Unified Calendar - Advice Needed

[toddbg]

Hello everyone - I am about to purchase my iPhone and needed some advice on how to accomplish the holy grail for me - a unified calendar and reminder system.

Here are the machines/issues I am dealing with.

Email:
- work email: taken care of by ActiveSync
- personal domain mail: pushed to Gmail and occasionally checked on mac at home
- Gmail: regular checking, no push.

Calendars:
- Work: currently syncing with Gmail (contains both Work appts. and Personal ones pulled from Gmail)
- Gmail: Master shared calendar - used to show friends and family open times.

Machines and syncing:
- work: PC laptop, copy of iTunes - used for recent purchases but no sync with iPop
- home: iMac, master copy of iTunes - recent purchases get transferred here occasionally, rarely used otherwise due to work laptop for web browsing.

I want my iPhone to be constantly up to date with the latest Calendar information. I want Gmail to be the Master Calendar (unified one) but I need a copy of that calendar with me at all times even if there is no internet access. I also need to be able to make changes on my phone without internet access to the calendar and have that (eventually- like same day but not instant)) reflected across all the calendars. I also will occasionally sync my iPhone with the iMac for iTunes (maybe once every couple of weeks)

So - what do you guys suggest?
Thanks!
--
T

[h22kai]

Not sure if Gmail has this but Yahoo! Calendars has a function called Autosync that notes any changes in Outlook and syncs them with the online Yahoo! Calendar. (The reverse is true too.. any changes made to Yahoo! Calendars and it immediately syncs with Outlook the next time Outlook is opened.) Since my iPhone syncs with Outlook all three are connected no matter where I am at.

Does Gmail have a Autosync option to use with iCal for Mac? If so, your iPhone would automatically sync all changes with iCal and iCal would automatically update Gmail's Calendar. (Also, any changes to Gmail would automatically be reflected in iCal.. and therefore the iPhone.)

[toddbg]

Gmail does "now" have an autosync with iCal or there is a third party application that will allow for this.

However this would mean I would need to make a point of syncing "daily" - is it possible to sync iCal(on the phone) with Gmail via wifi or 3G? or - can I sync iCal(phone) with iCal(iMac) via wireless?

Thanks!!