If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch you’ll want the latest information that you have available on each one as well as on your laptop, work and home computer.  There are a number of ways to synchronise them, but here’s my suggestions as to the best solutions. I’ve choosen the best solution for each area that needs syncing. 

Address Book: Use MobileMe.

MobileMe provides simple and easy over-the-air automatic syncing of Address Book. It even syncs your Address Book photos! Read how to here.

iCal: Use Gmail

Gmail can sync calendar information very well. You can either share a calendar read-only so others can view it but not edit it, or you can do a full two-way sync across your own computers. Read how to here.

Notes: Use Notational velocity and Simple Note. Read how to here.

Mail Accounts: Setup your computer account using IMAP (not POP) then manually sync it across to your iPhone with iTunes using your USB cable. You only need to manually sync the setup ONCE, then the built in mail apps will automatically keep the email in sync. This is why you don’t need a MobileMe solution. All MobileMe does is sync the Mail Account information (username and password etc), it doesn’t sync the actual email.

ToDo lists

OmniFocus  is a great task manager with automatic syncing – I hope to do a review soon. Unfortunately ‘Things’ doesn’t have auto sync yet.

Tis approach means that you need to set up each area separately, but when it’s working, it’s great! Here is what the setup might look like on your iPhone, I’ve shown calendars (MobileMe) and contacts (Gmail).

Using MobileMe on the iPhone to sync JUST the Address Book

Using Gmail on the iPhone to sync JUST the Calendars

A very simple way to share your calendars across multiple macs and your iphone or ipad is to use Google calendar. The Google calender service is the easiest and most flexible free shared calendar service that I’ve found. Here’s how to set it up on a macintosh computer.

1. START A GOOGLE CALENDAR.
Go to google.com, and if you don’t already have one, create a gmail account. (Even if  don’t need to use gmail for email you still need to create a gmail account to sync your calendars using Google.)

Login to your gmail account, and select MORE – CALENDAR to start your own google calendar.

2. PUT YOUR GOOGLE CALNEDAR INTO ICAL
Go into ical and select ical – preferences.

Now select the ‘Accounts’ Tab, then click the + button to add an account.

Now select ‘Google’ under Account type, and then enter your gmail address and password.

That’s it. Press the create button and your gmail calendar will show up in ical. You can edit it, make changes, and it will automatically sync from google to ical.

NOTE: This only works in Snow Leopard. With  Snow Leopard syncing a gmail calendar is built into ical and it’s dead easy. (See  here for how to do it in Leopard, and this post for Google’s pre-leopard work-around. )

NOTE: How to share calendars as read-only. the above method will completely sync your information both ways. Any information edited on one computer will automatically copy across to the others. If you want the sharing to be one way only (for example to share a calendar with a friend but so that they cannot edit it, simply proceed as above on your computer, but then go into gmail, calendar settings, and get the calendar URL.  Copy the URL and in your friends ical select ‘Calendar’ and ‘Subscribe to Calendar’ and paste in the URL. This will allow them to see your calendar but not edit it.

See here for how to sync your Address book.

If you are moving from another mobile phone to an iPhone, if you first sync your old phone to your Address Book it will bring all your numbers into your iPhone. Likewise, you can copy all your address book contacts onto your mobile phone from your iPhone or Address Book.  Here’s how.

On your Mobile turn on bluetooth and make sure the phone is discoverable.

On your Macinotosh go to System Preferences:Bluetooth.

If it’s off turn it on.

Click on the + sign to add a new device.

Your phone should appear: select your phone.

You will get given a password on your screen and your mobile will ask for a password. Type it onto your phone.

Open iSync (Applications:Utilities:iSync)

select the menu Devices:Add Device

When the phone appears, double click it.

Now your phone will appear in the isync window. Set up the settings as you want them.

Finally click ‘Sync Devices’ and it will fill your phone with all your Address book contacts.

Here is a list of all the phones that will sync with iSync:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2824

plus these:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2520