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So! After all the hype of the preceding months, iPhone 3G or iPhone 2.0 as some prefer to call it, was finally released on 11th July. In the physical world, Apple stores saw serpentine queues and crowds of hundreds to thousands gather (some people had stationed themselves in front of the stores in the middle of the night to get kicks of being the "first to buy iPhone 3G"). Apart from some glitches and a few customary "i came first!" brawls, everybody was happy when they walked out with their new sleek and shiny plaything. The virtual world saw its own scramble, with reviews and opinions pouring in from every nook and cranny of the internet. Though the reviews were positive for the most part, but the specific release I was waiting for, Exchange ActiveSync for iPhone, proved to be a bit of a disappointment. Being the small business messiah that I am, I was hoping to see something really wonderful, something that Safari based webapps did not already offer, that would warrant the huge cost and effort that is involved in setting up Exchange at the office. ActiveSync misses two important features that may make it disappointing even for companies which already have Exchange. The main drawback: While you can have both personal and Exchange email accounts on the new iPhone, if you synchronize with Exchange calendars and contacts, your personal calendar and contacts are erased. No Task Synching: While ActiveSync allows synching for mail, contacts and calendars; synching for tasks is not available. Well, my favor remains with webapps, which uncomplicatedly let you access and share all your Outlook information simply from your Safari browser.
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