Up until now I’ve been using Goosync to manage my Calendar on my iPod Touch.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was the only way I could find to sync my iPod with my Google Calendar, which I use for everything.  In fact I just recently wrote about using GooSync as one of my favorite iPod Apps.

Well that all changed today when I downloaded the iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update.  Sadly this is a free update for the iPhone, but it costs $10 for the iPod Touch.  I looked carefully at the updated features (there are over 100) and decided that it had enough for me to justify the outlay.  The best update as far as I’m concerned is to enable direct syncing with external calendar services using CalDAV or iCal.  Although Google really hasn’t made it easy to figure out how to do it, they released support for CalDAV almost a year ago.  They have some detailed instructions on how to sync Google Calendar with Apple iCal on the web at Google Help.  Although these instructions didn’t provide an exact step by step for how to sync with my iPod, it was enough to get me going.

Here’s how to do it on the iPod Touch (and I assume it is the same or very similar on the iPhone):

1. Click on the Settings icon on your iPod
2. Open “Mail, Contacts, Calendars“
3. Click “Add Account…“
4. Choose “Other“
5. Choose “Add CalDAV Account“
6. Enter the following information:
   • Server: www.google.com
   • User Name: your Google Account username
   • Password: your Google Account password
   • Description: anything you like, I like “Google Calendar” myself
7. Hit Next, and it will verify your account details, then return you to the Accounts screen
8. Scroll all the way down to the “Calendars” panel and click on “Default Calendar“
9. Choose the CalDAV Calendar that you just entered

Your iPod calendar will now automatically sync with your Google Calendar at the frequency you have selected in the “Fetch New Data” panel.  Set it to Push to have it go automatically (drains the battery faster) or choose a Fetch frequency.

This is an awesome addition to the iPod Touch and I’m look forward to using it!

Related Posts

1. Useful iPhone and iPod Touch Apps
2. Get the Dropbox iPhone App
3. iPod Playlist Sort Order
4. Saying Bye to a computer? Take iTunes with you!
5. The new iPod Nano has a camera, but the Touch doesn’t?