Optimizing iOS 4 for Google Sync

This is a brief guide to optimizing your new installation of iOS 4 for syncing with both Gmail, and Google Calendars. It assumes you already have iOS 4 running on your iPhone 3G, 3GS, or iPhone 4, and that you're ready to actually get some work done after playing with iBooks, Facetime, multitasking, wireless keyboard support, folders, and all the other shiny new toys. 

When you go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Add Account... you will see Gmail as a default option. Use this to create an account that syncs only Mail and Notes. Here's why: when you use this option to sync calendars, you can only sync your personal Google calendar. If you have multiple Google calendars, which is likely, they cannot be synced using this setting even if you've properly configured your Google sync settings by going to m.google.com/sync on your iPhone.

You might wonder, then, why you wouldn't use the Exchange option to create a single account that syncs both your mail and calendars as you did under iPhone OS 3 (ref 1). Simple: the Gmail option correctly relabels your 'delete' button to either show 'archive' or 'delete' depending on which action Google will actually take (ref 2). Under an Exchange account, the 'delete' button could result in messages being archived.

On the other hand, you may want to tolerate this mislabeling since only Exchange accounts use push imap, where new messages are automatically delivered to your phone as they arrive.

Now create a second account using Exchange following Google's directions. Remember to select which calendars you would like to sync! After creating the account, disable syncing of both Mail and, if you're using Apple's Contacts manager, Contacts for this account.

All of your information should now be synced between Google and your iPhone using Push for calendars, and Fetch for emails. If you're also interested in setting up VPN access to the Rice University network, see my previous post on How to connect an iPhone to the Rice VPN.

References (all accessed 7/2/2010):

1. Google's iPhone sync instructions
2. iLounge Secrets & Features of iOS 4

Side note: the new Threads view supported by iOS 4 only shows messages belonging to a thread located in the current folder. To view all messages in a given thread, including those that you sent, remember to go to your 'All Mail' folder!

Update (7/5/2010): Add description of Push & Fetch behavior difference between Gmail and Exchange methods.