Android users can take advantage of Google’s major services
right out of the box, but setting Gmail, Google Contacts, and Google Calendar
up on your iPhone isn’t quite so clear. It’s worth doing right, though: with a
little elbow grease you can have a setup that’s every bit as good. It’ll let
you use the new Gmail app, which is a big improvement over the iPhone’s
standard mail app and most other third-party options, and you’ll also get a
better, simpler calendar and contacts setup — goodbye, weird duplicated events
and endless birthday notifications. Plus, we’d swear that our battery life got
a lot better as soon as we left Exchange and turned to our new setup.
The trick here is combining the Gmail app with two syncing
protocols called CardDAV and CalDAV (don’t worry, you’ll never actually need to
know what these are to get them to work). You’ll need an iOS device running
version 5.0 or above to take advantage of these, but each offers better and
more powerful integration with Google’s services than just tapping “Gmail” when
you first set up your email accounts on your phone. Much like the momentary
pain of digging into your Facebook privacy settings, the five or ten minutes
spent setting up this system will save you email stress for months to come.
Part 1: Setup Gmail and Mail
If you haven’t already, download or update to the latest
version of Google’s iOS Gmail app. With multiple account support, a full
redesign, and infinite scrolling, it’s a massive update that will serve as the
core of your iOS mail experience. To set up additional accounts in the app,
simply tap the menu bar icon on the top left, and then the drop down at the top
of the navigation list. From here, you can add up to five new Gmail accounts.
Don’t forget to turn notifications on in the iOS Notifications (Settings
> Notifications > Gmail).
But unfortunately, the Gmail app won’t take over all the
emailing functionality on your iPhone. So you need to set up what amounts to a
send-only Gmail account, for when you want to send a URL from Safari or a photo
from your camera roll. Just go to Settings and scroll down to Mail,
Contacts, Calendars. Tap Add Account and pick Gmail. Then
enter your username and password, plus your name and a description for the
account. On the next screen, make sure only Mail is set to “On.” Then go
back to the Mail settings and tap on “Fetch New Data.” Scroll down to
“Advanced,” and then tap on the account you just set up. Make sure Manual is
selected — that makes sure the account will never retrieve data, but will still
let you send emails when you want to.
Note that for these accounts, you’ll want to turn
notifications off, otherwise you’ll be receiving updates from both Gmail
and Apple’s Mail app.
Part 2: Syncing contacts with CardDAV
The second key part of the setup is managing your contacts.
To sync your Google contacts with your phone, go to Settings in iOS and
scroll down to Mail, Contacts, Calendars, tap Add Account... and
then select Other. Choose Add CardDAV Account and enter
"google.com" for the Server field, then enter your account
credentials under Username (use your full email address) and Password.
There’s a field where you can enter a description of the account if you like,
and after you fill that out, tap Next and ensure that the Contacts
toggle is enabled. Navigate back to the Contacts app, and once you enter it
your contacts should start syncing right away.
Part 3: Selecting the Default Account
If you’ve got a previously configured iCloud account that
syncs your contacts, you still have a few more steps. CardDAV needs to be
designated as the Default Account if you want any new contacts you add
to be synced with Google automatically, and to do that, make your way back to
the Mail, Contacts, Calendars pane within the Settings app. Swipe down
to the Contacts section and tap Default Account, which will only be
visible if you’re syncing more than one. Finally, select your newly added
CardDAV account, and your new contacts will sync with Google automatically
after you’ve entered them.
Part 4: Syncing Calendars with CalDAV
The steps required to integrate Google Calendar with iOS are
very similar — go to Settings and navigate down to Mail, Contacts,
Calendars once again. This time, tap Add Account... and select Other,
and then Add CalDAV Account. Just like above, you'll enter
"google.com" for the Server field, your user name and
password, and add an optional description. After clicking Next, navigate
back to the Calendar app and the entries should appear shortly. To sync
multiple calendars, go to this page and select the calendars you want to sync,
then click Save. If you run into any problems, double check that SSL is
enabled in both your CardDAV and CalDAV accounts.
With all of this configured and the new Gmail app for iPhone
installed, you can now enjoy a similar level of integration with Google’s
productivity ecosystem that Android users boast about. Go have some fun
organizing your contacts — you've earned it.
Article Credit: http://www.theverge.com
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