Yesterday someone at work showed me what they could do from their new gen iPhone to connect to my work's M$ Exchange server...
So I tried it on my Touch with 2.1. I entered my email address and password, and voilà, iPod software 2.1 did the rest... I could connect to email, access my work calendar, Directory Services just worked, all of these integrate well. I seem to get the same functionality as outlook/exchange webmail for accepting calendar appointments, etc. I was very pleasantly surprised!
Then I turned to my Mac running OS X Leopard 10.5.5 to see if I could do these things (cough!). Apparently you still have to work on each app individually:
Also, I am currently in the MobileMe trial period. I thought at least I would get my work calendar in iCal via: Exchange calendar pushing to iPod > iPod to MobileMe server > iCal. Nope! This is strange because my Touch calendar and iCal are supposed to be in sync.
Side-note:
Personally, I do not like Exchange nor MS software to begin with but at work that is the only choice. Our IT Dept = MS Fanboys. In fact, to archive email onto a server (which is unavoidable due to a crappy quota, which is probably because Outlook becomes too slow without the quota), you actually need to install a Windows only app that downloads mail from Exchange, then re-uploads archives to a different server. How stupid is that!!
So I tried it on my Touch with 2.1. I entered my email address and password, and voilà, iPod software 2.1 did the rest... I could connect to email, access my work calendar, Directory Services just worked, all of these integrate well. I seem to get the same functionality as outlook/exchange webmail for accepting calendar appointments, etc. I was very pleasantly surprised!
Then I turned to my Mac running OS X Leopard 10.5.5 to see if I could do these things (cough!). Apparently you still have to work on each app individually:
- Mail: I could get my inbox to work with the external address using IMAP, not Exchange, but could not figure out SMTP with the external address. I still need to run VPN and use an internal server address to send mail.
- iCal: no joy. No matter what I try, I cannot connect to the Calendar server with internal or external addresses
- Address Book: LDAP/ActiveDirectory access works with a different internal server only (after a lot of tinkering), but not with the external address
Also, I am currently in the MobileMe trial period. I thought at least I would get my work calendar in iCal via: Exchange calendar pushing to iPod > iPod to MobileMe server > iCal. Nope! This is strange because my Touch calendar and iCal are supposed to be in sync.
Side-note:
Personally, I do not like Exchange nor MS software to begin with but at work that is the only choice. Our IT Dept = MS Fanboys. In fact, to archive email onto a server (which is unavoidable due to a crappy quota, which is probably because Outlook becomes too slow without the quota), you actually need to install a Windows only app that downloads mail from Exchange, then re-uploads archives to a different server. How stupid is that!!