[kman42]

What's the deal with Exchange servers? If you have a Mail account working with Exchange and your Address Book syncing with Exchange, will the iPhone work? I think I read that IMAP has to be turned on. Anything else for Mail?

Will the iPhone sync with the Address Book which will sync with Exchange, and vice versa?

kman

[BRussell]

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that if you have Mail on your Mac at home working with Exchange, the imap on the exchange server must be turned on, and therefore it should work with your iPhone. I know in my case, I use Mail.app at work on my Mac, but it doesn't work from home, so I'd guess it wouldn't work with an iPhone in the wild unless it's using a local wifi network at work. I'd be interested in real-world experiences though.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

I don't know for sure, but my guess is that if you have Mail on your Mac at home working with Exchange, the imap on the exchange server must be turned on, and therefore it should work with your iPhone. I know in my case, I use Mail.app at work on my Mac, but it doesn't work from home, so I'd guess it wouldn't work with an iPhone in the wild unless it's using a local wifi network at work. I'd be interested in real-world experiences though.

That's about right. My experiences with Exchange (and Lotus Notes, for that matter) are that you have to be connected to your company's network to access the mail servers - it's a security thing. Think about what would happen if your mail servers were open to the Internet. It would be like opening up network shares ot the Internet - it's just asking for major security violations.

If you want email to go directly to your iPhone, you'll probably be SOL unless a VPN application is made available. Otherwise, you'll have to download email to your Exchange client (Mail or Entourage) and sync from there.

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

...
If you want email to go directly to your iPhone, you'll probably be SOL unless a VPN application is made available. Otherwise, you'll have to download email to your Exchange client (Mail or Entourage) and sync from there.

Look at Settings/General/Network/VPN

Seems like there is a VPN client pre-installed.

[besson3c]

Exchange/Address Book syncing works with Outlook Web Access. If the Exchange server has OWA enabled, your Address Book syncing on your Mac will work. This has nothing to do with IMAP, the IMAP protocol knows nothing of Address Book data.

In order for your iPhone to sync with Exchange, this mechanism needs to be built into the iPhone's address book. I would imagine that the iPhone does a two-way sync with iTunes/your Mac, meaning addresses you add in the iPhone will be transferred to your OS X Address Book and vice versa. Therefore, even if the iPhone's Address Book will not sync with Exchange, your Mac will do this. When it does, this should send the data up to Exchange.

My educated guess.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

That's about right. My experiences with Exchange (and Lotus Notes, for that matter) are that you have to be connected to your company's network to access the mail servers - it's a security thing. Think about what would happen if your mail servers were open to the Internet. It would be like opening up network shares ot the Internet - it's just asking for major security violations.

If you want email to go directly to your iPhone, you'll probably be SOL unless a VPN application is made available. Otherwise, you'll have to download email to your Exchange client (Mail or Entourage) and sync from there.

Exchange supports both IMAP and a web-based client called Outlook Web Access, in addition to its native MAPI. The whole point of OWA is to be able to access mail from outside your LAN (and to work with Entourage's additional Exchange support), and the OS X Address Book uses OWA to sync data.

Well, technically it is using WebDAV....

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by msuper69 

Look at Settings/General/Network/VPN

Seems like there is a VPN client pre-installed.

A VPN connection is not going to help with Address Book/Exchange syncing though. Look at the Address Book preferences - it specifically asks for the OWA server.

[BRussell]

Yeah, I forgot about OWA. I bet that's how most people will access Exchange email with the iPhone, barring a more direct solution. It's not ideal, but at least it would work.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

Yeah, I forgot about OWA. I bet that's how most people will access Exchange email with the iPhone, barring a more direct solution. It's not ideal, but at least it would work.

There seems to be some confusion here, people talking about different things...

I've been addressing the Address Book/Exchange sync deal, not mail access. As far as Exchange mail access goes, both Entourage and Mail use IMAP to access Exchange. Therefore, if you can access your mail via these apps off your LAN on your Mac, you'll be able to do so with your iPhone too. If not, the Exchange admins likely have IMAP configured to only accept connections from local IPs.

[BRussell]

No besson, I can't speak for others but I'm not confused. There has been a lot of talk about the iPhone not accessing Exchange email, because most of the idiotic IT people won't turn on IMAP. Your post was a reminder that people could still use OWA with the iPhone, even if IMAP is turned off.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

No besson, I can't speak for others but I'm not confused. There has been a lot of talk about the iPhone not accessing Exchange email, because most of the idiotic IT people won't turn on IMAP. Your post was a reminder that people could still use OWA with the iPhone, even if IMAP is turned off.

To coin a phrase from Kevin, sorry for "projecting" this confusion upon you

I'm confused as to why people are having difficulties with their iPhones then.

IMAP is IMAP, and like I said, whether you use Mail, Entourage, or the iPhone, they all use IMAP to access Exchange mail. Therefore, if people can't use their iPhones outside the LAN, they can't use Mail or Entourage outside the LAN either, so therefore, why is this a surprise?

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

To coin a phrase from Kevin, sorry for "projecting" this confusion upon you

I'm confused as to why people are having difficulties with their iPhones then.

IMAP is IMAP, and like I said, whether you use Mail, Entourage, or the iPhone, they all use IMAP to access Exchange mail. Therefore, if people can't use their iPhones outside the LAN, they can't use Mail or Entourage outside the LAN either, so therefore, why is this a surprise?

Maybe people are comparing it to using Outlook on the PC, and/or another phone that actually can do exchange email with activesync.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

No besson, I can't speak for others but I'm not confused. There has been a lot of talk about the iPhone not accessing Exchange email, because most of the idiotic IT people won't turn on IMAP. Your post was a reminder that people could still use OWA with the iPhone, even if IMAP is turned off.

There may be a valid reason to not turn on IMAP on an Exchange server. I can't tell you offhand since I'm not an Exchange admin, but don't assume IMAP is off because of idiocy.

And I'm 99% that Entourage access Exchange through its proprietary protocol, since (a)it's a Microsoft product designed to work with Exchange and (b)my previous employer used Exchange, did not have IMAP enabled, and Entourage worked.

If you have Entourage and the iPhone can sync directly with Entourage, you're in business. Otherwise use OWA if it's an option on your Exchange server - which, again, may be disabled for a variety of reasons.

[BRussell]

I believe Entourage uses OWA rather than MAPI. OMG WTF.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

And I'm 99% that Entourage access Exchange through its proprietary protocol, since (a)it's a Microsoft product designed to work with Exchange and (b)my previous employer used Exchange, did not have IMAP enabled, and Entourage worked.

You're wrong.

Outlook 2001 was the last Mac product that supported MAPI, the native MS protocol. Versions of Entourage since then use IMAP.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

I believe Entourage uses OWA rather than MAPI. OMG WTF.

Entourage uses OWA for calendaring, IMAP for Mail, LDAP for GAL.

[BRussell]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Entourage uses OWA for calendaring, IMAP for Mail, LDAP for GAL.

I was thinking that Entourage could use OWA for mail too, which does allow it to do email even in cases where IMAP isn't turned on. That could explain shifuimam's belief that it works with exchange in cases where other mail clients don't.

[kman42]

1) Okay, so I just need to set up the iPhone to use an Exchange server and see what happens. If it doesn't work then I need to ask IT to turn on IMAP.

2) How does Address Book sync with Exchange? Is there anything that IT needs to do for that? Anything that would prevent it from working?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

I was thinking that Entourage could use OWA for mail too, which does allow it to do email even in cases where IMAP isn't turned on. That could explain shifuimam's belief that it works with exchange in cases where other mail clients don't.

You're right, my mistake!

Working with Exchange Server


However, if you are using a client to access your Exchange mail that is not Entourage, then you'd be using IMAP...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by kman42 

2) How does Address Book sync with Exchange? Is there anything that IT needs to do for that? Anything that would prevent it from working?

Outlook Web Access, like we've been discussing in this thread.