INSTRUCTIONS: The iPhone-iCal-gCal Sync Setup
iCal should be used only for permanent dates in conjunction with Address Book--birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, or any event that occurs every year on the same date. For this, it will ultimately serve as your read-only Master Calendar, where all your calendars are merged alongside your entries made in either your iPhone or Google Calendar (gCal for short). The complete sync layout looks like this - *iPhone <=> gCal -> iCal* - with gCal acting as a channel to wirelessly sync your iPhone entries to your iCal entries.
*iPhone and gCal* have 2-way sync capabilities with each other. An update made on one will be made on the other
iCal has only 1-way sync capabilities. Updates made in iCal will not be made in your iPhone nor your gCal
*Before we move on...* backup your data if you haven't already done so. A good program that I, personally, use in addition to Time Machine is "SuperDuper!" - http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html - a hard disk clone and recovery application. It has saved my system every time I've needed it to and is *well worth the registration!*
I STRONGLY ENCOURAGE THAT YOU BACKUP YOUR ADDRESS BOOK AND YOUR ICAL BEFORE READING ON.
+HOW TO SETUP 3-WAY SYNC+
*PART 1 - iPhone - SOURCE:* http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=151674
You're going to sync your iPhone's native calendar to your gCal - *iPhone <=> gCal*
REQUIREMENTS: Syncing via CalDAV is only available for devices with version 3.0 firmware or above. You can check your current version by going to Settings > General > About > Version on your iPhone or iPod Touch device.
To upgrade, follow the instructions at http://www.apple.com/iphone/softwareupdate/
To sync with your device, follow these steps:
1. Open the Settings application on your device's home screen.
2. Open *Mail, Contacts, Calendars* and select *Add Account...*
3. Select Other.
4. Select *Add CalDAV Account*.
5. Enter your account information:
- In the Server field, enter google.com
- In the Username field, enter your full Google Account email address.
- In the Password field, enter your Google Account password.
- In the Description field, enter the name you'd like to appear on the account.
- Select Next at the top of your screen.
After you've completed setup, open the iPhone calendar application and syncing will automatically begin.
*PART 2 - iCal*
IMPORTANT: You want *just the entries you made using only iCal*. Any subscriptions, or items that were not created using iCal need to be removed, and that includes your gCal account if you've previously synced it with iCal.
If you have a calendar that appears in your iCal but NOT in your gCal, you are going to export that.
- To export go to File > Export...
- Save it on your desktop and/or flash drive
Import your iCal entries into gCal
- Open your gCal
- Create a new calendar. This will be the one you save your exported iCal entries to.
- After you create the new calendar, in the *My Calendars* box, click Settings
- In the Settings Menu, click on the *Import Calendar* link
- Where it says Step 1, browse for and choose the .ics file the contains your exported iCal entries
- For Step 2, choose the new calendar that you created and Step 3 is import
From there....
- In the *My Calendars* box, click Settings
- Select the Calendars tab, and find your newly created calendar
- Click your new calendar to view its details
- In the Calendar Details menu, scroll to the bottom where it says *Private Address*
- Click on the ICAL button - a window will pop up with a url address - COPY THAT URL
+Now we take that address back to iCal+
- Open iCal
- In the menubar, click on Calendar and choose Subscribe
- Paste the url address you copied in gCal and click the Subscribe button
- Your new gCal calendar will then appear in iCal
*Part 3: Sync Your Main gCal with iCal - SOURCE:* http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358#ical
For this, you're going to sync iCal with gCal using CalDAV support.
To set up CalDAV support for Google Calendar in Apple's iCal, follow these steps:
1. Open Apple iCal, go to Preferences and then the Accounts tab.
2. Click on the + button to add an account.
3. Under *Account Information*, enter your Google Account username and password.
4. Under *Server Options*, add the following URL:
https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/YOUREMAIL@DOMAIN.COM/user
Replace 'youremail@domain.com' with your Google Account username.
5. Click Add and under the *Account Information* tab, set calendars to refresh every minute
6. In the Delegation tab, you will see all the calendars you have access to, or share through gCal.
7. *Select only those that *do not* already appear in your iCal side panel
* - That is what I did instead of what Google suggests
*PART 4 - iTunes Sync Settings*
1. Disable automatic syncing for devices
- Open iTunes preferences
- Click on Devices
- Check the box next to *Disable automatic syncing for iPhones and iPods*
2. Connect your iPhone
- When it appears in the side panel, choose it
- On that main screen, be sure to uncheck the *Automatically sync when connected option*
3. Click the Info tab
4. Scroll to the Calendars section
5. Check the *Sync iCal calendars* checkbox
6. Choose *Selected calendars* and then check ONLY the new calendar that you created in gCal which contains your previously exported iCal entries. *DO NOT* choose the one that has YOURUSERNAME@www.google.com next to it, for it is already synced to iCal
7. Click Apply and iTunes should begin the syncing process.
+To see if you've set everything up correctly...+
In your iPhone calendar app, you should see 3 options: *All Calendars*, *On My iPhone*, and (CalDAV)
- Select *All Calendars* (if you don't see any duplicate entries, that's a good sign).
- Open iCal to the current date
- On your iPhone, create an entry and save it.
If you see that same entry appear in iCal, then you're all set to go!
MBP17" 2.4GHz Parallels 4 w/ Win7 - iMac 20" 2.66GHz iLife '09 -, Mac OS X (10.5.8), - iPhone3G 8GB - 5th Gen 30GB iPod Video