iTunes 11 does not allow direct Outlook calender sync anymore. Why?

Because of concerns raised by this chat I held off upgrading to iTunes 11 for about a month. While I prefer cable syncing, my real concern was that the Outlook calendar & contact data be reasonably synchronized. I left Microsoft over this issue and to my knowledge Android still relies on third parties. I called Apple and they said the Cloud syncing would work. I don't use Exchange. First I converted my wife's phone, a 4s. I called Apple and they walked me through the process in real time. No problem. A few days later we repeated the process with my 5. Its been a month and so far no hiccups with Cloud sync. It works fine. I'm glad they walked me through, because several of the settings were counterintuitive. The reality is the world is moving to the Cloud. We can only hope and pray that security is up to the task.

Happy you have the option to move all your data to the cloud.

But face it - there are more scenarios where exactly this is no option. Sensitive data will never make it to the cloud and if it does, the employee might (and most likely should) get fired for violating security guidlines. Apple is jumping all those people who want to separate work and private life (and don't have Exchange Services for various reasons) right into their faces.

This is not about not seeing the signs of the times, it's about Apple ripping services to the bad of the customers.

Fact is, I have to cripple my data if I need it on my iPhone - and that is pretty annoying.

And one last addendum: Those who think their data is private in the cloud, didn't get it. We are far beyond the point where hope or prayers matter.

Many thanks. But I should have explained that I have Outlook for Mac 2011 installed on my Mac Book Pro. I'm running OS X 10.8.2 (Mountain Lion). It appears from the Microsoft Office for Mac website that Mountain Lion no longer supports Outlook sync services. So I'll just use the calender on my iPhone and forget about syncing it with my Outlook calendar. I can live with this and I suppose it was too much to expect Apple to support Microsoft Outlook software in its iCloud environment. It's a shame, as I run my own company and switched to Mac due to frustrations with Windows products. I still love my Apple stuff but I'll have to live without my Outlook calendar on my iPhone. Unhappy days!

Well that explains a lot. Outlook on Mac won't sync via iTunes or iCloud. It is not supported.

sceloglaux, I have tried every possible option, as have the local Apple wizards, to get my PC based pop3 Outlook calendar to sync with my iPhone over usb, and it simply doesn't work any more. Contacts and ie bookmarks seem to sync, but not the calendar. I traced the change to my fairly recent update to ios 6.1.2. I am trying a demo copy of CompanionLink right now and it seems to work pretty well. A benefit is that it syncs Outlook tasks and complex repeating events. Downsides are that It only syncs via wifi, not a usb cable, and you can't run tasks simultaneously, so you have to switch between the calendar, tasks, and contacts contexts manually. It will, however, sync its local iPhone database to the iPhone contact and calendar apps. I use some complex repeating events, ie "occurs every 3rd Wednesday of the month", and unfortunately those don't translate correctly into the iPhone calendar app. Other events seem to carry over from CompanionLink fine. So what I do is have CompanionLink sync its contacts to the iPhone contact app only. That way I can context swith between the iPhone contacts and the CompanionLink calendar easily. It's not perfect, but my phone is useless with a synchronized calendar and I'm probably going to buy the app. Cheers, Mike

Mike (mjk349)

Thank you for posting. I have been holding off further ios upgrades for fear one might kill what sync I have (which is currently fine). But that is not a sustainable stragtegy - not least because my 3GS is running pretty slowly now under the weight of three new generations of ios and I'll need to upgrade sometime. So it is good to know that CompanionLink does offer a near solution when the time comes.

best

Mike (sceloglaux)

I"m confused about your statement. I have a BlackBerry Z10 and it sync my Outlook Calendar wirelessly, along with email, contacts, notes, tasks, etc. I must admit go get Notes and Tasks you must be on BB enterprise 10 server, but it works fine. It will at least do email, contacts, and calendars with ActiveSync without issue. Notes and Tasks are built into BlackBerry Enteprise Server 10 (as far as syncing those items with a BlackBerry 10 device).

Pleased it worked for you but it didn't work for me. You will see from my later post that I'm using Outlook for Mac. I have no BB enterprise 10 server. My Blackberry Z10 is long gone and I'm happy with my new iPhone. I still can't sync Outlook for Mac with my iPhone calender, as Mountain Lion no longer supports Outlook sync services. I just add the Outlook meetings into my iPhone calender; a simple workaround.

I don't wish to get into a discussion about the merits of the Blackberry Z10 over the iPhone. The iPhone suits my needs.

I just discovered that my iPad and iPhone are again syncing with Outlook on my PC. Anyone else notice this or did I just get lucky?

UTNick

UTNick, mine started working again around 3/27/13. I had been trying out an eval copy of CompanionLink, which was working and seemed to be the best alternative to the native iTunes sync. On the last day of the eval I tried turning on iTunes calendar sync again and it worked. I wasn't going to try it again, but I thought I'd give it another shot before shelling out $40 for a copy of CompanionLink. The only explanation I can think of is that I had accepted the ios 6.1.3 update that was released not long after the 6.1.2 release that seems to have broken my calendar sync function. Nothing in the 6.1.3 release notes says anything about sync or Outlook, but now sync works again. Go figure.

Btw, CompanionLink is a pretty good package in that it syncs Outlook tasks as well as calendar and contact info.

Thanks for all the great info everybody.

I switched from iPhone 4 (where I was able to synch all of Outlook with iTunes 10) to iPhone 5 (and iTunes 11.0.4.4) and I too cannot synch some things from Outlook 2010 on my Windows 7 PC now. I tried everything, then finally got the contacts and calender to synch, but still can't synch MS Notes. I do not want to try the iCloud.

Someone suggested loading the older version of iTunes (10.7). Has anyone tried that? Did it work? Do you uninstall iTunes 11 first? If so, does your itunes folder and media stay intact?

Thanks

I use the latest version of iTunes and Outlook 2010 and have no difficulties in syncing via USB. I'm not sure why your notes are not working, but that could be something discussed, since you are getting contacts and calendards to sync.

All of a sudden my Iphone 5 stopped syncing contacts with Outlook 2010. I can create a Contact in Outlook and it will sync to my Iphone, but when I create a Contact on my Iphone it does not sync to Outlook. Calenders and Notes work just fine in both directions. Any one experience this phenomenon. As a result I have 25 new Contacts on my Iphone that are not in my Outlook Contacts. I use a cable to sync because Icloud almost crippled me earlier this year.

Check in Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendar>scroll to Contacts section>Default Account>On My iPhone

Thanks for the try. When I follow your directions to my "Contacts" Default Account there are only two choices "From my PC" or there is my work account I set up on my Iphone as a second email account. There is no "On My Iphone."