Image via CrunchBase

I have had my iPhone 3G since May.  I really love it and to say it has become an extension of many things that I do is an understatement.

However, I am finding that the iPhone and other Apple products do not natively or sometimes easily interact with Google Docs, Contacts or Calendar – I understand the competition between the two companies, but it is a pain in the butt sometimes when I want them to synch up easily and they don’t.

I use gCal a lot with my blogs and Google Sites for my classroom, but I like the desktop Apple counterparts most of the time for working and inputting information (plus I like the clean look better too), they are there if there is no Internet connectivity, which can be an issue in some places.  I was having a lot of trouble synching them up and keeping the information the same, which almost made for some embarrassing situations last year and this summer when they had different information that didn’t synch correctly.

I tried Apple’s Mobile Me and was not impressed with its capabilities and lack of ability to use its calendar information in Google Sites or for the price for the service.  Why pay almost $100.00 per year for something you can get for free at Microsoft, Google or somewhat cheaper from other services, just because it has the Apple tag on it (my pragmatism or cheapness is coming out here).

I cancelled my Mobile Me before the free 2 month trial was over, it was not what I was looking for at this time.  If I didn’t depend on Google Apps products so extensively in school it might have been a good solution, but I do, so it wasn’t.

I sent a tweet out to my Twitter PLN, asking if anyone had a solution to my synch issues with Apple and Google products.  @dancallahan provided a potential solution in Spanning Synch, which I have been trying over the past couple of weeks.  It has simply worked.

A great example of how important it has become to me was when I agreed to Mobile Me’s try new beta calendar program, I didn’t realize it would wipe out my other calendars (it did) (I should have read the documentation more closely) and I would have lost my current iCalendar info, if I hadn’t been for Spanning Synch being there to quickly and easily synch my information back on my iCalendar from Google Calendar.

It has shown itself to be what I was looking for and I am going to buy it this weekend.

To put it simply, it works in the background without me messing around with it.  Using Spanning Synch to synch Google and Apple products has made it one less thing for me to worry about.

Thanks Dan.

Disclaimer:  No no one requested, paid me or gave me anything to do this review, yes I will be using a $5.00 off promotional code that was provided to me by @dancallahan.

“There is no try, only do.” – Yoda