At PC Experts, we spend most of our time providing Austin computer repair services and solutions. But, we also support droves of professionals who rely on some combination of smart phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, home computers, and work computers. Many of these professionals own an iPhone and express their frustration at how hard it is to sync their email, contacts, calendars, and documents.
Unfortunately, iPhones don't make this task easy. MobileMe helps, but it's not seamless, it's expensive, and it's being discontinued. iCloud offers a lot of potential, but it's more focused on consumers who want to make sure their media is available on multiple devices.
Fortunately, there is another answer for the on-the-go professional: Google and its array of Android mobile devices. As a business owner myself who often works out of the office and at other people's homes and businesses, I have an Android smart phone, an Android tablet, a Mac computer at home, a PC desktop at home, a PC desktop at work, a (primarily) work laptop, and a (primarily) home laptop. I use Gmail and my Google account as the brains of my data management infrastructure. I have several e-mail accounts, and I use Outlook, but all of my email messages (and contacts) go through Gmail. I use Google Calendar (which syncs effortlessly with Outlook). And I even use Google Voice to manage my voice mail.
Every single one of my email messages is almost instantly available on every device and computer that I have turned on thanks to Gmail. Not only is my email backed up on Google's servers, it's on my home and work computers, my phone, and my tablets. I don't have any duplicate messages, and if I'm ever visiting a friend or a library without any devices of my own, I can check my email from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. Oh, and did I mention that my calendar and contacts sync across all of my devices as well? I don't have to connect anything to any other device either.
That's not it. My voice mail shows up on every single device I have as well. When I receive a voice mail, it gives me a standard notification on my phone, but I also receive email notifications that show up on all my devices... with a text transcription of that voice mail or the option to listen to the recording. I can also log into Google Voice from any Internet-connected device or computer and listen to any voice mail I have ever received. They're organized just like e-mails, too, so there's no having to listen and skip through a huge backlog of messages. I can even easily forward voice mails to my family or friends.
Oh, and with Google Docs, I can save all my Microsoft Office documents in the "Cloud" and have them accessible on both my Android tablet and smart phone... without buying any special apps.
Finally, the best part? I can use both my tablet and phone as a USB thumb drive. Just connect it to any computer, PC or Mac, and without having to load any software (like, say, iTunes) I can move any file I want to back and forth between my computer and my mobile device.
For productivity and data redundancy, Google is the company of "it just works" in the realm of mobile devices.
You can even make most of these Google services work on your iPhone, but an Android phone is necessary to truly experience the "magic."
(After reading about my ubiquitous access to email and other information, you may wonder if I ever manage to be wholly human. Just to allay any concerns, I like nothing better than turning everything off and reading a good ol' fashioned book.)
