How To Setup Google Apps Account on iPad

IMPOR­TANT UPDATE SPRING 2013

As of Jan­u­ary 31, 2013, Google, not Apple, decid­ed to stop sup­port­ing Exchange ActiveSync on iOS devices. Before this date, it was a piece of cake to set­up one’s email, cal­en­dar and con­tacts with a two-way sync between Google Apps and one’s iPhone or iPad. The steps in this 2010 blog showed the OLD WAY. All that has changed. It is still rather easy set­ting up your device, but requires a man­u­al set­up and mul­ti­ple steps. View my 2013 Blog Post on the ​“new way” to set­up your Google Apps account. I wish the old way still worked. OLD POST I was asked by a client recent­ly how he could get his cal­en­dar, con­tacts and email on his new iPad eas­i­ly. He was not sure it can be done. Well, he was in luck. There is an easy way to get all three items in sync in 5 min­utes or less. Once it is set­up, you just have to be con­nect­ed to an Inter­net source. My client just pur­chased the new 3G iPad, and with­in a few min­utes, he had all of his infor­ma­tion in real time. He is using the iPad as his main ​“mobile office.” To get your mobile office run­ning on your iPad, I strong­ly sug­gest using the fol­low­ing pro­grams: Google Apps and Drop­box. If you are using Microsoft Out­look and want to con­tin­ue using MS Out­look, you need to sign up for Google Apps Pre­mier, which is $50 a user per year. 

Step by Step Set­up Step 1. Open Set­tings App
Step 2. Open ​“Mail, Con­tacts and Calendars
Step 3. Cre­ate a New Account- Under the Accounts Head­ing, Tap ​“Add Account”- Touch the first ​“Microsoft Exchange” logo
Step 4. Fill out Account Infor­ma­tionEmail: Google Apps email account: yourname@​yourcompanydomain.​comDomain: leave blank User­name: same as above ​“email” for Google Apps Account Pass­word: Google Apps Pass­word Descrip­tion: What­ev­er you’d like. I sug­gest, ​“Com­pa­ny Email” or ​“Google Apps Account” Then Click ​“Next”
Step 5. ​“Cer­tifi­cates and Ver­i­fy Account“You will receive a few pop ups to ver­i­fy your account. Just tap accept, con­tin­ue and/​or next when prompt­ed. Bot­tom­line: don’t tap ​“can­cel”
Step 6. Add ​“Serv­er” info- After you tap accept, you will see the pre­vi­ous screen appear with a new tab called ​“Serv­er”- Type in ​“m.google.com” and tap the blue next button
Step 7. Turn ON Mail, Con­tacts and Cal­en­dar- By default, the mail will be ​“ON” and the Con­tacts and Cal­en­dar will be on ​“OFF” mode- Turn ON the Con­tacts and Cal­en­dars. — If you already have con­tacts on you iPad, You will be prompt­ed with a pop up screen that will ask you if you wish to keep or delete your iPad con­tacts. To avoid dupli­cates, I’d rec­om­mend mak­ing sure that your Google Con­tacts are up to date and you remove all iPad con­tacts. Google should be the default. Tap Save…and you are done!

If you are not cur­rent­ly using Google Apps for your busi­ness or Drop­box and don’t know if that is a good move, email me with your questions.