Bender Blather

Well, I tried the iPhone software upgrade this morning.  Tried several times and iTunes said that v1.1.4 (or whatever it was) that I had was the latest version until a few minutes after 8am (PST).  It took 45 min or so to back it up (with probably 2gb of music on it), download, install, verify, etc., etc., etc.  After that I got sucked into the mega-blasta-server-snafu of Apple.  I guessed that might happen, what with all the hype.  Anyway, I kept trying off and on and finally about 12:30 I got the final step to happen and everything seemed fine.  Note that the following shows up as upgrade notes at the beginning of the process:

iPhone 2.0 Software Update

This version of the software includes the following improvements and supersedes all previous versions.

• Third-party application support
• New App Store
• Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support
- Push email
- Push contacts with Global Address List lookup
- Push calendars with meeting invites
- Passcode Policies
- Remote Wipe
- Autodiscovery (Exchange Server 2007)
• Cisco IPSec VPN support
• WPA/WPA2 Enterprise with 802.1x authentication
• Certificates and identities support
• Device configuration with Configuration Profiles
• MobileMe support
- Push email
- Push contacts
- Push calendars
- Bookmarks
• Mail, Contacts and Calendars enhancements
- Mass delete and move of messages
- Microsoft PowerPoint and iWork attachment viewing
- Blind carbon copy (bcc) support
- Easier POP/IMAP account setup
- Multiple calendars
- Display meeting invitees
- Contacts search
- Import SIM contacts
- New Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings
• Save images to photo library from Safari and Mail
• Scientific calculator in landscape mode
• Parental controls/restrictions
• New languages, dictionaries, keyboards and input methods
• Turn Wi-Fi back on while in Airplane Mode
• Tapping the status bar scrolls to top of page
• Sync Google contacts with iTunes
• Bug fixes

Interestingly, it says “multiple calendars” up there, but I don’t see any config for that on the phone.  Must be specific to the iCal sync, which for me, having a windows machine, doesn’t help.

However, I did spend a bit of time checking out whether I could sync Google Calendar directly to it, and sure enough, I got it to work!  Since in a brief search I couldn’t find any references yet to anyone who had done this, I figured what the heck, I may as well start my blog with this wonderful news.  I found a couple references to NuevaSync on lifehacker and switched.com thanks to posts by David Boreham.  NuevaSync gives off a distinct beta vibe, which it says it is, but I gave it a try thinking what’s it gonna do?  Delete all my google data?  Unlikely, so what the heck.

And hey - it works! Simple config, no software install needed from the new app store, and no jailbreak necessary, for those of you (ok, us), who were leary about iBricks.  It utilizes the new sync cababilities that comes with 2.0 software, which is pretty simple to set up.  Looks like NuevaSync is basically just offering the exchange-like sync service that acts as the intermediary (for free!).  The original sync was pretty quick, probably less than a minute.  I even tested creating a new event on the iPhone and it auto-synced with Google (in my default calendar) in only a minute or so without me having to do anything!

Essentially I’ve now got native sync between the iPhone 2.0 calendar (on “original” iPhone hardware) with Google calendar!  Granted, all my various Google calendars show up as one on the iPhone, but it’s good enough for now.  I’m not sure how to get the supposedly new availability of multiple iPhone calendars to work or if I even can on the PC - I haven’t seen anything about enabling that yet.

Here’s NuevaSync’s basic notes on how to set it up (though it looks like you’ll have to create an account with them to see it):
https://www.nuevasync.com/PublicSite/user/device-setup-help.htm