Master Dilettante

This is Part II in a series describing my iPhone 3G issues and how I’ve addressed them.  Last, I described how to conserve the battery life, although the iPhone Firmware 2.1 upgrade was certainly the biggest factor.  Today, I describe how my Microsoft Exchange integration broke and describe my somewhat involved setup and sync needs.  This will set the stage for my exploration of solutions.

In brief:  I upgraded to iPhone Firmware 2.1, and my Microsoft Exchange integration broke.  I work at eBay, where we use Microsoft Exchange, Outlook and Web mail.  With my BlackBerry Pearl, everything just worked, without a thought.  With iPhone Firmware 2.0, 2.01 and 2.02, I was delighted that everything just worked too — a seamless transition from RIM, right?  Wrong!  With iPhone Firmware 2.1, email stopped arriving completely and all my contacts and calendar events were deleted from my iPhone and no longer syncing.

This was a disaster because of my setup.  I have a PC at work and a Mac at home, but I have (foolishly?) relied for the past 2 companies and 8 years entirely on my work Outlook to manage my calendar and contacts.  In other words, I have no other complete record of calendar events and contact information other than in Outlook.  With the Exchange integration broken, I now had an empty iPhone calendar and empty contacts.  Nothing, no ability even to call anyone without looking up their number in Outlook.  (No one memorizes numbers in this day and age, do they?)

Realizing this is a dangerous dependency, I recently had started to look to backup my data online.  First, I installed Yahoo! Autosync to sync Outlook with Yahoo! Address Book and Yahoo! Calendar.  This didn’t work very well.  I have close to 1000 contacts records in Outlook.  Inevitably, the number of contacts, in Yahoo! Address Book didn’t match the number in Outlook, Yahoo! Autosync failed to merge records for the same person, and, in many cases, critical information was missing.  Probably some sort of problem with field mapping.  Inelegant.

Second, I exported my Outlook contacts to a comma-delimited .csv file and then imported them into Gmail.  This had the same problem as Yahoo! Autosync — mismatched record counts, non-merged records and missing data.  I also tried Google Calendar sync to sync between Outlook and Gcal.  This worked fairly well but takes an inordinately long time to complete; I think the application starts afresh with every sync.

With broken Exchange integration and no clear solutions on Apple’s discussion boards, I now needed an alternative method to get calendar and contacts synced with my iPhone.

Here’s what I want:

• Ubiquitous access to email, contacts and calendar — from my work desktop, from my home desktop, from any Web terminal and from my mobile device . . . . For me, this means Outlook, Web mail, Gmail/Gcal, Yahoo mail/Address Book/Calendar, Mac Address Book/iCal and iPhone
• Uniform data — no duplication of entries, no omitted entries and consistent data across platforms
• Over-the-air sync — what good is a mobile device if I have to plug it in to get data on it?

Clearly, as much as Apple claims to be targeting enterprises with the iPhone, Apple isn’t ready.  They don’t even use Exchange at Apple is my understanding.  They don’t understand enterprise activation.  They don’t understand Enterprise-level support:  After several calls to Apple, their ultimate advice was:  We have no idea why Exchange broke, too bad, good luck.  Thankfully, email spontaneously restored after a couple of days, but I will no longer trust to the Exchange integration for my calendar and contacts, which remained broken last time I attempted to integrate.

Next post, the available options.

I know I’ve been complaining a lot about my iPhone.  Apple products are supposed to just work — that’s their brand — and this one just hasn’t, at least not for me.  But I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of technology torture, and just about everything’s working now, if not the way I would have liked originally.  I’m going to recount in the next few posts my trials and tribulations and how I overcame them.

Recall my most recent complaints:  (1) abysmal battery life and (2) broken Microsoft Exchange integration.

I was sometimes getting less than 5 hours of battery life, even after Apple replaced my unit with a new one.  Firmware 2.1 plus some more prudent battery conservation practices have all but solved #1.  I’ve read too many articles, blog posts and discussion board threads on this to recount.  Plus, I’ve finally succumbed to logical suggestions — most of which I daresay I had heard already — from BW and ES.  Here’s what’s worked for me:

First, I’m only fetching data now, and only hourly.  Such is the disappointment of and lowered expectations in performance of the iPhone 3G that the very reason for buying it — push — is what must be disabled to provide more reasonable battery life.  I’m not even upset that I don’t get push, because it was working so poorly — that battery-killing wheel seemed to be spinning constantly — and I’m so grateful for longer battery life.

Second, I’ve slightly reduced the number of accounts from which I’m fetching data.  I have work Exchange, Yahoo, Gmail and MobileMe accounts.  Instead of fetching data from all of them, I’m forwarding Gmail to Yahoo and fetching from Yahoo.  I use MobileMe only for calendar and contacts syncing, so I have it set up but never check that email.  And I’m even fetching from my work email account.  I came to terms with the fact that I don’t need push email to distract me in meetings, and I already get push when sitting in front of my destop with Outlook open.

Third, I’ve turned brightness down fairly low.  Even with a protective film on the glass, it’s still bright enough for me.

Fourth, I’ve left Bluetooth and Location Services on.  I use my Bluetooth headset to and from work every day, it’s too much of a pain to go into Settings to deactivate and activate it repeatedly, and I’m not convinced it’s a drain on the battery.  For Location Services, much of the time I have this off, but I just end up switching it on when prompted when using Google Maps or some other geo-aware application that calls for it.

Finally, I’ve left both 3G and Data Roaming turned on.  As eBay alumnus Ryan Spoon notes, push has a much greater effect on battery life than 3G.  I know at least one other iPhone 3G owner — ES –  who switches off 3G not because of the perceived battery life drain but because he believes the network is unreliable and results in dropped calls.  I’m accessing the Internet often enough that I want the speed from its being on all the time.

The net effect?  I can go over a day without recharging.  And I don’t live in constant fear of a sudden drained-battery-induced shutdown.  Frackin’ fantastic.  Reasonable battery life?  Check!

Next, I’ll bemoan the complete failure of Exchange integration, my data sync requirements and then the awkward but functioning solutions I’ve devised.

Some of you may know that I’ve been having myriad problems with my iPhone 3G, mostly around rapidly deteriorating battery life and inability to restore from backup.

Today, Apple released the new 2.1 firmware, and it’s broken my Exchange integration.  Right now, I have no calendar, no contacts and no email — the unit is useless to me without these core functions.  I’ve tried deleting the Exchange account and re-adding it, but that doesn’t help.  Apple support forums indicate that at least a few others are experiencing the same problem.  Frankly, I’m sick of the inability of the iPhone to perform basic functions, and I’m seriously thinking about switching back to BlackBerry.

Two reasons to buy Apple products:  (1) They just work and (2) sex appeal.  So far, (1) is absent leaving my iPhone decidely unsexy.