Using Apple iPhone and iPod touch with Communications Suite 7

This information describes how to use your Apple iPhone and iPod touch to work with Communications Suite products, including syncing your email, calendar, and contacts. Both current and future support is described.

Note Support for these devices is focused on over-the-air rather than tethered solutions.

Topics:

Current Support Provided by Communications Suite

The two ways to connect your Apple iPhone and iPod touch to access Communications Suite 6 services (including Messaging Server 7 and Calendar Server 6.3) are by using:

1. Native Apple applications
2. NotifyLink Gateway

Each solution has pros and cons, as the following sections describe.

Native Application Support Built-in to iPhone and itouch

• Accessing Messaging Server (email). You configure the native Apple client to use the IMAP protocol. You then can decide whether to configure the client to:
  1. Always check for email updates ("push" model enabling a near real-time update)
  2. Check for email updates by using a timer based method (for example, check every thirty minutes)
  3. Manually check for email updates
     The push model causes the device to both use more power and bandwidth, so this method might not be acceptable to all users.
• Accessing Calendar Server. Starting with Calendar 7, you can use Apple's CalDAV client, as long as you are using OS 3.0. See Configuring CalDAV Clients for Calendar Server 7. If you are not using OS 3.0, you can use a CalDAV client on a personal computer to access the CalDAV server, download data to the personal computer, then connect your iPhone to the personal computer and sync it through iTunes.
• Accessing Contacts (address book). Currently, there is no native application that enables you to sync your contacts over the air. You must use the tethered solution and iTunes to sync the device. For example, see http://www.mkoby.com/2007/08/01/itunesipod-tips-tricks-contacts-calendar/.

  Note Currently, there is a known incompatibility with iTunes and Connector for Outlook.

From the Apple App Store

You can use Todo+Cal+Sync (from Synthesis AG) to synchronize your Calendar Server 6.3 data. The only caveat is that Todo+Sync+Cal uses a separate database on the iPhone for calendar data, which means you do not use the native iCal application for accessing calendar and instead use this application.

NotifyLink Gateway

You can use NotifyLink to access email (Messaging Server), calendar (Calendar Server 6.3), and contact information (AddressBook) over the air. Users can choose which type of data they want to sync through a web-based interface. You might want to use Apple's native email client for IMAP mail, and NotifyLink for your calendar and contact information. The downside to using NotifyLink is that you must install separate hardware and software, or pay to have this service hosted for you. Additionally, NotifyLink does not support multiple calendars.

Future Support That Might Be Provided by Communications Suite

These items could be at least one year away.

Email

The ideal scenario would be for the iPhone to support Lemonade, providing a Blackberry-like experience. However, the chances of this happening any time soon are slim. Another idea in the works is for enhancing push notifications to phones that provide the sender and subject of a new message. Such enhancements would require updating Communications Suite servers as well as updates to the client side devices.

Calendar

Calendar Server 7 might be updated with WCAP capability to communicate with Connector for Outlook. Additionally, a fix might be provided for the current issue for tethered sync for iPhone/itouch.

Contacts

Apple is likely to release a native CardDAV client for iPhone (just as they did for CalDAV for calendar), though the timeline is unknown at this point. In general, the move is away from tethered sync to over-the-air sync of data.

Currently, a known problem with Calendar Server 6 affects Connector for Outlook (Windows users). When getting the calendar data to Outlook, traditionally users could use tethered sync to get that data to a phone device. However, this does not work for the currently shipping Connector for Outlook. There is a potential for this problem to be fixed in the future.