iCloud and my 3G phone

Any chance you could give us a step-by-step run through on how you managed to install the iCal?

in my case :

- getting me.com-eMail to work was simpel & straightforward ; no problemen there - so I don't have tricks or advice on that one...

- getting Address Book sync in place was tricky, but using the suggestions in this thread I managed to get it running ; I've documented what I did before in this thread, so please look that up if you want more info...

- getting Calendar sync in place seemed to be the same as Address Book sync, but for some reason it refuses to keep in sync after the first sync... I therefore had to disable it...

Since it's my girlfriend's iPhone 3G, I'm not sure what the current status is...

I'm sure that eMail is still working, but I don't know about the other two...

Maybe I should read some recent posts in this thread and try again...

It is relatively straightforwardto get all the iCloud functionality of Mail, Contacts and Calendars working on a series 3 phone. The first thing to understand is that iCloud is just a server. iCloud Mail accounts are simple IMAP accounts. iCloud Calendars are simple CalDAV calendars and iCloud Contacts are simple CardDAV address books. On a phone running iOS 5 Apple combines the settings for Mail, Contacts and Calendars into one user setting. If you are using something that cannot run iOS5, such as a series 3 phone, you will have to do the settings yourself, but it is reasonably simple.

First step is to delete any existing MobileMe accounts as they aren't going to do you much good.

Next, set up each mail account in Settings>Mail, Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>Other>Add Mail Account

"Name" (Your first and last name or whatever you usually call yourself)

"Address" (Your @me or other IMAP email address)

"Password" (Your mail password)

"Description" (Whatever you want to call each Mail account)

Hit the Next button and wait for the screen with IMAP and POP buttons at the top. IMAP is selected by default.

"Incoming Server" is imap.mail.me.com

"User Name" is the first part of your email address before the @ sign

"Password" you know

"Outgoing Server" is smtp.me.com

Hit the Next button and your account will be set up. Repeat for any other IMAP mailboxes you want on this device

Calendars are a bit more fun but start the same way:

Settings>Mail, Contacts,Calendars>Add Account>Other>Add CalDav Account

"Server" is caldav.icloud.com

"User Name" is your iCloud username like joe@me.com

"Password" is your iCloud password

"Description" is whatever you want to call this account

Go ahead and click "Next" and the CalDAV account wil be set up BUT IT WON'T WORK and here is why:

Although you think of your Apple ID as "joe@me.com" Apple in fact assigns a Unique User ID which is a string of numbers buried in the server address. The easy way to get at it is this:

Go Settings>Mail, Contacts,Calendars> and touch the name of the account you just created to open the settings so we can do one more edit. Touch Advanced Settings. Select and highlight the WHOLE of the Account URL beginning with https://p01-caldav.icloud etc In the middle of this URL is your Unique User ID in the form of a string of numbers. Move back one screen to the CalDAV Account Information screen. Note that the Server name starts with p01-caldav.icloud.com Delete this whole server name and paste the name you just copied in its place. Click Done and wait for the account settings to update.

Now go to your calendar and you should find your "iCloud" calendar updating just like it does on any other iCloud enabled device. In Calendars be sure to select the CalDAV calendars, not the "on my iPhone" calendars

The process for setting up the CardDAV account for your Contacts is identical with these differences:

Paste the same server address you just copied but change "caldav" to "carddav" and change the word "principal" at the very end of the address to "carddavhome"

Aside from those changes the process is identical and you should find your Contacts address book updating to match your iCloud addresses..

I don't mean to offend, but your rather long response is basically useless becuase you don't precisely indicate which parts of the copied server address to paste into which specific fields (see quote below). Do you copy the "string of numbers" (what string of numbers? the URL in advanced settings includes no string of numbers for me) and replace the email address in the User Name field? Your post implies that you should. Do you paste the entire copied URL into the Server field, or should parts of it be deleted (http://)? When I paste the entire address, it just reverts back to "caldav.icloud.com" when the cursor leaves the server field.

More specifics on which fields you mean would have been more helpful.

keithfromtoronto wrote:

Although you think of your Apple ID as "joe@me.com" Apple in fact assigns a Unique User ID which is a string of numbers buried in the server address. The easy way to get at it is this:

Go Settings>Mail, Contacts,Calendars> and touch the name of the account you just created to open the settings so we can do one more edit. Touch Advanced Settings. Select and highlight the WHOLE of the Account URL beginning with https://p01-caldav.icloud etc In the middle of this URL is your Unique User ID in the form of a string of numbers. Move back one screen to the CalDAV Account Information screen. Note that the Server name starts with p01-caldav.icloud.com Delete this whole server name and paste the name you just copied in its place. Click Done and wait for the account settings to update.

No offense taken. Just trying to help. If I was unclear on this point I appologize.

One is copying the WHOLE of the URL from the Server field in the Advanced Settings panel and pasting it into the Server field in the CalDAV Account Information pane. None of this has anything to do with the User Name field.

If you paste that URL into something else, such as Notes, just so you can have a look at it you will see it looks something like this:

https://p01-caldav.icloud.com:443/123456789/principal

in which the numbers 123456789 in this example are replaced by a nine digit string representing your unique ID. I mention this just FYI. You don't need to do anything with this other than paste the whole URL as I have indicated. And yes, it will revert to its original format after pasting. That's OK. By then it has done its job.

I have an old 3g running Contacts and Calendar in iCloud perfectly with this setup

For Contacts its the same URL but it looks like this:

https://p01-carddav.icloud.com:443/123456789/carddavhome

Champion effort Keith, you've turned my old 3G iPhone from just an iPod back into an icloud happy calendar. Your next mission is get iMessage working on it!

Thanks for the time you spent explaining the process, works a treat.

Andrew

My pleasure. Glad it worked for you too. Confirmation is helpful. I love the new kit but concocting a workaround on the old stuff is actually more fun!

Thanks keithfromontario !

With your directions I finally got to use my iCloud calendar on my iPhone 3G.

That's a major impovement after having had to loose MobileMe...

Three things that are worth mentioning :

1- iCloud-syncing to the iPhone 3G is slightly delayed :

- Address Book / Contacts sync has a delay of up to one minute

- iCal / Calendar sync seems to completely wipe my calendars clean, while showing a 'sync spinner'-icon top-right, and than all calendars reappear within one minute

2- I had to un-check (a.k.a. 'disable') all calendars mentioned in the Calendars iOS-app as "On My Mac"

[I had to choose from the "iCloud" calendars only]

3- I had to get rid off the default calendar (the one called 'Calendar') on my iPhone 3G

[the default calendar can be changed when completely scrolling down in "Settings" -> "Mail., Contacts, Calendars"... which was not obvious in my case, since I have exactly 6 accounts, and then it looks like a static page and there's no indication what-so-ever that you have an option to scroll below "Add Account..."]

Keith, many thanks!

I had to make some changes to get it to work though.

For me its: contacts.icloud.com regarding the contacts server, not carddav. Not sure why there is a difference.

So I added contacts.icloud.com and user details then hit save. It didn't give me the full address under the advanced tab, so I added it manualy.

After saving the account it did automaticaly change the server addess to, in my case: p03-contacts.icloud.com

I changed the entire line to: https://<correct server>:443/<uniqueID>/carddavhome

Since then it works perfectly.

I am very happy with this as my contract ends in September this year. My wife will get my G4 and me the new G5 🙂 Till then the old G3 needs to keep up.

If not working try to change the password. Mine had symbols like : and ( and didn't work.

Well...

None of the above worked for me until...

But let's start with the beginning.

I was only interested in contacts. Mail was fine straigt away.

So. I had contacts all empty with the +-sign being visible after program start, but then disappearing.

I tried all the fumblies mentionned above. But contacts would not sync.

What it did (for me) was this:

In the prefs for mail-contact-calender just below the accounts section tap on "Syncing" or whatever it is called in your language. Normally it says "Push" on the right side.

Inside I unchecked Push, set the other value to 15 Min (but that is not what counts),

and tapped on the "advanced" button all way down.

In there you find the caldav and carddav accounts you set up.

I tapped on that (one by one) and set the syncing to all manual.

It will tell you that it will only sync the moment the app is loaded.

...which I then did.

And - mystery - after hours of fumbling - the contacts came in.

Man, what a mess this is anyway.

I feel left behind.

This is not funny at all.

I feel like firing the whole sync and icloud department with apple's.

And this is not the first time, I reached that point.

Sorry, but...

that is what I feel about.

inx

Why does a company want to **** off so many customers?

There are know many others that will do the job

Honestly, its not fair to expect Apple making things like iCloud work on older equipment. It will keep them away from developing new cool features, applications, hardware etc. It would also make things a lot more expensive if they have to make new things work on old stuff. Most companies that produce hardware stop supporting their old hardware at some point and thus their software as well. Its way too expensive to keep an entire support- and developerteam for just that few customers. Beside that, the old hardware doesn't pay the bills.

Its a moving forward innovative business, and thats exaclty what customers expect as well. And yes, some customers who still work with old hardware are not pleased that they can not use features that new hardware can. But thats not Apples faulth. Its the way it is and always will be. What top-of-the-hill hardware equipment of any brand you will buy, it will be obsolete and not compatible at some point.

Furthermore, if you buy a G3 you know what it can do. Its not fair to get upset that something which has been invented years later doesn't work on it. Its just great that some people take time to come up with solutions to do make old hardware work with cool new features. But that doesn't mean it have to be supported.

Maybe they just should make hardware that doesn't last that long. 🙂

I think this is not the point. I have an iPhone 3G with synchronization of calendars, contacts with my computers through MobileMe. ICloud (and the subsequent disparition of MobileMe) is probably an interesting new development for many users (included probably me) but this is all well provided it is still possible to use older equipment. This is the case with standards protocols (iMap, Webdav,...) and I am optimistic I will be able to continue to synchronize between Lion, iCloud, iPad 2 and iPhone 3G.

What is missed are simple directives from Apple to maintain these functionalities on iPhone 3g, Snow Leopard, etc.

It's not going to happen. Period. If you really need to do that you'll need to switch to another service, such as Google Calendar.