First Iphone initial setup, specifically google services & icloud

[estockme]

Hi all- I have my first iphone on the way and am trying to answer some setup questions ahead of time. I see a couple different positions on these issues in the forum so i thought I would put my specific situation forward:
editing for length: do i keep my existing google service, switch to icloud or use exchange to sync both ways?

calendar

contacts

best way to use gmail: imap - exchange - web - google app? I do send from multiple addresses. also have @me mail but haven't used it yet, just set it up w/ icloud.

 

[wacky4alanis]

I'm not sure exactly what your requirements are, but you can (2-way) sync your contacts and/or calendar to gmail without using iCloud. That's exactly what I do (using Exchange). I've been doing it since long before iOS 5 came out. It works very nicely. Anything I enter on the web immediately appears on the iPhone, and vice versa. I have no need for any of the iCloud services, so I don't use it.

For the actual gmail mail, I'm not using exchange, but to be honest, I don't remember why. I have a separate (IMAP? - whatever the default mail handler is) account set up for that. Looking back, I think it may have been because I set that one up before Exchange was supported, so I just stuck with it out of habit. But I'm not sure.

 

[kalex]

I would suggest u connect your gmail services via exchange as it works very well. IOS5 supports multiple exchange accounts so there should not be any issues. I tried apple's email before and found it lacking so I don't use icloud services. With gmail u don't need them as u can sync contacts, calendar and email just fine.