iCal, Google Calendar, BusySync and MobileMe

Apple recently released MobileMe and we've had lots of questions about how to use it with BusySync.

The primary interest in MobileMe is the ability to sync your Mac with your iPhone wirelessly. If you want to use BusySync and MobileMe together, following are some common scenarios of how to do it.

Using BusySync on a LAN and MobileMe to sync with an iPhone
You may use BusySync to sync with others on your LAN while using MobileMe to sync with your iPhone wirelessly. In this example, Fred and Mary are syncing calendars over the LAN via BusySync, while simultaneously syncing with their iPhones through their individual MobileMe accounts.

Using BusySync on a LAN and MobileMe to sync with a Mac at home
You may use BusySync to sync with others on your LAN at work while using MobileMe to sync with your Mac at home. In this example, Fred and Mary are syncing calendars over the LAN via BusySync, while Fred is also syncing with his Mac at home via MobileMe. (Note: You may also use BusySync with Google Calendar to sync with a Mac at home.)

Using BusySync, Google Calendar, MobileMe and an iPhone
You may use BusySync to sync with Google Calendar while using MobileMe to sync with your iPhone. In this example, Fred and Mary are syncing calendars remotely through Google Calendar, while Mary is also syncing her iPhone via MobileMe.

The next question you might ask is, "why do I need both BusySync and MobileMe, can't I just use MobileMe to sync calendars"? The answer is, "it depends".

If you just need to sync calendars between your own computers (like your Mac at home and your Mac at work), then MobileMe is probably all you need. But, if you want to share calendars with others, you probably need BusySync.

Here's how MobileMe and BusySync differ when it comes to syncing calendars:

All or None
MobileMe syncs identical copies of all of your calendars across multiple Macs. This works fine for an individual with multiple computers. But it is not ideal for a group of users who wish to selectively share calendars. It forces everyone to use the same MobileMe account, thereby granting all users access to all of your MobileMe info (email, iTunes purchases, keychains, etc.).

BusySync allows you to choose which calendars you want to share so you can make some public while keeping others private. In addition, you can share calendars on your LAN, while simultaneously syncing with Google Calendar.

Read-Only vs. Read-Write
MobileMe allows you to Publish calendars that others can subscribe to with read-only access. BusySync allows you to Publish calendars that others can subscribe to with read-only AND read-write access, with password protection.

Web Access
Both MobileMe and BusySync enable you to access your calendars with read-write access on the web. MobileMe provides web access through me.com. And BusySync provides web access through Google Calendar.

Better Together
If you've got an iPhone that you want to sync wirelessly with iCal, MobileMe is a great solution. If you need to share calendars with others on a LAN or sync with Google Calendar, BusySync is a great solution. And if you need to do some combination of the above, MobileMe and BusySync work great together.

You'll find more info on the BusySync FAQs.

Comments

[GB]

I've been using both mobileme and busysync together since the launch last week, and I'm loving it. I use busysync to sync my work data between iCal and my corp google cal account, and then mobileme pushes all that data to my iphone. It's fantastic because I can start using the calendar app on the iphone without constantly hooking it up to my laptop.

[Mariano Kamp]

It would be nice to have a hosted service that (a) can be synced with wirelessly and (b) acts as a gateway between google calendar and mobile me.

This way my computer doesn't need to run for a sync with the cloud. Also I really don't feel like purchasing multiple licenses of busy sync to put it on all three computers I use frequently.

[Katie]

We also found another use for BusySync and that is to sync all of our subscribed calendars. I subscribe to a few calendars and I was surprised that subscribed calendars weren't synced via MobileMe and none of that information was being pushed to my iPhone. We found a workaround by instead of subscribing to the calendars through iCal, to instead subscribe to those same calendars using Google and then having BusySync grab the information from those calendars. When it did, the formerly shared calendars were then listed as a regular calendar and they synced with no problem.

This process works for the most part, although the Birthday Calendar is a notable exception. However, it would be nice if there were some kind of feature to automate this process with BusySync.

[Matt Craig]

First off, I'd like to say what a great post this was - very clear and informative. I had been worried about mixing Google syncing via BusySync with MobilMe but the above made it clear it would be fine (actually, the great illustration made it clear). Like the 1st commenter above, the BusySync/MobileMe/iPhone Push system is perfect.

Finally, thanks for a really great product. I'm recommending it to all my friends who just got new iPhones :)

[Rhonda Mason]

Thanks for a great product. It has worked so seamlessly and smoothly. I have been wanting to share calendars with my husband for quite some time now and have been disappointed that Apple hasn't made this happen yet with their OS. And now I can also use my iPhone the way I wanted to from the very beginning. So thanks again, I'm more than happy to purchase a license each for our two MacBooks. Well worth it.

[John Welle]

Loving this so far; but there's one gap I haven't figured out yet (great product idea?). My wife and I try to share calendars, ideally having one that we can BOTH edit) and we're set up something like this (best I can do with text entry...):

iphone1<>mobileme1<>mac1 <>busysync1<>google1<>
<>google2<>busysync2<>mac2<>mobileme2<>iphone2

So, for example, if both of our macs are on then adding an event to iphone1 eventually makes it to iphone2. If one or both macs are off, though, then an event entered on iphone1 won't make it.

If the iphone could sync with google calendars (as it does with gmail) I think that might bridge the gap? Another possibility is having a third mobileme account that both iphones sync calendars to might work (iphone1<>mobileme<>iphone2) but there can only be one mobileme signon on each mac...and there's probably some potential disaster with duplicating events that could come out of that.

If there was a busymac client for the iphone then sync might work? (iphone1+busymac1<>google1<>google2<>busymac1+iphone1)

Ideas?

Thanks!
j.

[Eliel]

Thanks for an excellent product - it completely fills the broken hole in the MobileMe concept. I am using subscribed (google) calendars with my wife, business partner, and family. The iCal synching with stand alone MobileMe was essentially useless. After missing a couple of meetings, and much frustration with Apple, I finally found your product through some googling.

BusySynch made my synched calendar utopia actually possible

Apple should pay you a percentage of every MobileMe subscription you saved from being canceled!

Keep up the great work!

[Khürt Williams]

Looks like I'll need to buy a copy of BusySync. Like @Eliel, I have been utterly frustrated by MobileMe's inability to sync my Google Calendars to my MobileMe page and my iPod.

[Khürt Williams]

I have a different scenario. Now that Google Calendar has CalDAV support for iCal, one no longer needs BusySync to sync Google Calendars between Macs. However, I still have the requirement of having the Google Calendar appear on MobileMe and the iPhone.

[Stuart]

It would be nice if I could sync multiple iCal calendars to one Google calendar. For instance, I want to sync iCal Work, Personal, Social, and Volunteer to Google Public.

I would purchase BusySync in a heartbeat if I could do this. Thanks.

[barnard clarkson]

I thought that was *exactly* what I was doing with BusySync? I must be very clever (or very confused!), cos there is no response to this comment and the fact that its left unanswered suggests @Stuart is right? But...

I have 3 calendars (1 Info stuff, 2 Us stuff, 3 My stuff) and a subscription Birthdays calendar. All three 'normal' calendars sync between Google, MobileMe and iCal seamlessly... Darn it, Im not the only rocket scientist around to work that one out :-) here is their solution:

http://www.busymac.com/faq/config.html#mobileme-google

And it included the iPhone as well. Mine is the right 3/4ths only of this model so far; but now that I have the dreaded iPhone, I need to use this solution as well - or have I missed something? Alright, Im not *really* a rocket scientist.

Barns
PS: Birthdays from Address Book - thats another story