How To Sync Google Contacts & Calendar with iPhone

Earlier, Google announced the public release of Google Sync (Beta) that allows you to sync Google Contacts and Calendar events over the air. Any changes in your Google Contacts or Calendar will be pushed directly to your iPhone. If you’re a regular user of Gmail and Google Calendar, you’ll probably find Google Sync useful.

So, how do you setup Google Sync with iPhone?

Note: To use Google Sync, your iPhone should be running on firmware 2.2 or up.

Backup your Contacts using iTunes

Before, I go deep into the How-To. There is a catch in setting up Google Sync. All contacts and calendar events will be removed during the setup process and replaced with your contacts in your Google account. So, make sure you sync all contacts via iTunes to Google before configuring Google Sync.

It’s pretty straightforward to backup your Contacts:

1. Connect your iPhone or iPod Touch to your computer using the USB cable.
2. Open the iTunes application.
3. Select your iPhone and click “Info”.
4. Check the “Sync Google Contacts” option and you’ll be prompted to enter your username & password of Google account.

5. Enter your Google account and click “OK”.
6. Click “Apply” to start upload your contacts to Google account.

Wait until the sync process completes. All contacts on iPhone should have been uploaded to your Google account. You can login Gmail to further validate the contacts. The contacts should be found under your “My Contacts” group.

Configure Google Sync on iPhone

Now, you should be ready to configure Google Sync on iPhone.

1. On your iPhone home screen, tap “Settings” application.
2. Next, tap “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”
3. Tap “Add Account….”, followed by “Microsoft Exchange”.

4. In the Email field, enter the name of the Google account.

5. Leave it blank for the “Domain” field.
6. Enter your Google Account email address for the “Username” field.
7. For “Password” field, type in your Google Account password.
8. Tap “Next” at the top of your screen.
9. Next, a new “Server” field will show up. Enter “m.google.com”.
10. Tap “Next” at the top of your screen again. You may be prompted with a warning message. Just “Accept” it.

11. Select the “Contacts” and “Calendar” for sync. Presently, the “Mail” option is not supported yet. So, only enable “Contacts” and “Calendar”.

12. Tap “Sync” to confirm the synchronization and then tap “Sync” again for the data loss warning.

That’s it. Google Sync should now erase all your Contacts and start synchronizing them from your Google account. So, if you go to “Contacts” on iPhone, you may find it empty. But don’t worry. Wait for a while and you’ll see the Contacts come up after complete the Sync.

Tip: For Contacts, all your iPhone contacts are placed under “My Contacts” group in your Google account. So, you find any contacts missing in iPhone. It’s probably the contact is not put into the “My Contacts” group and you’ll have to move it.

Testing Out Google Sync

As a common practice, Google released Google Sync as a Beta product. From my test on both Contacts and Calendar, the Sync works as advertised. After configuring Google Sync, try go up to Gmail and add a new Contacts in your “My Contacts” group. Or add a new event in your Google Calendar. You’ll find the contact or calendar event automatically push to your iPhone.

But probably it’s still a Beta product, I find the Sync for Contacts is not instantly updated on my iPhone. Most of the time, I need to wait a few minutes until the new contact shows up on my iPhone. However, it seems I only got this delay problem with Contacts. For Calendar, as soon as I add a new event in Google Calendar, the event is right there when I launch my iPhone Calendar. That’s pretty cool.

As you can see there is an option for “Mail” in the Sync setting, I think Google will soon bring Push Mail to iPhone.

What do you think about Google Sync? Does it work for you? Leave us comment to share your thought.