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		<title>TidBITS: Comments on Google Drops Google Sync for Most iOS Users</title>
		<link>http://tidbits.com/</link>
		<description>For years, Google has offered Google Sync for syncing iOS calendars, contacts, and mail. Except for those who have paid Google Apps accounts, that option is going away.</description>
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		<copyright>Copyright 2012 TidBITS Publishing Inc.</copyright>
		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:00:00 EST</pubDate>
		<lastBuildDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:00:00 EST</lastBuildDate>
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		<item>
			<title><![CDATA[Comment from David Buckley]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17257</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:20:20 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17257</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (David Buckley)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[I agree that Da Big G does not encourage single users but I don't think they discourage it either. To me the real leap of faith is any webbish free mail account, Google, Yahoo, Hotmail/Outlook, etc..; I've heard tales of all of these services occasionally losing someones data. At least with G-Apps you can call a human and get real support as a paying customer. If you are only one you pays yer $50/year and you takes yer 25Gb web storage, real customer service and the ability to use all of the other services, with your own domain. Speaking from experience, the support is excellent and the SLA is quite adhered to with pro-rated refunds for downtime. You are, of course, your own administrator but it is reasonably straightforward. It's worth the cost, I believe.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Michael E. Cohen]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17253</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:23:11 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17253</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Michael E. Cohen)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[It's more complex than that from a usability point of view: while an individual user could use Apps that way, the description on the Google site does nothing to encourage the individual user to consider it as a viable option. Such a user would have to take a leap of faith in that regard.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Adam Engst]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17252</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:17:19 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17252</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Adam Engst)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[Ah, yes, you're right, and I should just delete that phrase, since while Google Apps isn't aimed at the individual user, there's certainly nothing that prevents someone from using it that way.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from David Buckley]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17251</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:43:56 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17251</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (David Buckley)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[I was responding to: "no single-user option seems to be offered." The fact that you can't migrate to paid, moving your data and that you can't merge accounts is really bad, I agree. But using G-Apps for business for a sole-proprietorship is really viable and, I think, under sold and under utilized.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Adam Engst]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17250</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:16:53 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17250</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Adam Engst)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[I think the problem is more that if you already have a free Google account that's associated with a Gmail address and whatnot, there's no way to convert that to a paid Google Apps account, thus forcing you to change your email address, which is a hassle.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Andrew Edsor]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17243</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 2013 01:02:11 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17243</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Andrew Edsor)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[For syncing of Calendars and Contacts without the help of iCloud or Google, and cross platform, fruux (sic)  is well worth a look at.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from damen pumps]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17241</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2013 23:56:09 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17241</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (damen pumps)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[The Google Calendar app update adds a few new things.<br>First, you can now make a call, or go to a show place for an event directly from the notification of this event, as in the following screenshots. We expect this is just another example of freelander i20 catch up with rich Android notifications, introduced in 4.1.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from David Buckley]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17239</link>
			<pubDate>Mon, 07 Jan 2013 20:07:39 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17239</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (David Buckley)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[Google Apps for Business is absolutely usable for a single person. You have the benefit of your own domain, as Google partners with webhosts like Enom and (awk!) GoDaddy, among others and you can convert to using Apps for business if using one of the existing host partners or switch if necessary pretty easily. Can be used for a sole proprietorship or just an individual who wants the benefit of Google's Service Level Agreement (guarantee of uptime) and really good customer support by phone, not just email/webform. Nice people actually answer the phone in a timely fashion and help when you have a problem.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Jim Reardon]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17161</link>
			<pubDate>Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:40:22 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17161</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Jim Reardon)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[I can offer one compelling reason to go with the open IMAP standard and forgo "push" e-mail:<br><br>Battery Life<br><br>Plain and simple.  Unless you think of e-mail as a paging service, you should turn off push e-mail and all forms of notification.  Your iPhone battery life will at least double, perhaps triple.<br><br>iMessage is good enough for those urgent notices. And it works well.  If you insist on being interrupted by every bit of mail entering your e-mail Inbox, you need a different sort of help.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Andreas Frick]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17098</link>
			<pubDate>Thu, 20 Dec 2012 07:52:24 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17098</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Andreas Frick)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[As far as I know, the MS Exchange protocol has not been totally disclosed. Google's step will enforce the development of imap extensions to incorporate push mail suitable for mobile devices. Maybe also Apple will drop support for exchange in future versions of iOS to enforce MS to better support of imap.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Michael E. Cohen]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17081</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2012 18:15:40 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17081</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Michael E. Cohen)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[As far as I know, there are some advantages and drawbacks. The big drawback is that invitations are not pushed with CalDAV as they would be with Google Sync. The advantage is that using CalDAV via the Gmail setup on the iPhone means that calendar colors sync between Google and iOS instead of being randomly assigned.]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Steve Harmony]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17080</link>
			<pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:37:17 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17080</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Steve Harmony)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[My iPhone 4s is presently using Google Sync to sync with my Google Calendar. So I'm grandfathered in, but I wonder if there's any advantage to going to the open standard?]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Michael E. Cohen]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17070</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:25:20 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17070</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Michael E. Cohen)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[IMAP IDLE is not feasible on a handheld device since it requires that the mail app maintain an always on connection to the server. Apple's Push Notification Servers use a different approach that is more battery friendly. I wrote about this, in fact, earlier this year:  "How Apple Mail May Be Anything but IDLE when Pushing Email," 22 October 2012,  <a href="http://tidbits.com/article/13344">http://tidbits.com/article/13344</a>]]></description>
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			<title><![CDATA[Comment from Bill Cole]]></title>
			<link>http://db.tidbits.com/article/13473?rss#comments_17069</link>
			<pubDate>Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:21:35 EST</pubDate>
			<guid>http://tidbits.com/article/13473#comments_17069</guid>
			<author><![CDATA[comments@tidbits.com (Bill Cole)]]></author>
			<description><![CDATA[Actually IMAP does have a "Push" capability, (using the IDLE command) its just that iOS doesn't implement it for generic IMAP accounts. There is push for iCloud accounts, and it is possible that Apple is using ActiveSync there, but they could be using IMAP IDLE]]></description>
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