How To: Over-the-Air Synchronization with Google

I have always used my Windows Mobile device for work and personal business, always keeping to two as separate as possible. But the more I use my work’s Exchange Server, the convenience of over-the-air synchronization is winning and blurring the line between work and play.

But what’s a guy (or gal) do when you don’t want personal appointments or information on your work’s server? What if you don’t have access to an Exchange server but want the convenience of OTA synchronization?

One possible solution is to take advantage of Google Calendar and Gmail’s contacts. Google Calendar offers you a convenient way to keep track of personal appointments through an online format and share them with others as the need arises. Like many, I have a Gmail account for some of my personal ventures, and to have my Windows Mobile contacts mirrored there as well is an advantage.

So how do you go about getting your phone to talk to the Google applications? Better yet, how do you accomplish this without wires? Google doesn’t offer an OTA solution in-house, so we looked out-of-house, so to speak.

In the search for solutions we ran across a few options, with the most prominent being Goosync, Nuevasync and Oggsync. We decided to take a look at these “big three” in the OTA market to see how they compared. Read on after the break to see how these OTA solutions measured up.

Syncing e-mail, contacts and calendar

So here’s the setup: You’ve got a need for over-the-air synchronization for contacts and appointments. You might not have access to an Exchange Server. And if you do, you might want to keep information off that server.

Outside investing in a personal server, the best (and most frugal) solution for OTA contact and calendar management may very well be Google’s Calendar and Gmail applications. To use the OTA solutions that we discuss below, you need to have a Google Account with Gmail and Google Calendar activated.

One word of cautionary advice; whenever using a new synchronization solution it is strongly advised that you back up your data (see here and here). If something goes wrong, you have a reliable source from which to restore order to your calendar and contacts.

I would strongly urge you to back up your contacts and appointments before taking any of these solutions out for a test drive. If you don’t Murphy’s Law will come crashing down. 

Goosync

Goosync is an over-the-air solution that comes in two flavors: A free version that allows you to sync with Google Calendar, and a premium pay version that allows you to sync with multiple calendars as well as Gmail Contacts.

You’ll need to visit Goosync’s website to set up an account, which then allows you to authorize Goosync to access your Google applications and maintain some of your Goosync settings. Once you’ve set up an account, you simply register for the free version or belly up to the table for the Premium version.

You then download a .CAB file to your WM Device, go through the step by step set-up process on your phone, and then tap “start”. Goosync will then, depending on the version you are using, sync your contacts, appointments and tasks with the Google counterparts.

At least that’s what it does in theory.

My first synchronization went well, with calendar appointments and contacts syncing up nicely. The second synchronization was another story. I began to see duplicate appointments being creating and my contacts were being shuffled; shuffled in a bad way. Not only was the name sequence reversed (last-name-first to last-name-last) but the contact information itself was randomly swapped around amongst my contacts. The information for one contact was changed to that of someone entirely different.

Goosync wasn’t making a good impression.

After restoring my contacts from a backup file, I began to research the issue at hand. Goosync has five sync modes and one of them was the likely cause of my problem.

Normal Mode is the standard, two-way synchronization, and only data that has been added, modified or deleted (on the device or Google) will be synchronized. Slow Mode is typically done on the first synchronization and is when ALL the data is sent to Goosync regardless of modification and it is compared to the information on Google and the data will be matched up on a field by field basis. Update Device, Update Server, and Reload Device Modes are one-way synchronization and will only deal with changes made on either Google or the device. 

In checking my settings, I found that my sync mode was set to Slow Mode, typically the default setting for the first synchronization. My only guess is that when the Goosync server began matching up fields during the second synchronization, it got it wrong.

In reading the Help Section of Goosync’s Web site, the mode should switch to Normal automatically. But it seems that seems that if synchronization fails, Goosync has the ability to revert back to Slow Mode. I can only imagine that my data connection was interrupted during one of the synchronizations and the settings reverted to Slow Mode. I switched to Normal Mode and everything synced without issues.

Overall Impression

Goosync is a good, over-the-air, synchronization solution, but not without drawbacks. I had trouble with it shuffling contacts and duplicating appointments until I found the correct synchronization mode. Why normal mode is not the default is a mystery.

There is a Customer Support Forum on the website where you can hash out your problems or share you misery with other Goosync customers. E-mail support is available, but not the swiftest for answers. This may be due to Goosync being based out of England, and I found the forums to be tremendously more useful.

Goosync is also on the pricey side. An annual subscription to the service is ₤19.95 (roughly $29.40), but there is a life-time subscription available for ₤39.95 (roughly $58.88). If you rely on the Google applications for your contacts, appointments and tasks, Goosync might be worth the investment. If you are looking for an OTA service to give you an alternative or back-up source for your PIM data the cost may be prohibitive. 

Nuevasync

Nuevasync is a relatively new solution and is still in the beta stages. According to Nuevasync, “It means that while we (Nuevasync) take every precaution to ensure correct sync, and make every effort to ensure reliable service, we're still working on the software.”

In other words, Nuevasync is still a work in progress and may still have some bugs to work out. It is operational but not without risks.

Nuevasync distinguishes itself from Goosync in that it relies on your Windows Mobile device’s ActiveSync connection to talk to the Google applications. While this is a novel approach, some may not find it too convenient. If Google will be the only source your device synchronizes with, or you aren’t already syncing with a server, this might be a good method. However, if you have to sync with a work server/computer (like I do) you will be constantly changing your ActiveSync Settings.

Just as with Goosync, you’ll have to set up a User Account with Nuevasync where you will authorize Nuevasync to have access the Calendar and Contacts in Google. From there all you need to do is set up the server connection in Activesync.

If you have already established a connection with a server, setup is a little tedious. You have to delete that relationship and any other synchronization relationship you may have with the calendar and contacts. Once this is done, you choose “Add Server Source” from the ActiveSync menu on your WM device, enter the Nuevasync server information, choose to sync with calendar and contacts and you’re good to go.

Overall Impression

Personally, I didn’t care for this solution simply because switching between servers was just too tedious. That means you can’t have this on one hand and an Exchange server on the other.

I have some reservations about the stability of Nuevasync in general as well. E-mails inquiring about the company went unanswered. And while Nuevasync does have a blog page to provide users information, it’s mostly filled with reports of various problems with the system. To quote Nuevasync from its FAQ pages on why e-mails go unanswered, “We try to answer every support e-mail quickly. However at times we are sleeping.”

This is a decent application to use for OTA synchronization with the Google applications if you don’t need to be connected to a second server. However, it is a BETA application and customer support seems be a little lacking. For the time being, Nuevasync should fit the bill, but for how long is anyone’s guess. It may depend on whether or not the guys get enough sleep. 

Oggsync

Oggsync is another OTA solution that, like Goosync, uses an installed application to communicate with the Google applications. The standard version is free and allows you to synchronize with one Google calendar. A pay, pro version is available for $29.95 a year (volume discounts are available) that will allow you to synchronize with multiple calendars, contacts and have an auto-sync function.

Unlike Goosync, there is no mention of a lifetime subscription. Setup is fairly straightforward. Once you install the .CAB file, you fill in the blanks for your Google Account info. In the free version you are only capable of syncing appointments. In the pro version, you are able to sync multiple calendars as well as contacts.

Contacts and Calendar synchronization are separate actions with independent settings. There is no need to set up an online account. There is a good bit of support information online and Oggsync’s e-mail support was prompt. You do have the ability to schedule synchronization times with the pro version, and the time frame on the device you want synced with Google Calendar (both versions). When you register for the pro version, you have to go into settings and enable contact synchronization. You can select how the names should appear (last name first, etc.) as well as merge options and a few exclusion rules (e.g. only sync contacts with names).

Be careful with the choice to sync only contacts that have names. If the contact is a company, place, location, etc., it will delete them. (Remember our repeated caution to back up data before you try things). The same is true if you choose “only sync contacts with numbers” and those contacts with only email addresses will go away.

I wouldn’t recommend choosing either of these options. One more caveat with Oggsync (and it may apply to other OTA applications) is to make sure your time zone on your device matches the time zone on Google. If not, your appointments may bounce around the calendar. Oggsync has a specific setting for your time zone which lessens the odds of having an appointment sync to the wrong time.

Overall Impression

Oggsync is a very simple application that has a good number of options available. Some I’m not particularly fond of because they deleted about 200 of my contacts. But the more options you have on an application, the more flexible it can be to suit your needs. The downside to options is that you have to be careful what you select.

The free version is very stable and syncs calendar appointments nicely. The pro version adds the ability to sync contacts but at a cost. The subscription fee is really the only drawback I can find with this application and as with Goosync, if you rely on synchronizing your WM Device with the Google applications, it might not be as big a drawback for you.

Overall Thoughts

“Over-the-air” synchronization is growing in popularity. And with the availability of Google applications, OTA synchronization is available to most everyone. I’m hoping Google will develop an in-house solution to allow for direct synchronization between its applications and your Windows Mobile device. For the time being there are several capable applications that will keep things in sync.

Nuevasync is a free method of syncing with Google Calendar and Gmail contacts. However, you have to use ActiveSync to accomplish this. And until Microsoft (or someone else) offers ActiveSync with multiple server settings, you’ll be constantly changing settings if you sync with a computer or work server.

Nuevasync is still in the beta stage, which isn’t necessarily a problem. The only problem I have with beta versions is that you go through the growing pains together and there’s no telling if the end result will sprout subscription fees. There’s also a slight concern on overall stability with Nuevasync, but for the time being it’s a worthy solution if you can live with a single server source.

Goosync and Oggsync both offer free applications to allow you to sync with Google Calendar. But to sync with Gmail Contacts, you have to pay for a premium or pro version. I do like that Goosync has a lifetime subscription offer that will defray the cost a good bit. Both applications are good. But in testing both, I found Oggsync slightly better to use and had a better user interface. Appointments and contacts were synced without problems and when there was a problem, the cause and solution was easily identified. Now if they could only offer a lifetime subscription.

One final thought on Oggsync and Goosync is that if you are using Google to serve more as a backup for your appointments, consider using one of these applications for appointments and Dashwire for your contacts. Hopefully one day we’ll be able to add Dashwire on the list with OTA solutions for both contacts and appointments. But for now Dashwire and Oggsync/Goosync isn’t a bad combination to have.

We’ve touched on what we feel are the “big three” OTA solutions to synchronize your contacts and appointments with the Google applications. Undoubtedly, there are others out there in development or flying just under the radar. If you would like to suggest an alternative OTA solution, feel free to do so or if you’d like to see another solution reviewed, we are always open to suggestions. Let us know in the comments.