The word “cloud” is thrown about a lot these days, with services such as Amazon’s EC2 bringing the cloud within the reach of your humble developer. For the uninitiated, Wikipedia describes cloud computing as the following:

Cloud computing is Internet- (“cloud-”) based development and use of computer technology (“computing”). In concept, it is a paradigm shift whereby details are abstracted from the users who no longer have need of, expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them.

Understand?.. No?.. Neither did I. I see the cloud as a magical room up in the sky, filled with an infinite number of computers that can store as much data as you like, and do a zillion calculations a second. The best part is you can access it from almost anywhere because it’s always up above you. It’s considered the future of computing, with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, all competing in the race to become the cloud king.

So now that I’ve written an intro around the fluffy photo above, I’ll get onto the real post. What I love most about keeping my data in the cloud, is that it allows me to keep my data backed up in once place, and synchronized with all of my devices including my iPhone. Google have a number of services that help you do this, which I use to sync all of my email, contacts, and calendar entries “over the air” (another fancy term). If you’re nice, I’ll show you how to do it.

Doesn’t iTunes already do this for me?

Well kinda, but you have to plug your phone in for it to update your contacts, and it will only synchronize your calendar with Outlook (or the Mac equivalent)! If you follow these instructions, you’ll be constantly up to date without having to think about it.

1. You must have a Google account

If you haven’t already, head over to mail.google.com and sign up for a new account. Please please please use a sensible username, and save fluffy_bunny_69 or imdahottest for your Hotmail account. Have a play around and get a feel of your new home, then check out calendar.google.com to activate the calendar. You use the same username and password for every Google application, but you have to log in at least once to activate them.

2. Turn off iTunes sync

Next, we want to completely disable iTunes controlling the synchronization of your data. If we leave this enabled, it will mess with the data you store in the cloud.

• Open iTunes
• Connect your iPhone
• Go to the “Info” tab
• Ensure that synching of contacts, calendar and mail are all disabled.

3. Connect to Gmail via IMAP

The IMAP protocol allows you to keep your email messages synchronized between all of your clients and the server. You can use the standard Gmail option in your iPhone settings, but Google recommend that you use the custom account configuration:

What if I tap ‘Gmail’ instead?
Archiving and deleting messages will work differently. Our instructions ensure Gmail works as designed.

In particular this deals with the way Gmail archives emails instead of deleting them directly. Although not completely necessary, it’s probably best to follow their instructions.

4. Setup Google as an Exchange account

The Microsoft Exchange system is the market leader in the enterprise communication market, and for good reason. The wise folks at Google realised this and have emulated an Exchange server, which your iPhone can connect to. Now Google suggests that you enable synchronization of all of your data this way, but I recommend that you do not enable Mail synchronization via Exchange. I find the iPhone has trouble receiving notifications of incoming mail, especially when you have a large number of emails.

With the above caveat, follow these instructions on configuring an Exchange account.

5. Choose which calendars to sync

Whenever I add a new Google calendar, I always forget this step and wonder why it’s not working. It’s such a simple step that I bet you’ll do the same. Just head on over to m.google.com/sync, log in with your Google account, and pick which calendars you want configured. Bookmark the page so you can update your options in the future.

6. Play in the clouds

Now you’re set up with your data in the cloud! When you put new people in your phone book they’ll instantly be transferred to your Google contacts, and events you add to your calendar will always stay in sync between devices. Fiddle with the options, and suss out how to make it best work for you. Just remember if you’re going to play in the clouds, don’t forget to bring your umbrella!

Bonus!

For those of you who’ve made it past the corny images, here’s a bonus Facebook tip. With the latest version of the Facebook iPhone app, you can enable automatic synchronization of your contact’s profile pictures. Enable this using the “sync” button at the top right of the “Friends” page (choose both options). If you followed the above instructions, the pictures will also float up into the cloud and be added to your Google contacts!

In the future I’ll show you how to add Facebook events to your calendar, and how to share calendars with family and friends, but are there any other ways that you synchronize your data and live in the cloud?