Syncronized Contacts and Calendars in mixed Ecosystem

[Yebubbleman]

My dad's personal tech set-up is as follows:

- Windows Desktop, running Windows 8.1 (he will not upgrade to 10 until he absolutely has to)

- 64GB iPad Air 2 with Cellular running iOS 9.3

- Google/LG Nexus 5X running Android 6.0.1

His desktop has Office 2007 installed and he insists upon using Microsoft Outlook for E-mail/Contacts/Calendars. I gave him an Office 365 Home subscription that he has yet to activate (I assume he's waiting until he absolutely has to use it).

The goal is to have it so that his contacts and calendars sync and update across devices automatically and without any manual and/or cabled syncing.

Right now, he has iCloud for Windows installed and I think iCloud currently has the contacts and calendars that came from Outlook 2007. However, I have found nothing that will easily and natively load iCloud's contacts and calendars into an Android phone, let alone use them instead of the contacts stored in Gmail. Similarly, if he uses Gmail instead of iCloud (as the cloud-based contacts/calendars service of choice), the iPad will be fine using it instead of (or even in addition to) iCloud, but I have found no easy way to get Outlook to update its contacts and calendars database from Gmail that ISN'T a paid feature of Google Apps for Business.

How would you guys solve this problem?

 

[Rigby]

You could move calendar and contacts to Outlook.com. That is accessible on all platforms:

- On Windows, use Outlook (if the account hasn't been migrated to the new backend yet, the Outlook connector is required for Outlook 2007 to connect via Exchange Activesync. The version from 365 supports it natively. If the account has been migrated, you can use the full Exchange protocol with either Outlook version).
- On iOS, use the native mail client set up as an "Exchange" account
- On Android, use the native mail client or the Outlook app

 

[BrianBaughn]

Rigby is correct and I'm pretty sure any NEW Outlook.com account would be set up as Exchange on all devices. You could create one to test.

If he uses Outlook.com for contacts and calendars only along with an email address somewhere else he will have an extra email account with that address in his Windows Outlook, which he probably won't like. Also, there might be confusion when receiving meeting or event invitations.

Forget about iCloud. Not gonna work.

He should dump Office/Outlook 2007. It's just trouble with the new Windows and Exchange versions.

A paid subscription for an Office 365 email account would work flawlessly for Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Notes and Reminders on all of his devices. The best free service route would be a new Outlook.com account, but with the ongoing transition there I haven't seen this setup as of yet and can't say that it would work perfectly.