We've talked before about how to sync iCal and Outlook to Google Calendar; now lets take the calendar away from the desk and put it in your pocket. Whether your portable device is an iPhone, an iPod touch, a BlackBerry a Windows Mobile device, T-Mobile G1 or even a Symbian device, we have some solutions for you.

In a previous feature, we talked about syncing a calendar between multiple computers using Google Calendar. Now, we're taking some of the same principles and applying them to the mobile space. Each of our non-MobileMe methods first requires the user to sync their calendar data with Google Calendar, which then propagates the data to the mobile device. This method allows users flexibility in syncing, since Google Calendar becomes the central repository, and also allows users to access their calendar when they're not at their primary desktop.

T-Mobile G1 (Android devices) and BlackBerry

The most simple devices to sync up with Google Calendar are the most obvious: any officially supported devices by Google. While it shouldn't come as any surprise, Google's first official Android-based phone, the G1 from T-Mobile, is a snap to sync with your Google accounts. Simply add your Google username and password to the device, and it'll automatically start syncing with both your GMail and your Google Calendar.

BlackBerry is another device officially supported by Google. By heading to Google's Mobile Sync site, BlackBerry users can either download the software to install on their mobile device, or can have the software send a link to their phone via text message. The official Google Sync software runs in the background, and will sync Google Calendar with the BlackBerry's internal calendaring software at a specified interval. Users can also configure default notification settings for items added from Google Calendar.

iPhone and iPod touch

The most symplistic method for iPod touch and iPhone users is to use Apple's solution, called MobileMe. MobileMe syncs calendaring data between multiple computers, iPhones or iPod touches and for devices that aren't specifically compatible, MobileMe also provides a web-based access method to access calendaring data. In addition to calendaring, MobileMe also offers users push email, contacts syncing, photo syncing and 20GB of web-based storage. Users who haven't already set up Google Calendar as their primary method of calendaring could simply skip Gcal in favor of MobileMe, and enjoy most of the same features. The service isn't cheap though, coming in at $99 a year for the basic individual account.

If you're looking to sync a Google Calendar to an iPhone or iPod touch, the most simple way is to sync your iCal / Outlook account using our previous guide, then using MobileMe to sync the iCal / Outlook data to the remote device.

Windows Mobile

Since Windows Mobile is one of the more "open" platforms around, there are numerous applications around for syncing Google Calendar to the device, though none of them are "officially supported." OggSync is a Windows Mobile application, available for newer Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices as well as older PocketPC 2003 devices, that'll sync Google Calendar with any Windows Mobile device over a specified interval. OggSync also one ups most other Windows Mobile solutions, in that it also syncs with Google Contacts as well.

Symbian

While none of the solutions for Symbian (that I've yet found) are as elegant as implementations on other mobile device operating systems, there are a few mediocre choices to choose from that should get you started, if not 100% good to go. CalSync60 is a native Symbian application that the authors claim syncs calendar data, however it's still in beta, and has been since March of 2008, so you might want to see if there are any more recent updates lingering around.

There are other options that are less phone specific, like the J2ME version of GCalSync. Though, with any tool that's not created specifically for the platform, there are bound to be problems. For instance, with GCalSync we had difficulty syncing up the proper timezone offset, as it's not extremely intuitive. Once we found the right offset, it made life a little easier. We did suffer from some duplication issues that had to be fixed, but once through the bumpy setup phase, the software didn't fuss too much in the background. We did have to restart it manually every few days, but the price at free (and open source!) is unbeatable.

Hopefully we gave you a litany of starting points for syncing your mobile device to your calendar. Don't forget, If you haven't first synced your machine to Google Calendar, check our guide on syncing mutliple machines with Gcal. Also, if we missed your device, leave a message in the comments and we'll see what we can dig up.