Both of the application boasts a lot of features, Google’s client offers the possibility to read attachments from the phone, and movamail makes it possible to attach pictures from the phones camera to the email.
I tried installing both on my aging Nokia 6610i, but none of them would install when accessing the website from the phone. Google stated clearly that the java client did not support, and with movamail I got an error on the phone when trying.
Luckily for people like me the also both support web access. I have not tried Movamails, but I’ve used Googles for a couple of month now with the Opera browser installed on the cell phone.
From my point view, Google entering the market makes it tough for Movamail. I will continue to forward my regular to my gmail account and use Gmails mobile browser access m.gmail.com to access the email because it works very well and it is free.
Goosync launches a service which provides over-the-air calendar synchronization between Google Calendar and cell phones .
When I updated my overview on how to sync Google Calendar, I only knew of Scheduleworld which could act as a bridge between Google Calendar and the open standard syncML.
This service is mainly relevant for cell phones, because most has a built in syncMl client but clients are available for Outlook other applications.
The first impression of the service and website, is very much on level with that of Scheduleworld. I will provide a more in depth comparison between the two at a later point.
Anyway, I find it very positive for average consumer like me that there are two competing services.
An overview of the number of ways Google Calendar can be synchronized with applications and devices like Outlook, Cell phones and Ipods.
Here are the main ways that I know of. There are some solutions for mobile devices Ipod and Java compatible cell phones, and some solutions for desktop applications Ical and Outlook.
What Google Calendar offers
The main offers from Google
Import and export of cvs and ical files, but doing this manually is too much of a hassle.
Make the calendar available as a feed or a public ical file, but this is read only.
Texting in events via the cell phone, but they don’t support my service provider.
An open API which makes it possible to write software which interacts with Google Calendar
Scheduleworld: the Swiss army knife of Google Calendar Synchronization
Scheduleworld is an online calendar service, among other things offers web access, Google Synchronization via API and syncML synchronization. The great thing about this is that the open standard SyncML is supported by many standard cell phones and third party clients are available for services and applications like Outlook.
Engtech has a fascinating guide, on how to put Scheduleworld to full use.
Scheduleworld is free for now, but as I understand it they plan to earn monye adding sponsored appointments to your calendar.
cell phone calendar
The way to synchronize Google Calendar which applies to most cell phones, is by synchronizing via Scheduleworld via the synML client, which is in most cell phones and an Internet connection like GPRS or 3G. Scheduleworld can be set up to synchronize automatically with Google Calendar, whenever a synchronization is requested from the cell phone.
I claimed earlier, that Calendar synchronization between Google Calendar and Scheduleworld only works one way. But yesterday I read in \\Engtechs very nice guide to synchronization that it works two-ways, consequences were: I had to try again.
At first my results were the same as reported earlier, none of the appointments I had in Scheduleworld would appear in Google Calendar. This however changed when I made a completely new appointment in Scheduleworld which appeared in Google Calendar after a sync. The entire problem was solved by adding a hyphen to all my appointments – and suddenly they all appeared in Google Calendar.
This goes to show two points. First of all, that two-synchronization actually works between the two, making it possible to use Scheduleworld as a middleman for synchronization between Google Calendar and any SynML compatible device, like a cell phone. Second, that this service (in beta) has some weaknesses at the present, making it possible for some appointments to be left out.
After a failure earlier on, I tried syncing Scheduleworld and Google Calendar yesterday and it finally worked. I was hoping (naive - yes) that this could as a middleman providing Google Calendar with the needed Syncml compatibility. In reality I could only make this work one way, exporting from Google Calendar (why they needed my pasword and username I don’t know), and in order to make the synchronization start I had to log in to Scheduleworld and request it.
All in all progress but I don’t really know what to use the one way sync for - unless I’m migrating completely!
Opera has for quite some time been a player in the browser market, and especially their mobile browser has been getting attention. I tried this browser out on the Nokia 6610i.
Installation is pretty easy, I just had to find the version compatible with the cell phone. Once got used to it, I definetely prefer Opera to the builtin browser on the phone, it looks better, I find it easier to use and Gmail mobile works. I could however not detect any difference in speed in these first tryouts, but it could still be there.
