Lotus Nut

First of all, this is not quite as easy as it should be. For one, you can't force an initial one-way push from iPhone to Google. It's either merging both or overwriting the iPhone's contacts with those from your Google account (the contacts are actually stored in GMail). Make sure you read all of the steps below before just going through them... Also note that these instructions are for Windows, although this should work in much the same manner for Mac. I originally had been synchronizing with MS Outlook, but on my new laptop Outlook was never loaded. So I decided that I would make all of this work with Google now that it's available.

In my case, I had a lot of good contact information on my iPhone that I did not want to lose. But after the initial merge there were a lot of duplicated email addresses. So I proceeded with the cleanup and came up with a nice little procedure below. Also, take note of step 17 - ongoing contact modifications are only one-way (for now) from Google to iPhone. Hopefully this will change with newer versions of iTunes.

1. Get iTunes 7.7 (for Windows)
2. I'm 99.9% certain you don't have to have iPhone 2.0 software to do this since it was available from Mac iTunes for a little while, so this should work with any iPhone.
3. Dock your iPhone and switch to the Info tab for the device and select "Google Contacts" for the contacts sync.
4. Put in your GMail account username and password.
5. Accept the license agreement and this should kick off the initial sync.
6. Choose to merge the contacts.
7. Open GMail in your browser and switch to the "Older Version" at the top right. In the newer/default version, none of the contacts from my iPhone were visible (even though the number of contacts reflected it). In the older version they are all visible - make sure they are all here!!
8. Export your contacts to GMail CSV.
9. Save a copy of that CSV as a backup.
10. Modify the CSV to have the contacts you want. If you're like me, there are probably a good many one-off contacts that you don't want synched to the iPhone. I deleted the vast majority of these. The deletion of the "extra" contacts can also be performed from GMail prior to step 8.
11. Switch back to GMail (should still be in "older version" and DELETE ALL of the contacts! You heard me right...
12. Sync your iPhone again and you'll be prompted to confirm the deletion of all contacts. Confirm this.
13. Switch back to GMail and Import the CSV that you saved in Step 10.
14. Verify that all of the contacts look OK.
15. Switch back to the "Newer Version".
16. I noticed that many of my Contacts were all listed under "Suggested Contacts". You will want to select them all and choose "Move to My Contacts".
17. Sync your iPhone again and all of the contacts will be pushed to the device.
17. Please note that if you modify a contact on the iPhone that it does NOT (yet) push that change up to GMail. You'll have to modify the GMail contact and this will send the changes to the iPhone at the next sync.

Not to be confused with the iPhone 3G (the newly-released hardware that I hope to acquire sometime), the iPhone 2.0 software is now available. I actually loaded mine yesterday after reading of the availability at iPhone Central. Although the 1st Generation iPhones can run this same 2.0 software, there are some extra features that the iPhone 3G will have due to the hardware upgrade. Obviously, it will take advantage of the 3G data networks and it has built-in GPS.

My upgrade to iPhone 2.0 went fairly smoothly. After loading it, I immediately went to the AppStore to get some applications. I was surprised at how many useful, free apps there are! Lifehacker has a list of some of these.

Some of the ones I have loaded are:

• Remote - remotely control your iTunes library over wi-fi. This will be even better if they allow streaming from iTunes through the iPhone! I have noticed some quirks with this when the display shuts off (volume control stops working, play/pause is confused, basically it just stops working!), but closing to the home screen and opening the app brings back the functionality.
• Facebook - works fairly well. I actually really like Facebook's iPhone web app. It actually has more functionality in general. However, the Facebook app allows you to upload photos as well as use Facebook chat
  
• Twitterific - I am not giving up on this yet. I have been using the Hahlo Twitter web app for a while and really dig it, but I will keep trying to use Twitterific.
  
• AOL Radio - Lots of streaming radio stations with options to look for local stations. Works well
• eBay - I like this app a lot so far.
• Bank of America - I am not a customer, but kudos to you for doing this. I have considered switching to BoA because of this. My bank tells me to just use Safari because all of the functionality works. Ok...thanks
• Contacts - So this is pre-loaded with the software. You no longer have to go to the Phone application just to see the contacts!
• WeatherBug - I think I will dig this one. I have been using Weather Underground's excellent web app (http://i.wund.com) for a while. I don't like the radar feature with WeatherBug

So there you go. Enjoy the software upgrade if you are not going to be going to the 3G anytime soon. You can also hold the "home" button and press the top button to take a screenshot!

Oh yeah, since this is a Lotus blog, here is iNotes:



I also have to mention that I find it funny that when adding a mail server that Microsoft Exchange is listed before Apple's mobileme product as an available mail server!! They must have really got in good with Apple!

I just read this over at Kevin Hansen's blog:

This month, an Exchange server will go live in our organization. It will be connected to Domino to allow us to deliver iPhone services to our corporate users. We have a number of iPhones requested from our user community and more are sure to come.

Somehow, I don't believe this is they type of response to John Head's "Call to Action" that was anticipated. Kevin also states that this will be opening the door for more use of Exchange in his company and some likely migrations from Notes mail for certain groups.

It was asked at Ed Brill's blog if companies would seriously choose to move to Exchange just to support the iPhone - apparently the answer is yes. As I'm writing this, there are 367 signatures at the iPetition. This represents mobile users in the tens of thousands. Let us hope that more of these companies do not see more pressure to deliver push mail to iPhones.

I do believe that IBM is trying to get this all sorted with Apple - and much of it is out of IBM's hands. I have tested and provided some feedback on Lotus iNotes Ultralite. I think it is a good interim solution for those who need access to Domino mail from an iPhone. But, I think we all agree that it does not provide the desired long-term solution we all want for push mail and pim sync.

Further, to reiterate what Ed said, none of us really know how the Exchange services are going to work on the iPhone. There has been past debate about whether Exchange Server with Windows Mobile devices actually provides "push" mail. So will the iPhone implementation of this be more of a constant pull than a push? (Not that end-users actually care - they just want instant access to mail...)

I do not want to keep this debate going, but with the knowledge now that there are companies considering Exchange implementations to do this, we should keep this in mind.

If you do, then please go sign this petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/iPhoneAndLotus/

And even if you're reading this blog and you're not a Lotus Notes user or even an iPhone user, sign it anyway!!!