Push Gmail arrives on iPhone via Google Sync (finally)

Posted on 22 September 2009, at 11:23 am, by Wayne Schulz

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google sync.jpg

Google has just rolled out push email for the iPhone via Google Sync. Earlier this year they’d launched Google Sync which allowed you to synchronize your Gmail Contacts and Google Calendar with your iPhone, Windows Mobile, and S60 devices. Today, they’ve added Gmail support to Google Sync for iPhone, iPod Touch and Windows Mobile devices. To make use of Google Sync, navigate to http://m.google.com/sync for instructions pertaining to your device. If you’re using Google Apps then be sure your administrator enables Google Sync under the Mobile option. As of now there’s no ability to search Gmail email messages but messages that you read on the web are instantly synchronized to your iPhone and items deleted are moved to archive on the web.

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Tags | Announcements & News, Apple iPhone and Touch Applications, Google Gmail

8 Comments For This Post

Wayne Schulz Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:43 am
So far so good. I’m seeing synchronization of my Gmail account to iPhone in a very similar manner to how a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) might work.

If email is deleted off iPhone – it’s instantly also moved to archive on the web.

Similarly if I delete Gmail on the web – the deletion is instantly deleted off the iPhone.

There are some things that are not yet working — notably an inability to search through email. However this is a huge addition to iPhone’s ability to manage Gmail.
Jessica Fritsche Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I’ve been using IMAP to do this all along with my iPhone…it’ll be interesting to see how much faster (if any) the push feature is than simply using IMAP.
Wayne Schulz Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:22 pm
IMAP never worked properly for me. It sorta worked most of the time but I’d have LONG periods of hanging when it apparently got “stuck”.

Also I was never able to get IMAP to properly archive my Gmail — I’d always wind up disgarding the email to the trash instead of archiving it.
Jessica Fritsche Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Mine has always worked really well…no problems for me. But, I am wondering if I might save a bit of battery life having things pushed to my email rather than having it poll the IMAP server every 15 minutes. Hmmmm.
Travis Ehrlich Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
It will not work for me because I already have my work email set up on the exchange account. I wish there was another way.
Wayne Schulz Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Hehe – sucks to be you. I mean, um , wow Travis that’s awful…
timothyt Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 2:35 am
works fine. but wayne can you find out for us how to hide certain folders when using exchange push? With gmail, you can select which folders you want to show up in IMAP and thus your iphone. Using exchange push all my folders show up.
Wayne Schulz Says:
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:22 pm
I noticed that all my folders show up as well. I tried using the IMAP feature which allows you to only sync specific IMAP folders and that had no effect.

So far as I can see you get all the folders…