iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

MobileMe on the iPhone

Once you've turned on MobileMe on the iPhone, everything is pretty much automatic. Just a few things to be aware of:

• Turning off "push." "Push" email, contacts, and calendar means that your iPhone is updated instantly, automatically, wirelessly, whenever changes are made to your email, address book, or calendar on the Web or one of your computers.

  "Push" means never having to check for updates, but it also means faster battery drain. At Settings→Fetch New Data, you can turn the "push" feature off to save battery life when you're desperate. Now your iPhone checks for updates only on a schedule—every 15 minutes, every hour, or whatever you specify in the Fetch section here. (Except for Web bookmarks. They're always "pushed," no matter what your setting here.)

  Or, perhaps wisest of all, you can choose Manually. Now the iPhone updates the data in each program—Mail, Calendar, or Contacts—only when you open that program.

  Tip

  You can also specify "push" or "fetch" (on a schedule) settings for each type of data individually. You can make the calendar "push," but the email "fetch," and so on. To find these controls, tap Setting→Fetch New Data→Advanced.

  

  

• Conflict Resolution. What happens when you change an address book entry on one machine, and someone makes a different change ...