Saturday, June 20, 2009

iPhone 3.0 update, Google calendar sync

This is siiiiiiiiiiiiiick.

So I just downloaded iPhone OS 3.0 for my iPod Touch 2nd Gen and at first I thought, "well, I guess it's cool, the search seems kinda nice..." and then I started to see the hidden power of it.

There are some MAJOR awesome new features, like you turn the stock app sideways and get a whole new interface. Lots of other great stuff like that too. By far the awesomest thing I've seen (other than copy paste, which is GREAT and will be really useful... also pretty slick interface too)... is the push notification for Google Calendar. I didn't know this was possible... I've now got Push sync hooking up my Google Calendar to my iPod via Microsoft Exchange?!! Crazy. So what does this mean? Well, it's basically sorting out my calendar in the same way as the sync between my ToDo GTD app <-> Toodledo web service. So, like when I add todo items in ToDo, they then sync to my online account at Toodledo (and vice-versa). This is ideal so I can add stuff when I am online at work or something, and know that it will always reliably make it back to my iPod. The same now is true with my calendar. They also WAY UPGRADED the calendar. It is now WAY slicker than before, and a lot closer to the Google Calendar, which I love.

One of the main points of GTD is that you're supposed to really rely on your calendar... day/time-specific actions have to be on there and you are supposed to stick to those come rain or shine. It's very important to have "trust" in the items on your calendar, and now that I can have an "offline" version on my iPod that will re-sync itself to my Google Calendar whenver I'm on WiFi... oh man that is sweet. It's great that it's a SYNC too, so it's a 2-way communication... meaning I can make changes on either the App or on Google Calendar online and they will stay in sync with each other. Amazing!

So the bells and whistles are cool and all, but the really cool stuff in iPhone OS 3.0 is lurking under the surface... and it's name is "Push and Exchange Syncing!" Fancy business.

Also, copy paste is hottttttt.

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