Synchronizing e-mail, calendars, contacts, and bookmarks
Using MobileMe to sync over the Internet
Setting up e-mail accounts on your iPod touch
Your iPod touch can take care of all aspects of your digital life: It can send and receive e-mail, keep track of your calendar and notes, sort your contacts, and save bookmarks to all your favorite Web sites as you browse them.
If you're a road warrior, you may want to fill up your iPod touch with your personal information. You can then go out into the world, conquer it, and bring back new or edited contacts, new events, and new Web site bookmarks, which you can then synchronize back with your computer.
Where do I start? First off, your iPod touch has no problem sending and receiving e-mail using the Mail application (as I describe in Chapter 11). It also offers the Contacts app to store contact info, the Calendar app to store events (see Chapter 13), the Notes app to take notes (see Chapter 2), and the Safari app to surf the Web with your bookmarks (see Chapter 10). With a little help from these apps, you'll soon have your schedule whipped into such shape that it will be humming along like a finely tuned German automobile.
Note
Keep in mind that you can use iTunes to synchronize your iPod touch apps with the calendars, contacts, notes, e-mail accounts, and bookmarks you've already organized on your computer. If you're a Mac user, you have it easy: You can use the free iCal and Address Book applications to manage your calendars and contacts, the free Mail application to manage e-mail and notes, the free Notes Dashboard Widget for notes, and the free Safari Web browser to manage your bookmarks. All these applications are provided with Mac OS X. You can also sync contacts from Microsoft Entourage, Yahoo! Address Book, and Google Address Book, as well as sync calendars from Entourage.
If you're a Windows user, you can sync your contacts and e-mail accounts with Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007, Yahoo! Address Book and Yahoo! Mail, Google Address Book and Gmail, Windows Address Book (Outlook Express), AOL (e-mail only), or Vista Contacts. You can sync calendars and notes with Outlook and use Microsoft Internet Explorer or Apple Safari to manage bookmarks. The iPod touch can also use the Exchange ActiveSync protocol to sync e-mail, calendars, and contacts with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1. For many e-mail accounts, the settings automatically appear, like magic.
If you signed up for Apple's MobileMe service (formerly the .Mac service, now www.me.com), you can automatically keep your iPod touch synchronized along with several computers and iPhones, all at once, with the latest e-mail, bookmarks, calendar entries, and contacts, as I describe in the "Going MobileMe to Sync Your iPod touch" section in this chapter.
What's cool about cloud computing Web services like MobileMe, Microsoft Exchange, and Yahoo! Mail is that their e-mail services push e-mail messages to your computer and your iPod touch so that they arrive immediately, automatically. Other types of e-mail account services let you fetch e-mail from the server — you must first select the account in Mail on your iPod touch before your iPod touch can actually retrieve the e-mail.
Note
You probably already know how to manage your calendar activities and your contacts on your computer. In fact, you're probably knee-deep in contacts, and your calendars look like they were drawn up in the West Wing. If not, visit the Tony's Tips section of my Web site (www.tonybove.com) for advice on using MobileMe and on adding and editing contacts and calendar information on your Mac (with Address Book and iCal) or Windows computer (with Outlook). I also explain how to use third-party utilities to manage personal information on your iPod touch.
You can sync your personal information between your computer and your iPod touch in two ways: either through iTunes, or wirelessly using MobileMe (if you purchase the MobileMe service) or Microsoft Exchange. Please note that you're not wedded to one method or the other — you can switch between the two any time you want.
MobileMe and Exchange get their write-ups in the next section, while this section tackles the iTunes method. To synchronize your iPod touch with contacts, calendars, e-mail accounts, notes, and bookmarks by using iTunes, follow these steps:
Connect the iPod touch and select its name when it appears in the Devices section of the Source pane.
iTunes displays the iPod touch sync options to the right of the Source pane, with the Summary page (under the Summary tab) open.
Click the Info tab.
The Info sync options page appears as shown in Figure 6-1, offering the Contacts, Calendars, Web Browser, Notes, Mail Accounts, and Advanced sections. (Not all sections are visible in Figure 6-1.)
Select the option to synchronize contacts.
On a Mac: Select the Sync Address Book Contacts check box. You can also sync with Yahoo! Address Book or Google Contacts — click the Configure button to enter your login information. An option to sync with Microsoft Entourage appears if you have the application on your Mac.
On a Windows PC: Select the Sync Contents With option and choose Yahoo! Address Book, Windows Address Book, Google Contacts, or Outlook from the pop-up menu (refer to Figure 6-1).
Select the All Contacts option or select the Selected Groups option and choose which groups to synchronize.
You can synchronize all contacts or just selected groups of contacts. To choose groups, select the check box next to each group in the list; scroll the list to see more groups.
If you select groups, you can also select the Put New Contacts Created on this iPod Into the Group option, and choose a group for the new contacts you create on your iPod touch.
Scroll the page and select the option to synchronize calendars.
On a Mac, select the Sync iCal Calendars check box; an option to sync with Entourage also appears if you have it on your Mac. On a Windows PC, select the Sync Calendars With option and choose Outlook from the pop-up menu.
Select the All Calendars option. (Alternatively, if you're using iCal with Mac OS X, select the Selected Calendars option and choose the calendars to synchronize.)
In Windows, you can synchronize all calendars with Outlook, but not selected calendars. With iCal on Mac OS X, you can synchronize all calendars or just those you select. To choose specific calendars, select the check box next to each calendar in the list.
You can also set the Do Not Sync Events Older Than xx Days option, in which you can set the xx number of days.
Select the calendar to use for new events entered into your iPod touch (Mac OS X only).
If you're using Mac OS X and iCal, you should set the calendar to use for new events you create on your iPod touch. Choose a calendar name in the Put New Events Into the Calendar option. When you create a new event on your iPod touch (as I describe in Chapter 13) and sync it back to your computer, the new event appears in this calendar. This affects only new events — events you modify on your iPod touch retain their calendar information from before.
Because you can't select individual calendars with Outlook in Windows, this option is grayed out — all events you create on iPod touch synchronize with the Outlook main calendar.
To synchronize Web bookmarks, scroll down to the Web Browser section and select the Sync Bookmarks option.
On a Mac running OS X, the option is Sync Safari Bookmarks; on a Windows PC, iTunes selects Internet Explorer or Safari for this option, depending on which one is your default browser.
To synchronize notes, scroll down to the Notes section.
You can sync the notes you create in the Notes app (see Chapter 2) with the Mail application on a Mac, or with Outlook on a Windows PC. On a Mac, select the Sync Notes option; on a Windows PC, choose Outlook from the pop-up menu for the Sync Notes With option.
To synchronize e-mail accounts, scroll down to see the Mail Accounts section and select the Sync Selected Mail Accounts option.
Mail Accounts, as shown in Figure 6-2, appears below the Calendars section in the Info sync options page. On a Mac, select the Sync Selected Mail Accounts option. On a Windows PC, choose Outlook or Outlook Express from the pop-up menu for the Sync Selected Mail Accounts From option. After selecting the sync option, a list of e-mail accounts appears in the box below the option.
Choose the e-mail accounts you want to sync.
To choose accounts, select the check box next to each account in the list; scroll the list to see more e-mail accounts.
Click the Apply button to apply the changes. (Alternatively, click Cancel to cancel the changes.)
iTunes starts to synchronize your iPod touch.
Wait for the sync to finish and then click the Eject button next to the iPod touch name in the Source pane to eject the iPod touch.
Wait until the iTunes Status pane (at the top) displays the message
Sync is Complete.
After setting the synchronization options, every time you connect your iPod touch, iTunes automatically synchronizes it with your personal sync options. Synchronizing an e-mail account to your iPod touch copies only the e-mail account setup information; the messages are retrieved by the iPod touch over the Internet. Whether the messages in your inbox appear on your iPod touch and on your computer depends on the type of e-mail account you have and how you've configured it.
Tip
If you select a calendar or a group of contacts to be synchronized and later want to remove that particular calendar or group of contacts, deselect the calendar (see the preceding Step 6) or the group (see the preceding Step 4) and then click Apply to resynchronize. iTunes synchronizes only the group of contacts and calendars selected, removing from the iPod touch any that aren't selected.
iTunes also offers Advanced options at the bottom of the Info page (refer to Figure 6-2) for synchronizing your iPod touch from scratch to replace all contacts, calendars, notes, or mail accounts. You can choose which ones you want to replace by selecting the check box next to each option. iTunes replaces the information once, during the next sync operation. After that operation, these Advanced options are automatically turned off.
MobileMe synchronizes MobileMe e-mail accounts along with contacts, calendars, and bookmarks, on a Web server — also known as the cloud. You can then keep your iPod touch synchronized to the cloud wirelessly, without having to connect it to your computer.
Tip
The place to start organizing your information is usually your computer. However, if you've already entered contacts and calendars on your iPod touch, sync your contacts and calendars on your iPod touch with iTunes first, as I describe earlier in "Syncing Your Personal Info Using iTunes." Then sync your computer with MobileMe, and then your iPod touch with MobileMe.
Warning
Make sure the information you synchronize the very first time to MobileMe is the correct, complete information. You should synchronize your primary source — typically your computer — with MobileMe before synchronizing your iPod touch.
MobileMe first makes its appearance when you set up your iPod touch: An advertisement appears with buttons to try MobileMe. If you skipped the ad (like many people do), you can go to the Apple MobileMe setup page (www.apple.com/mobileme) and sign up for a free trial. After setting up your MobileMe account on a Mac or Windows PC, as described in the next sections, you turn on your MobileMe account on your iPod touch, as I describe in "Setting Up Mail Accounts on Your iPod touch".
Setting up MobileMe is easy on a Mac: When you sign in to MobileMe for the first time, MobileMe automatically configures Mac OS X Mail on your Mac to send and receive e-mail from your MobileMe account and to synchronize contacts from Address Book and calendars from iCal. If you already set up your iPod touch with a Mac and MobileMe service, automatic synchronization should already be set up on that Mac.
If not, you can set up a Mac to sync with MobileMe at any time. Follow these steps:
Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu, choose MobileMe, click the Account tab, and sign in.
If you see the .Mac logo instead (for older versions of Mac OS X), select .Mac and sign in. Follow the onscreen instructions, if they appear.
Click the Sync tab.
The Sync options for MobileMe appear, as shown in Figure 6-3.
Select the Synchronize with MobileMe check box and then choose a sync interval from the pop-up menu. (Refer to Figure 6-3.)
For the most frequent updates, choose Automatically to sync with MobileMe every 15 minutes.
Click the check boxes to select information to sync with MobileMe.
You can choose to sync just contacts, calendars, bookmarks, or mail accounts, or all of them.
Click the Sync Now button.
The sync commences. To make sure your data has synced, go to
www.me.com, log in, and click the Contacts and Calendar icons along the top row of icons on the left.
Download and install on your PC the latest version of MobileMe Control Panel for Windows, available from http://support.apple.com/downloads. MobileMe Control Panel is required to set up and manage MobileMe syncing and manage iDisk settings on a Windows PC.
To set up a Windows PC to sync with MobileMe or to check your sync settings or sync immediately, follow these steps:
From the Windows Start menu, open Control Panel and choose MobileMe Control Panel.
The MobileMe panel appears with tabs along the top.
Click the Account tab for the Account pane (if it isn't already visible) and log in with your MobileMe member name and password if you aren't already logged in.
Click the Sync tab.
The sync options appear, as shown in Figure 6-4.
Select the Sync with MobileMe check box and then select a sync interval.
For the most frequent updates, choose Automatically to sync with MobileMe every 15 minutes.
Select the check boxes to sync your contacts, calendars, and bookmarks, and then use the drop-down lists to choose which Windows applications you want to use when syncing with these items.
Click the Sync Now button.
The sync starts up. To make sure your data has synced, go to
www.me.com, log in, and click the Contacts and Calendar icons along the top row of icons on the left.
If your contacts or calendar entries show up in duplicate or triplicate on your iPod touch or computer, as if they were stuck inside of MobileMe with the memory blues again, you probably need to overwrite the data in the MobileMe cloud.
Selecting items to synchronize may not overwrite all the data in the cloud. To overwrite the data stored in the cloud with the data on your computer, open MobileMe (in System Preferences on a Mac, or Control Panel in Windows), click the Sync tab, and then click the Advanced button. (Refer to Figure 6-3 for a Mac, or Figure 6-4 for Windows.) Select the computer you are syncing from in the list at the top and then click Reset Sync Data.
In the dialog that appears, choose an option from the Replace pop-up menu:
On a Mac, you can choose All Sync Info, Bookmarks, Calendars, or Contacts. (The other choices in the pop-up menu — Key Chains, Mail Accounts, and so on — don't copy over to the iPod touch, but are useful for keeping other computers synchronized.)
In Windows, you can choose All Sync Info, Bookmarks, Calendars, or Contacts.
After choosing an option from the Replace pop-up menu, click the arrow underneath the Cloud icon to change the animation so that the data arrow points from the computer to the cloud. Finally, click Replace.
This action replaces the data in the MobileMe cloud with the data on your computer. You can also use these steps to go in reverse — replace the data on your computer with the data in MobileMe. To do this, click the arrow so that the animation points the arrow from the cloud to the computer.
Tip
Changes you make to contacts, calendars, and bookmarks in your iPod touch are synchronized to the Web server at www.me.com. You can also go to www.me.com and access your information directly with your Web browser.
To set up a Mail account on your iPod touch — including a MobileMe e-mail account (with contacts, calendars, and bookmarks) or a Microsoft Exchange account — follow these steps:
Choose Settings
The Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears, with the Accounts section at the top, as shown in Figure 6-5 (left side).
Tap the Add Account button and then tap the account type from the list of account types that appears.
Your choices are Microsoft Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL, or Other, as shown in Figure 6-5 (right side). After tapping the account type, the New Account screen appears for Exchange, MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and AOL accounts, and the Other screen appears for Other accounts.
Enter your account information as follows:
MobileMe, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or AOL: Enter your name, username, password, and optional description in the New Account screen, and then tap Save in the upper-right corner. If the account is verified, you're done for a Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or AOL account and you can skip the rest of these steps — the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears with the new account listed in the Accounts section. For MobileMe, your iPod touch displays account's settings screen. (If your account doesn't verify, try Steps 2 and 3 again.)
Exchange: Enter your name, username, domain (optional), password, and optional description in the New Account screen, and then tap Next in the upper-right corner to move on to the Exchange account's settings screen. Microsoft's Autodiscovery service kicks in to check your user name and password to determine the address of the Exchange server. If it can't find the server's address, a dialog appears for you to enter it — enter the complete address in the Server field and tap Save.
Other: Tap Add Mail Account on the Other screen for an IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) or POP (Post Office Protocol) account. The New Account screen appears; enter your name, username, password, and an optional description, and then tap Save in the upper-right corner to save account information. The iPod touch searches for the account on the Internet and displays the New Account settings screen.
Set your mail account settings in the New Account settings screen as follows:
MobileMe or Exchange: Turn on any or all of the items you want to sync: Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and Bookmarks (MobileMe only). If you sync contacts, calendars, or bookmarks using your MobileMe or Exchange account, syncing them in iTunes is turned off. Any contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on your iPod touch are replaced by the MobileMe or Exchange account versions. You can always return to the account setting's screen to turn them off in order to enable syncing with iTunes. For Exchange, you can set how many days of e-mail you want to sync. Tap Save in the upper-right corner to finish and save your settings.
Other: Tap IMAP or POP on the New Account settings screen, depending on the type of e-mail account you have — ask your e-mail service provider if you don't know. Then enter or edit the existing account information (also get this information from your service provider if you don't know). Tap Save in the upper-right corner to finish and save your settings. The Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears with the new account listed in the Accounts section.
When the Sync or Cancel warning appears for MobileMe or Exchange accounts, tap Sync (or Cancel).
When you tap the Sync button, MobileMe or Exchange overwrites any existing contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on your iPod touch (or the subset of these that you chose in Step 4). After syncing, the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears with the new account listed in the Accounts section.
Tap Fetch New Data on the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen, and tap Off for Push to turn it on (if it isn't already on).
That's it! Your iPod touch syncs automatically from this point on, with data pushed or fetched from the e-mail account depending on your Push and Fetch settings (see Chapter 11 for details).
You can temporarily turn off a Mail account on your iPod touch, as well as change its settings or delete it. To turn off a Mail account in your iPod touch temporarily or change account settings, choose Settings
To delete the account, scroll down and tap Delete Account. Deleting a Mail account from iPod touch doesn't delete the e-mail account itself or its settings on your computer.
Note
Changes you make to accounts are not transferred back to your computer when you synchronize, so it's safe to make changes without affecting e-mail account settings on your computer.
Note
It's way beyond the scope of this book to explain all of the e-mail account and advanced options. Grab your network administrator or Internet service provider and offer free coffee in exchange for help. If you don't have anyone to turn to, visit the tips section of my Web site (www.tonybove.com) for tips on using MobileMe and other e-mail accounts, and changing e-mail account settings on your iPod touch.