The iPhone calendar app is great but synchonising it with office and home calendars can be a nightmare. The iPhone only syncs over the air to Micrsoft "Exchange" or Apple "MobileMe" accounts. At JPY, we run neither but did have a MeetingMaker server to urgently replace. We wanted iPhone flexibility plus Mac-based access to our schedules and we wanted it all joined-up. And we wanted it now!

However, what seemed like a reasonable requirement proved to be a major headache. iPhones have limited "over-the-air" synchronisation which is restricting. Apple's iCal Server doesn't integrate with iPhone and the iCal client requires Open Directory and has no web-based interface. Syncing iPhone calendars using iTunes was too clumsy.

Meanwhile, Google Calendar's web interface was usable plus it can be accessed via iCal (using CalDAV). But this left the iPhone out of the picture.

To cut a long story short, enter Nuevasync, a web service which makes your Google Calendar look like an Exchange calendar, and therefore synchronises with an iPhone wirelessly. It's in beta, free and it 'just works'. We're not affiliated Google or Nuevasync, but such a fine solution deserves praise.

Shortly before going to press, Google announced Google Sync for iPhone. Although this is also a beta version, we have no doubt it will soon provide similar functionality to Nuevasync.