As I understand, the Android phone can only sync with Google (GMail, Google Calendar, etc.) out of the box. I can imagine corporate users having a problem with their data residing on Google's servers — despite their "do no evil" credo.
Is there any Android application that lets you sync with the desktop (either Linux or Windows) or corporate server applications (think Exchange)?
-
Using this, Android will sync with Exchange servers. Third party apps are easy to write; I think you're overestimating Google's evilness here. They just got a little head start because they wrote the OS too.
From pjz -
Several large corporations seem to have moved their servers to GMail and universities. Why would you trust them any less than RIM?
You're probably best to try and sync your desktop applications with GMail/Google Calendar/etc. rather than your Android directly, that's just not how it's designed to be used.
Francisco Canedo : Who said that I trust RIM? Besides, this is not about trust. For me, not having your data on someone else's servers, is just common sense. It certainly seems like Google is a trustworthy company and usually the atmosphere at a company will permeate through its employees. But can I really trust each and every employee at Google? There must be dozens — if not hundreds — of people at Google with access to the data in one way or another. Furthermore, look at their terms of service, they go to extraordinary lengths to protect themselves from liability should your data get stolen or lost.pjc50 : Just recently it was reported that Microsoft lost all the T-mobile Sidekick data, with no backups..From Mike McQuaid -
You are wrong! Android itself does not sync with Google - the G1 and Magic contain Google proprietary software that syncs with Google. If you wanted to sync with something else, the API is there for you to program it yourself.
From Isaac Waller -
Flash CyanogenMod firmware on it
Go to the "Work Email" app, put in your Exchange Activesync credentials, Bob's your uncle.
The "Work Email" app is by HTC, the device manufacturers, and I believe has been nicked from the firmware of another Android device. Unfortunately that .apk doesn't install on "standard" G1s.
If rooting/flashing isn't an option for you, then use an IMAP client, plenty available free in the Market. (With the Work Email app you get Exchange global address list integration, which is just fab)
Benoit : Ok for the email, but what about contacts, calendars and sms?From tomfanning -
Mark/Space is coming out with a software that will directly sync with your desktop:
http://www.markspace.com/products/android/missing-sync-android.html
-
I think its a scarey world when Google can disable anyone's account, which also affects your $400 Android, making it practically useless. Google disabled my account with out any notice, my work calendar is gone, my work contacts are gone, my notes are all gone. And I cannot sync anything. Google seems to take great satisfaction over destroying people's lives. I no longer have any of the information it took me months to program into my phone. They just "took it away" its like taking away someones freedom and throwing them in jail for no reason. This is just plain scary. I am returning my Android, and I would advise that anyone who uses google for all of their information and data etc., take heed, that Google has the ability to take away a very important part of your life. That should be illegal.
wzzrd : Though I don't take the "don't be evil"-mantra for granted, I find it hard to believe they just disabled your account without giving you a reason or a notice. And even then, I think you would be able to find out why and protest it. Do you actually believe any other the other large free e-mail providers, like MS or Yahoo cannot disable your account, by the way? This is not limited to Google in any way. -
Just another "success story" with Google & Android - the account that I've set up for my Droid have been removed by google without any notification and my calendar has now gone. I wasn't keeping much stuff there, but the fact itself IS VERY CONCERNING.
Whoever believes salesman's stories about "securely storing information in the cloud" must be getting seriously confused. Good luck :)
-
Telling us which phone you have would help quite a bit, I think.
That being said, I use the out-of-the-box functions with GMail and they do the job perfectly. If you don't trust Google, don't put any sensitive material on your phone. After all, phones might just get lost and then your data is gone as well. I'd rather put my money on Google than putting it on me not losing my phone, ever.
If you'd have a HTC phone, HTC Sync does the job for windows machines just fine. Not entirely sure if there's a Linux or Mac version for the software.
HTC also let you sync with Exchange, I've used it for a couple of days and it worked great, but then we started working on our OCS implementation and it broke - haven't had time to fix it.
One last piece of software you might want to check though: NitroDesk TouchDown: http://www.nitrodesk.com/ I've only briefly installed it so no experiences to share, but I've read and heard good things.
Good luck!
From HannesFostie -
It may not be limited to google.. but my contract is with my phone provider. Not storing my phone numbers in my phone is a silly answer.
I don't want google to have my contacts. They are already tracking things we do in real time and selling the information, in real time, to advertising companies. It's only a very small ethical step sideways for them to sell or monitor my contact information and email addresses.
I don't want my android phone to sync with google.
As soon as i discovered it was doing it (it took 3 techs from my phone provider to figure it out) I disabled synch... and viola... ALL of my contact information disappeared from my phone.
My phone is no longer the master device.. GMAIL is!!!
And if I delete the contacts from the Gmail account, it clearly tells me they will be lost from my android phone.
Unacceptable..
To whomever said that the original OP was giving google too much credit for being evil.. you are either in for a surprise or you don't value your privacy.
After reading through this thread, I'm still not sure its possible to successfully disable phone synch with Gmail without losing all the contacts in my android Moment phone.
Anyone?
-
I don't doubt that any other email provider can disable your account. Yahoo has done it, Hotmail (Microsoft) has done it, etc. The problem here is that if my MSN or Yahoo email accounts get closed, my phone doesn't lose all it's data. I use Outlook, which saves all my emails, whether or not they are on the server. Outlook saves my contacts, calendar, etc. My Windows Mobile 6 phone syncs directly to Outlook, and can be considered a "backup" of all my data. My computer died and I lost everything from it. When I rebuilt it, I re-sync'd Outlook to my phone and viola! Everything was back where it should be.
Google on the other hand, will delete everything off your phone when your account gets disabled. They should not have that ability!
From Mike -
Also when google "disables" your gmail account you can no longer access the android marketplace on your phone. Your phone isn't aware that your gmail account is disabled, it just seems to think it is inaccesable so it will keep trying to synch in a background process. My phones battery life is now only 2 hours because of that issue.
And you can't unassociatte a gmail account from an android phone once the gmail account has been disabled because you need to login to gmail from your phone to edit/remove accounts. Which is obviously impossible since the gmail account has been disabled.
I was all anti ipod up until now. Google fucking sucks.
From baywatch -
How about also synching gMail, contacts and calendar with Thunderbird, this way even if your Google gets lost for some reason, it will stay in TB local cache. gMail can be synched with TB by either POP3 or IMAP (yes, TB can cache IMPA). You also have TB extensions to synch with gMail Contacts and Google Calendar.
-
Yes you can "unassociate" your gmail account from your phone by going to Settings->Applications->Manage Applications, select Gmail and click "Clear Data". A simple search on Google will give you this answer, you're just too busy cursing Google to see the obvious answer.
From Freddy -
To not loose your contact when disabling sync or deleting from gmail, select "Phone" for Contact type when adding a new contact. This contact will not be synced with Google.
From Freddy -
When adding a contact, there is no option to select or change the contact type. A handful of accounts (those imported from gchat, it appears?) have links to both Google and Phone, but when the one's Google Account is disabled, BOTH links are removed from the phone rather than just removing the Google link and leaving the Phone link.
From JDawgett
0 comments:
Post a Comment