The New Way To Setup Google Apps on iPhone or iPad

As of Jan­u­ary 31, 2013, Google decid­ed to stop sup­port­ing Exchange ActiveSync. 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. All that has changed. It is still rather easy set­ting up your device, but requires a man­u­al set­up and mul­ti­ple steps. If you stum­bled upon this blog and won­dered what the old way was pri­or to Jan­u­ary of this year, my 2010 arti­cle called How To Set­up Google Apps on Your iPad is here. As long as you do not have to reset your iPad or IOS device, the old way works. When you are ready to buy a new device or upgrade, you’ll need to fol­low new instruc­tions. Sev­er­al Options To Set­up Your Device

1. Gmail App for Email Only: If you just want to send and receive your emails, you can down­load the Gmail App from the App Store. This is actu­al­ly what I do now. I like it because I have more con­trol over my sig­na­tures, away mes­sages, etc. So I no longer use the built in IOS Mail App. All you do is down­load the app, type in your Gmail user­name and pass­word, and you are all set. Down­load it Here
2. Set­up Google Apps Email & Cal­en­dar on Device: If you want to use the built in mail app and cal­en­dar fea­tures, just click on SET­TINGS > MAIL, CON­TACTS, CAL­EN­DARS > then tap Add Account. Next Tap the GMAIL icon. Fill in your name, user­name (your full email), pass­word and the for the Descrip­tion label it what­ev­er you’d like (i.e. Busi­ness Account). Once it is ver­i­fied, your email, notes and cal­en­dars should work just fine. A more thor­ough step by step approach can be found on the google site. When this step is done, make sure you dou­ble check your default set­tings. You can default your email to be per­son­al or busi­ness. This can be found on the MAIL, CON­TACTS, CAL­EN­DARS sec­tion in SET­TINGS. As you scroll down, you’ll see the options.
3. Set­up Google Apps Cal­en­dar using Cal­en­dar+ App: If you want an easy way to Sync mul­ti­ple google cal­en­dars and have a Google Cal­en­dar-like inter­face, I have switched to using Cal­en­dar+ app on the Apple Store. I like it because the col­ors I use for each cal­en­dar are in sync with Google. To down­load the paid app, click here (type in your google username/​password) and you are all set. This is for those who real­ly don’t want to be all that techie and deal with Google and Apple com­pat­i­bil­i­ty issues.
4. Set­up Con­tacts to Sync with Google: To make sure your con­tacts are in two-way sync with Google Con­tacts, fol­low a very sim­i­lar approach as one of the meth­ods above. Google Sup­port explains it best. Click on this link to fol­low their steps: Sync Con­tacts with iPhone