How to configure Google synchronization on your mobile device

Some time ago Google added support for synchronizing of your Google calendar and Google contacts to your mobile device. Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian and iPhone are supported by this service. Some days ago Google added support for push e-mail to this list of exchange services, which was a very much requested addition. Today we find out how to configure the Google services for your mobile device. The push mail should also work for iPhone and iPod Touch. You can choose to synchronize your e-mail, calendar, contacts or any of the three in any combination possible.

Today i actually tested it myself on a mobile phone running Windows Mobile 6.5 and it worked perfectly. Android all ready has native push support for all these things mentioned above, the blackberry i cannot test myself as I do not own a blackberry communicator. This synchronizing process uses the exchange protocol to make sure your contacts and calendar items are always the same on your mobile device and the contacts calendar you can access through your Google account.

So what is push e-mail and how is it better then imap or pop3 you have been using for your g-mail so far? Well push e-mail is a system where new e-mail is directly available on your e-mail client, in this case your mobile device. The mail server ‘pushes’ the e-mail to you, instead of the mail being ‘pulled’ in certain intervals by your device. The client is constantly connected to the server, sadly this does have an impact on your battery life, though users have been becoming more and more used to having to place your mobile device in the charger every day anyway. For some this feature will be great, for others a useless battery drain. Keep that in mind when you choose what you want to use. So how do you set up your device to use Google sync?

iPhone setup
Step 1. Open the settings application on your iPhone or iPod Touch
Step 2. Open the option “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”
Step 3. Now go for the option “Add Account”
Step 4. Select Microsoft Exchange
Step 5. Enter all your account details, please note that the user name is your full Google email address and not just what comes before the @.

Windows Mobile
Step 1. Open the Active Sync application and go to “Set up your device to sync with”
Step 2. Put “m.google.com” as your server address and check “SSL” and select “next”
Step 3. Enter username@gmail.com as your user name and enter your password.
Step 4. Click “next”. Now select the options you want to sync, Mail, Contacts, Calendar or all.

Congratulations, you are now using Google synchronization on your Windows Mobile device or iPhone. If you are still having problems, please find detailed instructions on the Google mobile support website.

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