Combining home, work agendas with MobileMe

[basbr]

Will it be possible to combine my home agenda (iCal) and my work agenda (Outlook, Exchange) using MobileMe on iPhone 3G?

I would love to be able to make appointments on iPhone, push them to home and work - and have one overview of all my private and work-related appointments that day.

 

[MojoWill]

i think this should be possible jst by setting up the phone with both your exchange account for work and mobile me for home this is what i hope to do

 

[basbr]

i think this should be possible jst by setting up the phone with both your exchange account for work and mobile me for home this is what i hope to do

But will Outlook at work pick up my iCal appointments, and will iCall pick up my Outlook appointments?

 

[thomanjones]

I was wondering the same thing - with the 2.0 software and introduction of EAS, will I be able to segregate my company and personal contacts/calendars? I would hate to have 1000+ work contacts gumming up my personal address book. Does anyone have any info on this?

 

[citron230]

have you watched the MobileMe Video Tutorial? I thought this was one of its features, being able to go between iCal and Outlook's Calender.

 

[memesmith]

I've not no inside knowledge. But my assumptions based on keynote and the intro video are that:

The functionality is there - multiple calendars in iPhone Cal, access to global address book etc,
IF you are able to use Activesync to get at yoyr corporate outlook (ie deendant on your IT depts policy)
If NOT, there may be a work around with MobileMe, but it will require you set up rules to duplicate your work calendar into a MobileMe specific one on your work outlook.

 

[walnuts]

I'm interested in doing the same, but its unclear if it will be possible/free. From the way I see it, you have two options.

The first is that you have your ical setup on your Mac, and you have your phone directly link to your exchange account. The walk-through videos mention in passing that iphone 2.0 will have support for multiple calendars, but did not go into detail. Specifically, it said that separate calendars in iCal would be maintained separately on the iphone. However, it did not make clear if you could use separate calendars when making events on the iphone. In fact, I'm assuming that it would continue to be as it is now- all events made on the iphone are stuck to one calendar, chosen in itunes syncing prefs. This leaves you with a choice- maintain your personal calendar and not be able to accept meeting invites, or not be able to edit your personal calendar on the fly.

The second, which I do currently, is use entourage synced with your exchange account on your mac to sync to ical. This leaves you with a copy of your exchange calendar on your phone. This copy is only updated after you first update your exchange calendar on your mac (just open entourage and let it update) and then syncing your iphone. I haven't been brave enough to try editing events on the phone and seeing if they sync back. This of course has no push updating, however, it may be our only option without paying more. There are tons of threads on this, but it seems that ATT will only permit exchange access on business accounts- an extra $15 per month, which is a deal breaker for me.

 

[walnuts]

I was wondering the same thing - with the 2.0 software and introduction of EAS, will I be able to segregate my company and personal contacts/calendars? I would hate to have 1000+ work contacts gumming up my personal address book. Does anyone have any info on this?

I've wondered if this was done on purpose. Exchange may be entirely thought of as a "business" need. They won't allow a separation because you would only want your "business" stuff on your "business" phone. You'd have to have your personal stuff on your personal phone.

As it seems to me, traditionally, smart phones had plans that were way too expensive for consumers. These phones were mostly for business users who had work pay for their plans. These people might even have separate, personal phones for their personal life (thus, ATT might get two accounts). The iphone seems to be the first smart phone to really penetrate the consumer market. ATT might be stubbornly holding out on the old business/consumer separation, at the risk of annoying the small population of us who would like to access both work and play on our one phone.

Thus, the phone night have been intentionally made to be inconvenient in this way.

P.S. Sorry for the rants, but this has been really disappointing. I've been looking forward to iphone 2.0 and having my work and e-mail stuff all together on the fly, but now it looks like all I'm getting is apps and multiple e-mail editing- not much for the grand 2.0 software we've all been waiting for.

 

[AlanShutko]

The other reason might be that companies do not want you to have your calendar on a personally-owned device. Work calendars often contain sensitive information: attachments, meeting descriptions. Even just the title of a meeting or the location (ie, conference line) could give a competitor an idea what your company is doing.

Sucks, but that's life.