooks on my iPhone from the vast eBook Catalog with one of the most competitive pricing elsewhere.

If you already own a Kindle or planning to buy Kindle 2, the iPhone App makes a compelling statement.

Reason - WhisperSync. This feature automatically keeps track of where you left off in each book and it allows you to pick up from that spot in any Kindle-friendly devices you may have. You can leave your Kindle 2 bedside in the night and pick up on the reading on your way to work in a train/bus from your iPhone.

As Amazon’s Kindle service expands to more mobile devices, this feature is going to be kick-ass.

With Amazon moving into the iPhone eBook market, it’s time the other players stood up and took notice as the competition is going to be really stuff from now on.

If you are a iPhone eBook app writer, what do you think about this development?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Gmail has been making great strides these days. We just saw Gmail get offline access.

With so many of us using Gmail primarily as the email provider as well as to store and manage our contacts, it becomes hard to not have those contacts in your iPhone contact list.

Yes, you could open up Gmail and then try to find it but it can’t beat the ability to sync your Gmail contacts with iPhone without a lot of effort.

NuevaSync does just that. Nuevasync allows direct, over-the-air, native synchronization with public PIM and calendaring services including Google.

NuevaSync supports not just Gmail contacts but also

• Google Calendar for calendar events
• Google Contacts/Gmail contacts for contacts
• Plaxo for Contacts

NuevaSync supports the following devices

• Apple iPhone 2.0
• Apple iPhone 3G
• iPod Touch 2.0
• Windows Mobile based PDAs and smartphones

Support for push email is supposedly coming soon. The first time you sync with Nuevasync it could take a little while but after that it should only take a few seconds.

Gotcha’s for iPhone users

• If you can’t edit your calendar events after a sync, check your sync configuration email address and make sure it’s right
• If you found 2 copies of some contacts, it looks like a iPhone firmware issue but a resync should fix the duplicates.
• If your Google Calendars come up with a different color in iPhone, you have to change it in GCal as you can’t change it in the phone.

Also, check out the Apple-specific page at Nuevasync.

Popularity: 4% [?]

One of the great things about the connectivity you get with iPhone is that you can get a lot of the online app you use in your computer to go. What other app could be essential than a Task Manager App that can help you be productive and help remember things no matter where you are.

Lifehacker has done a really cool post comparing different task managers for iPhone and iPod Touch in AppStore. And they have done a great job of picking a nice sampling out of the numerous one’s out there.

Just a quick rundown of the Task Manager Apps compared by Lifehacker here

• Remember the Milk - FREE ($25/year for PRO access)
• Zenbe Lists - FREE
• reQall - FREE
• To Do’s - FREE
• EasyTask Manager - FREE ($19.99/year for online access)

Our pick out of this list is Remember the Milk. It is one of THE best online task managers and we highly recommend the iPhone App as well as the original web version. You can read a large number of posts on RTM at Shankrila.com tagged GTD.

Let us know your favorite task manager if it’s not already on this list.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Sarah Perez of ReadWriteWeb has listed 7 must-have offline Apps for iPhone & iPod Touch. And we agree, whole-heartedly!

With Evernote providing offline access to notes you select, it just became very iPod Touch friendly as well as iPhone friendly where there is no cell or wifi signal! Let’s look at the apps that provide offline access.

7 Sweet Offline iPhone & iPod Touch Apps

1. Evernote
   A note taking app that provides offline access to your favorite notes. If you already have it make sure to update to the newest release to see this cool feature.
2. Stanza
   A ebook reader that lets you port reading material from your computer to your favorite gadget.
3. Instapaper
   It lets you bookmark upto 10 webpages for offline reading. Pro Version will set you back $9.99 but provides you unlimited save option.
4. Encyclopedia
   How would you like a complete copy of Encyclopedia in your iPhone or iPod Touch for offline access? Needs 2gb storage - so it’s only for serious info nuts!
   
5. NYTimes
   This app lets you select stories with one touch and lets you read them offline later.
6. MiGhtyDocs
   If you haven’t guessed, it lets you offline Google Docs. Doesn’t support editing and saving but only read access. No word or slideshow support yet.
7. Byline
   Offers sync with Google Reader and lets you read items offline. This will set you back $2.99 but offers 2-way sync with Google reader.

Our own Selection of Offline Apps

That was really sweet wasn’t it? But, why stop there? Here are a few more we wanted to add to this list.

1. iSpreadsheet (review)
   Offers online and offline access to spreadsheets and gives you Google Docs integration as well. ($3.99)
2. Crossword Help
   Offers a full offline thesaurus ($4.99)
3. GPS FoodEasy
   It is an offline restaurant search engine in Hong Kong (FREE)
4. Local Radio Finder
   Lets you find radio stations near you and the power even when you don’t have an internet connection as long as the GPS can locate you. ($0.99)
5. Aero Reader
   An iPhone client for Fastladder.com RSS reader. Provides offline cache access. (FREE)

More and more of the apps are providing offline access where it makes sense. This is great for iPod Touch users who have to rely on a Wi-Fi connection.

So, which of these do you see yourself using a lot?

Popularity: 2% [?]

Box.net is a FREE online file storage service that is very popular. I even use it to upload my Firefox backups from FEBE directly into my Box.net account.

Box.net now has a iPhone & iPod Touch App that lets you get to your Box.net account right from your iPhone. It not only lets you store and retrieve files but you can also share files with friends easily. Box.net had an iPhone friendly interface at i.box.net but this iPhone app just rocks with more features.

• Quickly get to your Box.net files
• Integrates with your Contacts so you can easily share files/folder with your iPhone contacts
• Play audio and video files in your Box.net account (if it’s Quicktime compatible)
• View pdf and Microsoft Office files
• View photos from Box.net account
• Upload files and photos straight from your iPhone
• Get notified of changes made to a folder - makes collaboration awesome!

Download Box.net

If you don’t use Box.net often, this app might be an overkill and you might just find the iPhone friendly interface sufficient. But, if you use it often, this FREE iPhone App is really a killer one to have.

(For those wondering about the title, you have to watch Forrest Gump )

[via Box.net blog]

Popularity: 1% [?]

Ok. This is a really cool trick I just found.

How would you like to be able to add music, videos, podcats from multiple machines to your iPhone or iPod Touch?

Normally you can sync media on iPhone with only one computer but most of us use multiples computers in a day but carry our iPhone around everywhere.

Lucky for us, Andrew Grant has figured out how to do this! Click over and check out his post on how to do this. It’s not really that hard and he has pictures to assist with the instructions.

Enjoy adding songs, video, podcasts to your iPhone from work and home!

Popularity: 2% [?]

DropBox is an innovative file synchronization service that seamlessly keeps the assigned folder between computers in sync. You can even get to your files from anywhere via a browser interface. You can read our DropBox Review here.

Dropbox has also got an improved iPhone optimized interface to get to your files/pictures on your Windows,Mac or Linux desktops right from your iPhone.

Dropbox was on closed beta so far and they have just launched publicly! You can go ahead and sign for a free account (2GB space). There will be premium accounts with more space availabel shortly at the price of 50GB Dropbox for $9.99/month or $99.99/year.

Enjoy this excellent service now right from your iPhone!

If you are a Dropbox fan, you have to check out this excellent collection of Dropbox hacks and Portable Dropbox hack.

Popularity: 11% [?]