Mobile me versus google sync ? Thoughts ?

[stuartw]

After being tremendously impressed with my iPhone last year I purchased a Mac book pro a few days ago. I’m absolutely delighted. I wish I’d moved to Apple years ago!

However, like many others I’m confused about whether it’s appropriate to pay for the mobile me offering. I used (free) Hotmail for 10 years and it galls me a little to have to pay for an email address.

May I ask?

If I don’t pay for mobile me, will I still be able to use the Apple Mail application with my old hotmail account? I have looked closely at Gmail, but find the web-based display a little unhelpful.


If I elect to stick with a free mail offering like Gmail or Hotmail can I use iCal to access my calendars?

This whole Google sync versus mobile me decision has completely floored me!

I want to get the most out of my Mac and iPhone but we have young children (i.e. money is tightish ) and $99 / year for something that others provide free is a tricky decision; I’d really appreciate guidance.

 

[Macsterguy]

After being tremendously impressed with my iPhone last year I purchased a Mac book pro a few days ago. I’m absolutely delighted. I wish I’d moved to Apple years ago!

However, like many others I’m confused about whether it’s appropriate to pay for the mobile me offering. I used (free) Hotmail for 10 years and it galls me a little to have to pay for an email address.

May I ask?

If I don’t pay for mobile me, will I still be able to use the Apple Mail application with my old hotmail account? I have looked closely at Gmail, but find the web-based display a little unhelpful.


If I elect to stick with a free mail offering like Gmail or Hotmail can I use iCal to access my calendars?

This whole Google sync versus mobile me decision has completely floored me!

I want to get the most out of my Mac and iPhone but we have young children (i.e. money is tightish ) and $99 / year for something that others provide free is a tricky decision; I’d really appreciate guidance.

You can cobble together other offerings that will do what you want. You can also use apple mail for your gmail account and sync iCal with google calendar...

If you want what I think is a much more trouble free and fluid experience I would go with MobileMe. It just offers more with less trouble. Things like iPhoto and MobileMe gallery for pictures and video just work well together with your Mac and iPhone. From what I hear you can also purchase MobileMe for less on Amazon or Ebay - $60-79

 

[canada eh]

just be careful if you buy from places like Ebay, Amazon or Craigslist, thats it is a reputable seller so you don't get ripped off with a fake code or something like that.

 

[stuartw]

Thanks for the replies .

"You can also use apple mail for your gmail account" ... I didn't know that .

As you indicate mobile me is as little as $60 AUS or USD on ebay ! I think I'll give it a try. ( I take it there are no regions ( as with DVD's ) and I can use a US or cheaper AUS account pricing to run mobile me in the uk?

One thing that concerns me is that we are "hostages " to apple's pricing . Once you start using a mac address , its uncomfortable to change , and apple could use this inertia to ramp up the pricing in future years.

 

[Weaselboy]

Stuart>> If you only have one Mac, and no need to sync data between Mac, I think GMail/Google will meet your needs for free. I will give you push email on your Mac and iPhone and sync calendar and address book data between the two over the air.

I put the following together to help a friend recently and he likes the setup.

==============

http://mail.google.com

Go here and sign up for a new account and write down your user name and PW. Then on the Gmail web page go to settings and the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab and enable IMAP at the bottom. Click save changes at bottom.

Go back to Gmail settings to the Labs tab. Scroll down to the setting for "Advanced IMAP controls" and enable that setting. Save at the bottom.

Go back to setting and labels tab. It will show a list of "system labels"... this is GMails version of folders in your email client. to the right of the label for Chats uncheck the "show in IMAP" setting... also uncheck show in IMAP for the "All Mail" label. That sets up the GMail side off things.

Also click on Calendar in Gmail at top left to activate GMail calendar functions.

Now to set up Apple Mail go to this link and follow the instructions. If you have important saved emails you can forwad them to your Gmail account to save them. Be sure to click the link in step ten of the instructions and configure the Apple Mail prefs as it says.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=81379

Once your Gmail IMAP account is added to Mail, you’ll notice your [Gmail account] in the left sidebar.

• Highlight ‘[Gmail] Sent Mail’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Sent’.
• Highlight ‘[Gmail] Drafts’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Drafts’
• Highlight ‘[Gmail] Trash’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Trash’
• Highlight ‘[Gmail] Spam’ in the sidebar and select ‘Mailbox’ (menu bar) > ‘Use This Mailbox For’ > ‘Junk’

Once properly configured, managing email from Apple Mail or the iPhone will be no different from managing emails within the Gmail web client – sent, drafts, trash, and junk properly sorted between your various email clients and web interface.

Sens yourself a test mail and make a Saved folder in Apple Mail, then move that message to the new Saved folder (or whatever you want to call it. Then go back to the Gmail web page and you will see that Gmail has created a "label" for you with the same name as the saved mail folder you made in Apple Mail and if you click that label you will see your test message. Presto.

Now send a message to everybody in your address book with your new address. Just send one message with all their names in the BCC field.

Okay that cover GMail and your Apple Mail client. Now for the iPhone.

We are going to put everything in your iMac address book and sync that to GMail.... then that to your iPhone... all over the air.

So make sure your iMac address book has all the numbers/info in it you want because this is going to wipe your iPhone address bookk and replace it with the address book info.

So after updating your iMac address book go to prefs in the address book and click accounts tab.... check off sync with Google and enter your user name and PW. This will sync your address book to Gmail. Afterwards go to GMail web page and you will see all your address entries under Gmail "contacts."

Now go to iCal on your iMac and in the prefs go to Account tab and click the plus at bottom left and add Google to sync your iCal to Google Calendar. You will see a new entry in iCal for your Google Calendar. Put a test appt in there and go to Google Calendar (in Gmail web page you will see the calendar link at the top left) and you will see your appt.

Okay so now we have mail, address, appts, alll syncing to Google. Now we will add all this to your iPhone.

Fire up your iPhone and follow the instructions on this page. That will add push email, address, and appts to your iPhone.

http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740&topic=14252

Once it is all working... go to iPhone settings/Mail,Contacts,Calendars... and then the Fetch new data setting... it should be set to push=on... scroll down to advanced and leave contacts/calendar to push... but change Mail to manual. This way appointments and address book will automatically update over the air, but mail will only update when you start iPhone mail and manually check for mail. You can leave mail push on if you want but it runs down the iPhone battery faster.

Once all this is done you will have calendar, address, mail sync between Gmail, iMac and iPhone with no intervention on your part. You can fire up any browser at any desk and go to your Gmail account and check mail/address/calendar and add appts etc... those will all be synced back to your iMac and iPhone. All free.

If you want you can keep your old email for awhile and just fwd it to your Gmail address.
=========================

 

[stuartw]

Weaselboy . Thanks , that's very kind of you . It must have taken some time to write it all down.
I'm away from home at the moment on a trip. I plan to follow your instructions meticulously and see how it works when i return home.
Thanks for taking the time to do that for me , I owe you a cold beer !

Thanks again
Stuart

 

[Weaselboy]

Glad to help. Let us know how it works out.

 

[stuartw]

Wow , gmail is great ! i love the "threading " of conversations. Pretty impressive.

Is there any benefit in using mac mail 4.2? what am i missing ?

 

[lucifiel]

Wow , gmail is great ! i love the "threading " of conversations. Pretty impressive.

Is there any benefit in using mac mail 4.2? what am i missing ?

lots of threads on this issue.

but in my opinion i reckon it comes down to, in terms of the Mail App:

a) do you like the interface?
b) more rules?
c) you can save stuff even if you're offline (though there's a gmail lab thing which lets you do that too)

Using gmail has the benefit of the threaded conversations, the themes, the ubiquity of being able to use a browser from anywhere.

Anyways, I'm glad that you didn't spend the money on a MobileMe account, as remarked above, GSync offers most of the features at zero dollars.

 

[Weaselboy]

Wow , gmail is great ! i love the "threading " of conversations. Pretty impressive.

Is there any benefit in using mac mail 4.2? what am i missing ?

Really a matter of which interface you prefer. Give Mail app a try and if you don't like it you can just not use it and it won't affect the GMail in your browser.

 

[tikidoc]

Could one of the google experts answer a quick question? I have my google calendar synched with ical and it works great with one exception. I have a couple subscribed calendars in google and they don't show up in ical. How do I fix that?

 

[Weaselboy]

Could one of the google experts answer a quick question? I have my google calendar synched with ical and it works great with one exception. I have a couple subscribed calendars in google and they don't show up in ical. How do I fix that?

I don't believe subscribed calendars will sync back to iCal. You should subscribe to those calendars directly in iCal.

 

[synagence]

Is google sync more reliable lately?

I gave it a try about 6 months ago but it was terribly unreliable in regards to push email not coming through or taking hours
Mobileme email is the 1 thing i really appreciate ... it hasn't failed me in a year and i like that .. also the contacts sync etc i love...

The one thing i wanted google apps for was that i could use my domain name for proper email unlike mobileme... if they've sorted out the sync problems i might not renew when its due in a couple of months.

 

[317342]

I only shy away from Google because of their ambivalent attitude towards privacy. Anyone remember the Buzz debacle?

 

[ateganda29]

That was a great post Weaselboy! Very detailed and informative. Kudos to you!

I'd like to jump in on this query and see if any of you gurus out there will be able to clarify some things for me.

I have an iMac and iPhone, and a MobileMe and Gmail accounts. Right now, I have my iMac, iPhone, and MobileMe syncing together (contacts, calendars, and email). I also have Gmail setup via Googlesync with email pushed to my iPhone, but not contacts and calendars. I don't have any data on my google addressbook and calendar. What I would like to do is to sync, on top of my MobileMe, my google addressbook and calendar with my current setup with MobileMe. I haven't played around with it because I'm afraid that I will mess up the setting somehow. I was reading some posts and information on the web that folks who want to do this usually use a third-party app like Spanningsync or something. Can you guys shed some light?

Thanks!