14 DAY TRIAL // Following the release of Apple’s iOS 4, customers leveraging Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) have started reporting numerous problems. iOS 4 powers a range of devices from the Cupertino-based hardware company, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. According to Adam Glick, Sr. Technical Product Manager, the problems reported by customers involve the new iPhone 4, but also older versions of Apple’s mobile phone that have been upgraded to the latest version of the iOS platform.
Microsoft reveals that it is hard at work, collaborating with Apple in order to resolve the issues reported by customers. There are three problems that manage to stand out, all confirmed by the Redmond company.
It appears that Apple devices running the new iOS 4 are producing heavier than normal loads on Exchange servers. In addition, customers are reporting problems synchronizing content between iPhones and Exchange Server. Additional reports indicate that Apple’s phones are failing to play nice with Google Apps over Exchange ActiveSync.
Glick notes that Microsoft has contacted Apple on the issues enumerated above, as well as additional problems, not necessarily EAS-related. The software giant received word from Apple that a fix is in the works, but that the Cupertino-based company did not provide a release timeline.
Below you will find a list of iPhone and Exchange ActiveSync issues as detailed by Glick, as well as some additional info.
“1. Exchange administrators are seeing heavier than normal loads on their servers from users with iOS devices:
We are in contact with Apple’s engineering team and are trying to help them fix this issue. In the meantime Apple has released a support article (link) which directs administrators who are experiencing this issue to push an iOS profile (link) that changes the timeout their Exchange ActiveSync connection uses to their users to four minutes which should be long enough for the vast majority of users. Those that need longer can edit the XML file in any text editor by searching for ‘240.0’ (no quotes) and changing it to the desired number of seconds. We had suggested using Apple's configuration utility to make this change. Apple has informed us that you should not use the configuration utility to edit or install the update. Use a text editor such as Notepad to edit the timeout value in the update, if required.
2. Email, calendar, or contacts are not syncing: We believe this is the same issue as #1. The support article and solution listed above are the current recommendation from Apple while a fix is being worked on.
3. iPhone is not working with Google Apps over Exchange ActiveSync: Google licenses the server portion of Exchange ActiveSync from Microsoft, but Google wrote their own software to implement the protocol. Google is responsible for making sure their implementation of Exchange ActiveSync runs correctly and in this case Google claims that they had a server issue.”
Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta is available for download here.