Everything you need to know to get your mail, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, notes, and reminders syncing with iCloud

iCloud includes push email, calendaring, and contact services. That means whenever you get an email, it's immediately made available on all your devices. Whenever you make or change an appointment it shows up in your calendar on all your devices. Whenever you add or change contact information, its reflected in the contacts on all of your devices. You can access these services via the Mail, Contacts, and Calendar apps on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, via the iCloud.com website from any desktop browser, or through popular mail, calendar, and contacts apps on your Mac or Windows PC.

iCloud will also sync Bookmarks, Notes, and Reminders.

• How to set up iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendars
• How to enable or disable individual iCloud services
• How to access iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendars via the Web
• How to access iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, and more via Windows PC
• How to access iCloud Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and more via Mac

How to set up iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendars

If you didn't originally set up your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad with iCloud, or if you want to use a different iCloud account for Mail, Contacts, and Calendars than you do for iTunes purchases, for example, or you simply want to add an additional account to your device, here's how to get it working.

1. Launch the Settings app.
2. Tap on Mail, Contacts, & Calendars.
3. Tap iCloud.
4. Enter your iCloud (me.com) email address as the Apple ID and your Password.

How to enable or disable individual iCloud services

Whether you're setting up iCloud on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad for the first time and want to choose which services are turned on and which are turned off, or you've already set it up but want to make some changes, it's easy to configure.

You can selectively choose to enable or disable Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders, Bookmarks, Notes, Photo Stream, Documents in the Cloud, and Find my iPhone/iPod/iPad.

• Launch the Settings app
• Tap on iCloud
• Go down the list and toggle anything you want to enable to On, and anything you want to disable to off

Turning off an iCloud feature on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad will remove the associated data from your device, but not from iCloud's servers. So, if you change your mind again, just repeat the process and flip the switch back on.

How to access iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendars via the Web

You can access iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, as well as Documents in the Cloud, and Find my iPhone/iPod/iPad from any Mac, Windows, Linux, Unix, or other PC with a modern web browser via:

• http://www.icloud.com

How to access iCloud Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, and more via Windows PC

To access your iCloud data via a Microsoft Windows PC, first you need the iCloud Control Panel for Windows Vista SP 2 or Windows 7.

Free - Download now

1. Click on Start to launch the Start menu.
2. Go to Network and Internet.
3. Go to iCloud.
4. Enter your Apple ID username and password.
5. Check mark the iCloud services you want to enable.

You can choose to turn on Mail, Contacts, Calendars & Tasks (Reminders), Bookmarks, and Photo Stream. The following software will then be able to access iCloud data:

• Mail: Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010
• Contacts: Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010
• Calendars: Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010
• Reminders: Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010
• Notes: Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010
• Bookmarks: Safari, Internet Explorer

How to access iCloud Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and more via Mac

iCloud is built into Apple's OS X 10.7 Lion for Mac, and will be even better integrated into the upcoming OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

1. Launch System Preferences.
2. Click on iCloud.
3. Check mark the iCloud services you want to enable.

You can choose to turn on Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, Photo Stream, Documents in the Cloud, Back to my Mac, and Find my Mac. The following software will then be able to access iCloud data.

• Mail: Mail, Outlook for Mac (via IMAP)
• Contacts: Address Book, Contacts (Mountain Lion)
• Calendars: iCal, Calendar (Mountain Lion)
• Bookmarks: Safari
• Photo Stream: iPhoto, Aperture

How to get more help with iCloud

If you still need help with mail, contacts, or calendars on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, or any other iCloud feature, head on over to our iCloud Forum and ask away!

• How to set up, back up, restore, and update using iCloud
• How to set up and use iTunes in the Cloud
• How to set up and use iTunes Match
• How to set up and use Photo Stream
• How to set up and use Documents in the Cloud
• How to set up and use Find my iPhone
• How to set up and use Find my Friends

Ally Kazmucha, Chris Oldroyd, and Gary Mazo contributed major sections of this guide.

Have a favorite website and curious how to bookmark it directly on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad home screen? Apple provides a WebClip feature that means you don't even have to launch Safari to get to your bookmark. We'll show you how after the break!

To add a WebClip bookmark icon to your home screen:

• Launch Safari
• Go to the web page you want to bookmark
• Tap the "action" button (+ button on older versions of iOS)
• If the web site has a proper iOS icon you'll see it here, otherwise you'll see a screen capture of the page you're bookmarking.
• Edit the bookmark name to whatever you like. Shorter works better.
• Tap Add

Its as simple as that, if you have any other websites that you visit on a regular basis, you can add them to your home screen and launch them like you would launch any application. Hope you found this helpful!

Bonus tip: Curious how to make a proper iOS WebClip icon for your site? We've got custom website icon creation tip ready to get you started. Check it out!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)

Do you want to save a location that you've found on Google Maps? After searching for a place on Google Maps, you can save the results to Bookmarks or Contacts so you can easily come back to it later. Stay with us after the break and we will show you how.

Start

1. First, Search for the location in the search box.
2. When you find the location you want, select the ' > ' icon
3. At the bottom, select 'Add to Bookmarks'
4. Type in a 'location name'
5. Click Save.

To find the location later.

1. Select the ' book ' icon in the search box.
2. Select Bookmarks

You can also save a location to a contact for later viewing.

1. After selecting the ' > ' icon on a location.
2. Select 'Add to Contacts'
3. Here, you can either 'Create a new contact' or 'Add to existing contact'
4. Select the Contact, you want to save the location to.

To find the location later.

1. Select the ' book ' icon in the search box.
2. Select Contacts, and select the contact you want to view.

BONUS TIP: If you press and hold on any spot on the Map, you will 'drop a pin', which you can then save as a bookmark or to your contact.

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

During the WWDC 2010 Keynote today, Steve Jobs announced new features for Apple's iBooks app, including the much-in-demand ability to take notes, the ability to tap and and bookmarks, and support for the PDF format. Jobs also announced that, while it's only been on the market for 8 weeks, iBooks already accounts for 22% of the eBook market. They also repeated that it would soon be available for the iPhone.

The iBooks app is now available as a free download for iPhone, so you can read your favorite books anywhere. On iPhone 4, the high-resolution Retina display renders every page beautifully. Vibrant colors, rich illustrations, and crisp, sharp text make reading a pleasure. Turn pages by tapping the right or left side of the screen or by dragging the page corner (just like a real book). Jump to a different part of the book by visiting the table of contents and tapping a chapter. When you’re finished reading, iBooks bookmarks where you left off. It syncs with iPad, too, so the story you started on your iPhone can be finished on your iPad.

[Apple.com iPhone iBooks page]

TiPb loves answering your emails, but we also love sharing our answers with the community in hopes that more people will benefit, and even better answers will present themselves (hey, that's why we have them forums!). Today's question comes from Joephoto5:

My Bookmarks are listed in the order that I created them... Is there a way to resort them??? Is there a way to "group" them ... (ala: sites dedicated to "news", or sites dedicated to the "iPhone", or sites dedicated to "aviation" etc.) ???

TiPb answers after the jump!

On the iPhone, you can hit the "Edit" button in the bottom left corner to delete (red circles on the left) and re-order (stacked lines on the right) your bookmarks in Mobile Safari. Once in Edit mode, you can also create new folders. However, I don't believe you can move items into or out of folders on the iPhone itself.

Update: twokidtech in the comments below points out that, if you tap a link, it will open up a properties inspector which, aside from letting you change the display name and other attributes, will let you re-file your bookmarks. Thanks twokidtech!

However, if you sync your bookmarks with Safari (Mac/Windows) or IE (Windows), you can organize your bookmarks on the desktop however you want, and your next Sync should update your iPhone to reflect this. (MobileMe users can also have this happen automagically through over-the-air "push" sync).

Anyone have any bookmark organization tips for Joephoto5? Let us know!