Harmony Between Your iPhone and Gmail, Google Cal, etc.

It seems like just about every single article says either Apple or Google has a great product for one reason or another. I emphasize the "or" because the topic seems to be getting as polarized as politics. I can't imagine my daily life without the stunning simplicity, convenience, and technological bliss that is the marriage of Apple and Google products. I wanted to put together this guide to help out friends, family, and anyone else who wants the same.

I know the post is long, but this is as exhaustive of a summary and guide as I've seen on the internet. I hope it helps to better your experience of iOS and Google products working in a wonderful harmony!

My Devices & Services

• iPhone 4S & iPad 2 (same setup for both is recommended)
• Gmail
• Google Calendar
• All contacts are in Gmail

Setup

Account Types on the iPhone

This isn't as simple as adding a Gmail type account to your iOS device, this is the primary reason that most people aren't enjoying this setup.

Add a new Exchange account by selecting Settings (app) > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account...

Fill out your Email, Password, and add any description you like (mine is just "Gmail").

Press Next, there will be more to fill out. Note that your email address is your username @ your domain, so you should either leave the "Domain" blank and have your full email address as your username, or do what I do below. It shouldn't technically matter which way you chose.

Press Done.

Settings

Here are the rest of my settings for the account:

• Sync Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and Reminders. 
• Mail - This is a true sync (using the IMAP protocol), so if you delete on your iPhone you Archive it in Gmail. The exact contents of the Inbox on your phone will represent the Inbox on the server. This gets rid of the old-school concept of downloading a message off the server where the message is literally removed from the server (this technology was known as POP3). The question I get most often is how to actually delete an email - you must select Move To... then the Trash folder, just as you would move it to any other folder.
• Please note: You will need to enable IMAP access in your Gmail Settings, last I checked this is disabled be default. It is simple to do, please follow this guide.
• Contacts - Gmail keeps the golden master copy of my contacts list. I keep nothing local on the phone. This makes my life a breeze when I jump back to Gmail.com. I can also easily edit large groups of contacts on the web. iCloud has similar offerings, I just prefer Gmail so it'd be silly not to have my contacts in the same place. P.S. I suggest populating the contact's birthday, this way it'll show up on your calendar!
• Calendars - Calendars run my life. Anything I am doing or my wife is doing had better be in the calendar or I likely won't show up. I do as much event management on my phone as on the computer, it's nice to have it instantly sync both ways.
• Reminders - I'm a bit weird here. I LOVE reminders and use them constantly. I don't like Gmail's implementation of reminders (it isn't as nice of a user interface or as functionally laid out as iCloud), so even though I sync them, I actually strictly use iCloud for my reminders. 99% of the time I use my iPhone to manage Reminders, but on my work PC I also use iCloud.com. Of course the iPad has the same native app that the iPhone has, and Macs running OS X 10.8 or later (Mountain Lion) have the same Reminders app there as well.
• Oddly enough, you can create a new shared reminders list from the iCloud.com app or the Mac's native app, but you cannot create a new shared reminders list from an iOS device. You can edit and manage items on those shared lists though, so at most this is the slightest of "inconveniences" if you can even call it that.

Mail

• Mail Days to Sync - This is a tricky one for some. I suggest you personally subscribe to the "Inbox Zero" lifestyle where you don't keep email in your inbox. Tools like Gmail's labels and plugins like Boomerang just make it too easy and there's no reason to keep email around in the inbox. This doesn't mean getting rid of email, on the contrary I keep every single email that isn't junk or a daily mailer from LivingSocial or Groupon type sites. If you keep a relatively empty inbox I suggest syncing all mail in your Inbox. Consider a change in practice if you've never archived anything or have thousands of emails in your inbox.
• Mail Folders to Push - This setting selects which folders (Inbox is technically a folder) will by synced to the server. This means every email in that folder on the server will also be on your phone. I recommend only Inbox (default) for 99% of folks out there. However, some of you have advanced setups where you've got secondary accounts set up that automatically get labeled and archived (neat Gmail magic, if you don't know what I mean I've done a blog post that talks about it). For those power users you might want to push your other "Inboxes" as well.
• Keep in mind that even if you only check Inbox you can still see the entire folder hierarchy structure you have in place. You can also go into those folders and download their contents to view or manage emails. The difference is that those folders won't be actively synced and if you open them that will initiate a download of that folder's contents from the server at that time.

Note: These settings apply only to this particular account.

Note: The rest of the settings I'll cover apply to all accounts, not just your newly setup Gmail account. There are exceptions like Push/Pull, you can have a different account not setup for Pull. If you want additional details just ask in the comments and I'll get back to you usually within a few hours.

• Fetch New Data - Push. Push. Push. Enough said. If you want pull, set it up as a Gmail type account, I don't see any reason to do this for your iPhone. The "Gmail" account type for iOS doesn't support Push, this is why I suggest setting it up as an Exchange account. With that being said, what is Push and what is "Pull"?
• Push - Any folder you selected for "Mail Folders to Push" above will have emails "pushed" to your phone instantly when that email is received. Often I'll even see it come through on my phone a second or two before I see it in my inbox on gmail.com.
• Benefits (no cons if you ask me):
1. Emails show up instantly.
2. Your phone only gets email when there is new email to be grabbed. This saves battery life and network traffic.
• Pull - Every X minutes (this amount of time is adjustable) your phone will go and check the server for any new email (or changes to folder contents of any kind) for every folder you selected for "Mail Folders to Push" in the previous step. 
• Cons (no benefits if you ask me):
1. There is a delay between when you get an email and when your phone gets an email. This delay is the time between receiving the email and the next time your phone goes to check for emails. On the iPhone the minimum "Pull" time is 15 minutes, the maximum is just any time you open your Mail app. This means that new emails won't ever be delivered to your phone until you open the Mail app - I cannot imagine why someone would do this.
2. This uses more network traffic because whether or not you have a new email it has to go and check the server for emails.
3. This decreases battery life because it checks the server every X minutes 24/7.
• Show - This determines how many emails will be shown in a synced folder (i.e. Inbox). I show 200 emails (default) since I never get anywhere near that number in my Inbox anyway. If you've got a full inbox and see performance issues, consider lowering this. I have no idea if you'd ever see performance issues though. The max is 1,000. You can show more by tapping "Show More..." if you've hit this limit but the folder contains more items.
• Show To/CC Label - This will show or hide the To/CC icon that will appear on a message in a folder to indicate whether you are on the To or the CC of an email. It requires very little real estate on the screen and can be very handy if you're often on larger email threads (mostly a work account thing for me, but this setting applies to all email accounts on the phone).
• Ask Before Deleting - When you tap the trash icon, this will confirm by asking you if you're sure you want to delete the message. As we discussed, for an Exchange Gmail account (what we just setup) this actually means archive and not delete. I'm anal about handling and filing away email. Since deleting is just archiving, so this is total overkill, but I do it anyway.
• Load Remote Images - This option enables/disables emails downloading remote images from the server. Many coupon emails or emails from websites use HTML which is a simplified website right there in your email. Rather than attaching all those images, they host them on a remote server so that the email they send you is much smaller. Personally, I want my email to look as good and natural as possible. I am not worried about data quotas or anything, so I have this on. If you're traveling abroad or near your data quota for the month consider disabling it.
• Organize By Thread - This option allows your phone to group emails from a conversation together. It greatly cleans up your folders and is much more visually appealing. Enable this. Right now, I'll wait. You may as well use carrier pigeons if you disable this option. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating to entertain myself; please let me know if and why you don't use this in the comments.

• Always BCC Myself - If enabled, this will BCC you on every email you send from your device. I do this for work where we don't use gmail and sent messages don't appear in line with other messages like Gmail shows. Most people shouldn't do this.
• Increase Quote Level - This will increase the quote level a forwarded email; you've seen all the bars on the left side of an email that's been forwarded 25 times? Yeah, that. If you forward a lot of emails, don't do this because it is really annoying to the rest of us. 'On' is default and I've just never changed it. I'm not a frequent forwarder.
• Signature - This is your email signature that will appear at the bottom of emails you compose. New in iOS 6 you can have multiple signatures, unique to an email account! Note that by default this will have "-Sent from my iPhone" (or iPad or iPod Touch) when you first get the device. This being the default signature is why you see it so often, it isn't people being smug, they just haven't changed it.
• Default Account - Select what default account you want for sending a new email. When you have work & personal email, be careful here. When replying to an email, it'll reply with whatever the original was sent to, so this only applies to new emails.

Contacts

• Sort Order - This is the order that the contacts are sorted in your phone, not the way the names are viewed/displayed. "Last, First" makes the most sense to me, but I have every contact in there with a full name. If you have contacts like "Mom" and "Dad" (yes, my parents and my wife are all in there with their full names, yes I have taken "heat" for that) you might want to change this.
• Display Order - This is the way contacts are displayed on your phone. "First,Last" is more natural, but may be counterintuitive since you may not sort that way.
• My Info - I highly recommend everyone has themselves in their contact book with every piece of information you're willing to share, there are some good reasons.
• Siri - Siri uses this to route you home or to work and to remember connections like who your spouse/parents/siblings is/are.
• Bump/Contact Sharing - When you meet someone new you can use Bump or a similar "business card" sharing app to send someone your info. When you control the info in the business card it is up to you to have your contact represented professionally in their phone. Maybe it is just me, but I have a great appreciation for a well organized, nicely filled out contact card with a high resolution contact photo in my phone.
• Default Account - This is the account where any new contact you create will go unless you specify otherwise. Like I said, I keep all my personal contacts in Gmail, so naturally that's my default.
• There has been confusion on how to create a contact in a certain group. To do this you need to go into your Address Book, then into the group you want to add a contact in, then press the + to add them. If you create them in the "All Contacts" area of the Address Book, they will be added to your default account.
• Import SIM Contacts - Essentially this will import contacts from your SIM card to your local contacts on your iPhone (only AT&T and T-Mobile have those in the US for 3G and earlier networks, LTE uses a SIM card now too). Older phones used to store contacts here so they could be brought with you as you went to a new phone. When you import them here, they'll be added to your iPhone local contacts, not to your default account - I am pretty sure (not 100%). I haven't had to deal with this, if you need help here please ask in the comments and I can do some poking around to see how to solve problems that you might have with it.

Calendars

• New Invitation Alerts - PAY ATTENTION TO THIS ONE! This is a hidden gem if you ask me. By default this is on, I dislike that. What this does is play the alert tone that otherwise plays to alert you of a calendar event that's about to start, but it plays when a person sends you an invite regardless of when the event is for. I don't want an alert at midnight when someone sends me a lunch invitation for a month from now. I don't like this being enabled by default, particularly because I work with folks overseas who send invites in the middle of my night quite frequently.
• Time Zone Support - This one is tricky, in general it is best to have it turned on and to be aware of how it works, but use this information to determine what is best for you.
• This will make sure calendar invitations are handled properly when you send them to or get them from a time zone other than your own. If you do this often, I suggest enabling it.
• If this is enabled, and if you're planning an event in a different time zone and have an event at 2PM in that time zone then you will need to add it to your calendar for whatever time that is in the time zone you're currently in. This can be counterintuitive at first, but ultimately makes sense. If this is something you do often and your calendar is primarily just for your events (not for meetings with others), then you might want to consider disabling this. Unfortunately you cannot have 1 setting for 1 account (i.e. Work) and a different setting for another account (i.e. Personal).
• Sync - This option selects how long into the past to sync changes to an event. It doesn't clear events from your calendar that are older than this amount of time, but if you change something older than this, the change will not be synced to the server (Google Calendar). Similarly if you change an event on the Google Calendar website it won't sync the change to your phone. I've found 1 month back is more than sufficient, I see no reason to change the default here.
• Default Calendar - Make sure you've got this set how you want it if you have work and personal stuff on here. You don't want to send your boss a meeting invite from your Gmail account! Every time you create an event you can choose which calendar to put it on, this option just determine what the default is. I suggest making it whichever calendar you schedule more appointments on from your phone.
• Siri - As far as I have noticed Siri will only schedule on your default calendar, but  I haven't tried making Siri schedule work meetings for me so that might not be accurate.
• Shared Calendar Alerts - If enabled, this will alert you when there is a change to a calendar event on a shared calendar. If you share a calendar with a spouse this could be handy to know if something like your evening plans are how an hour earlier and you need to leave work early. Similar to New Invitation Alerts though, this could be annoying if you share a calendar with someone who is in a different time zone or is making changes while you sleep (and you don't use the new iOS 6 feature Do Not Disturb, which I suggest you do).

Alright, that epic novel sums up just about every detail of making my favorite email service (Gmail) play nicely with one of the world's most popular brands of phones (iPhones, and any iOS device really). Thank you to Heather (my sister) for the suggested topic of this post. I wish I would have kept track of the frequency of her tech help request iMessages before this was posted so that I can compare to them afterward :).

I know this is a long post, but there are a lot of people out there who use Gmail on an iPhone and are putting up with nuances that they don't realize they have full control over. Please share this with those people, it really is true that you can find harmony with both Google and Apple products together!

Apple's Oct. 23, 2012 Media Event Expectations

I wanted to quickly summarize my expectations for the media event that Apple just announced.

iPad Mini [Confidence: High]

Perhaps most importantly I think we will see an iPad Mini, this will likely be the "main attraction" of the event.

• 7.85" display [Confidence: High]
• A5, same as iPad 2 [Confidence: High]
• 16GB, 32GB, 64GB capacities [Confidence: High]
• 64GB capacity [Confidence: Low] Edit: Given the new stats on the size of apps increasing and the fact that 8GB really is just too small, I'm adjusting my estimate to match the standard iPad capacity line up.
• 3G/4G connectivity [Confidence: High]
• $349 starting price [Confidence: Medium] Update: Gruber makes a great point for how unsurprising a $249 starting price would be. I personally think that's the sweet spot to wow people on price, I just have a hard time being confident we'll see that.
• Smart covers [Confidence: High]

Education [Confidence: High]

I suspect there will be a key focus on education throughout. I'd even go as far as to say I somewhat expect some educational pricing options on the new iPad Mini, though I wouldn't bet my mortgage on it. I expect an update on their textbook initiatives, and hopefully some innovative new way to really push into the money-deprived public schools with these new devices.

13" Retina MacBook Pro [Confidence: High]

I fully expect MacRumors.com's coverage to be accurate.

• Starting price: $1699 [Confidence: High] Update: Previous value was a typo, I had looked at the wrong starting prices for the 15" model by accident. Oops! Sorry :)

Updated iMac & Mac Mini [Confidence: High]

Again I agree with MacRumors.com's coverage, and I fully expect an updated (and much thinner) iMac and updated Mac Mini to be revealed. There could be room for some education announcement in this sector too, maybe the previous generation iMac with strong educational discounts? The education pricing here is just a total guess, either way we'll see new iMacs and Mac Mini's.

• Prices likely to remain unchanged.

Sarcasm Font, Let's Make it Happen

Unless you're a complete square, odds are you or your friends have been able to toss out some memorable one-liners or make each other laugh with some good ol' sarcasm. So how is it that we now live almost entirely online, or many do anyway, and yet we cannot find a good way to communicate sarcastically?

My friends and I have been trying a few methods, and we've found a clear standout winner. That's right, we have sarcasm font. It works remarkably well, and has in every way changed how we communicate socially online.

So here it is...

Since Google has graced us with the ability to add bold, italic, or strike-through to our font, we've decided to "sacrifice" one of these and re-purpose it. Italic was the winner. We simply didn't need it for anything else, we use bold for emphasis, so why not make it the perfect way to finally communicate sarcasm digitally?

I implore you to try this. Tell a handful of your friends and give it a try the next week or two. For me this bridged the vast chasm (one might call it the sar-chasm?) between the digital world and the "real" world. It has become second nature when reading and writing, it is elegant and subtle, and I really don't think I can ever go back.

Our failed attempts:

We tried a few other systems, most of them were essentially HTML tags or something like it. We started with <sarcasm> yadda yadda </sarcasm> at first, then got lazy and just switch to </sarcasm> at the end of sentences. This worked, but it was too explicit and it took away from the witty nature of sarcastic jokes. We tried similar variants, like adding (sarcasm) to sarcastic comments, but this just didn't work. That's like trying to show someone what the Mona Lisa looks like by drawing with a crayon on a wet bar napkin.

Spread the word, we have finally created sarcasm font!

Verizon to Sell Personal Data, Opt-Out Available

Verizon has just put a price on the respect they have for their customers. I am talking about the recent decision to share your personal information such as location, age, browser history, dining habits, and more. This information will be used by Verizon and by third parties, but details are scarce beyond that.

The worst part? This is an opt-out change. This means by default you opt-in whether you like it or not.

Yes Verizon, we, your financiers, get that you have a duty to shareholders to maximize profits and increase your margins. We aren't privy to exactly how much this arguably immoral change will boost your profit, but whatever that delta may be is certainly more valuable than the respect you have for your customers' trust.

Maybe Verizon will learn from the great stir this has caused. Maybe they will not. After all, this "only" affects smartphone users. Yes, all smartphone users. Most authors use "iPhone" in the title or body since that will get them more hits on searches, but rest assured, this mistreatment is platform agnostic.

Personally, I'm not much for worrying about a company's privacy policy usually. I submit the anonymous usage statistics on my devices. I have all my location services enabled. I have no reason to think I am an interesting enough person that tracking me is worth anyone's time. Even if I'm wrong I don't do many things (wait, Grandma are you reading this? I meant ANY things...) outside of my moral bounds that I'm ashamed of that are worth hiding from service and/or content providers.

So why my discontent over Verizon's choice? It boils down to this being a shady move. There is solid evidence to show that opt-out is vastly more successful than opt-in systems if you're trying to get people to opt-in. Selling your information to third parties is almost certainly not something a significant number of people would opt in for; so if they're going to sell your information, I supposed this is the way to do it.

Who knows, maybe Verizon will start offering us in Colorado volcano insurance next! That seems like the slippery slope their integrity is on with a move like this.

Let me know what you think of the changes in the comments. Are people blowing this out of proportion?

Why You Should be Using Gmail

Gmail is #1, Plain and Simple...

If you don't use Gmail, I very highly recommend you make the move. If only it were possible, I'd suggest you travel back in time and make the move years ago. It is beautiful, powerful, easy to make your own, and makes email management so much more logical, clean, and fast. Whenever possible, my email inbox is empty. I only delete junk, so everything else in my life is searchable (I hear these Google folks have search pretty well figured out) and yet even with this volume my email is organized with very little effort on my part.

Labels - Not Just for Email, This is the New Way to Organize

Labels are an easy way to keep emails organized, but more than that labels will soon (I think) become the standard for all things tech. We see it on blog sites already, it isn't a new concept. Think to your personal computer, you know you put together a guest list for a party a few years ago and want to start with that for a new one. It is in your documents... somewhere. In 2012 you solve this by searching, maybe remembering, but only after some time. In 2015 (ish?) you solve it because you start typing related topics "party" and "list" or maybe the ".xlsx" extension - the file instantly appears as the top hit. Who cares where a file actually exists on your hard drive if it is instantly available when you need it? Apply 5 relevant labels then get that file out of sight. (The slow-to-adopt tech folks are cringing here, bear with me).

Gmail pioneered bringing labels to email. The email receipt from a donation gets "Receipts" because it is just that. However it also gets "2012 Taxes" and maybe "Finances". This way when I go to my 2012 Taxes "folder" (I'll explain the merge of folder and label concepts soon), I can easily find all my tax related emails including this one. I also want to see it when I am looking through receipts though, but why would I want to duplicate an email just to have it in 2 places? You don't. 

Oh and to make your life easy, you can automate the label application process so your email labels itself.

Folders Meet Labels

The Gmail terminology is to Archive an email (with or without labels applied to it) to get it out of your inbox without deleting it. You can think of moving an email to a folder as applying a label (the name of the folder) then archiving that message. 2 labels? No problem, the message is effectively in 2 "folders" without duplicating that email and eating up more of your quota.

Cross Platform Beauty

One great aspect of Gmail is that it is platform agnostic. I've got an iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro, a Dell laptop for work, and a custom built Windows 7 PC home media server. Queue the faithful UNIX user rolling eyes at the omission from the list (I use UNIX 8-12 hours per day, every day, just go with it). Notably absent from the list is Android, but it is a safe bet that Google's email solution is tailored to have the best experience on their platform.

Gmail plays nicely with all sorts of mail clients, if you insist on using a mail client. I have personally shifted from a faithful mail client user (I've tried many different flavors) to the web interface. I'll go into more detail later, but the web interface is how you'd expect email to work because it is so highly customizable, but it is beautiful, yet simple and powerful exactly as it is with no customizations. The phone and tablet versions even support the "swipe to delete" motion that you're used to.

One Inbox, Infinite* Accounts

You can redirect all of your email accounts to go to Gmail so that you can log into Gmail and see everything. You can send emails while logged into your Gmail account from any account also. For example I have my University of Colorado email come to Gmail and I can respond to any email with my CU account (regardless of where it was sent to originally).

If you don't want the clutter of multiple accounts you can apply a rule that any email from a given account (i.e. CU) gets the label "CU" and skips the inbox. This way your "CU" folder is a 2nd inbox for only messages from that account.

*If there is a limit to the number of accounts you can plug in, I haven't hit it yet.

Labs, Customizing Gmail

Out of the box Gmail is great. There are some things you might want to tweak to make it even better, these are "Labs." Labs are features you turn on or off (off by default) that really enhance the experience, and are a strong reason to use the Gmail web interface instead of a mail client. Beyond the style there are some layout labs, some features, and some nerdy fun (like enabling the game Snake right in your inbox!). First you'll have to enable Gmail labs.

Here are some of my favorite (out of the many options):

• Signature Tweaks - This puts your email signature at the bottom of the email you're composing, not the bottom of the entire thread. I can't imagine why Google doesn't change the default here, but at least there is a lab to fix it.
• Send & Archive button - Adds a 'Send & Archive' button when composing messages to archive the email after you send it.
• YouTube/Flickr/Google Docs/etc. previews - Attachments and/or links can be viewed right in your message without having to go to the external site for certain objects.

Push and Pull, Gmail on your iOS Device

Gmail on your iPhone is awesome. I use Gmail as my master contacts list so that I never lose anything if I get a new phone, plus it makes bulk edits much easier since I can use the browser interface. When you set it up you have the option to use the Gmail account type or the Exchange account type, the latter isn't made obvious to you.

I highly suggest setting up your Gmail account as an Exchange account, here's how. This way your contacts, notes, tasks, calendars, and email are all instantly synced with the web. Changes to any item in one place is immediately available everywhere, on every device. What this gets you is Push support meaning emails are pushed to your phone instead of your phone having to check the server every X minutes (which drains the battery). Push email also means emails come to your phone immediately. One thing to note is that when you tap the Trash icon in the native iOS mail client you are actually archiving the message, not deleting it. This can be solved by selecting the 'Move to Folder' icon and selecting the trash. If you set it up as a Gmail account instead of Exchange, you can select what you want the delete button to do.

Making the Switch

If you're hesitant, there is a lot of help out there. Google has official support pages for it. You can keep your old account by forwarding it all to your Gmail account, and if you don't want to tell anyone you're using Gmail you can still respond from your old email address while enjoying all of the other features of Gmail. Feel free to ask questions in the comments. Everyone in my family has made the switch, this includes folks from 12 to 85 of all technological competencies.

Plugins

There are lots of really cool plugins that Gmail openly supports. My favorite is Boomerang. Boomerang allows you to have messages "Boomerang" right back to your inbox when you want them to. It is very powerful, and it is free. There are many other plugins by other 3rd parties so you can solve nearly any problem you might have.


I'm sure there are many more reasons to use Gmail, I'd love to hear about them in the comments below.