More new iPhone apps for GroupWise
We’ve tested some new GroupWise WebAccess helper apps for the iPhone, and are pleased to say that these are very nice additions to the GroupWise arsenal of apps for the iPhone. We discussed GW Web 
a few months ago as a front-end for GroupWise WebAccess. Now the developer of GW Web has come up with two additional new apps that give GroupWise WebAccess a very “iPhone” look and feel. GW Mail and GW Calendar .
Both GW Mail and GW Calendar use WebAccess as the back-end access to GroupWise, and thus are available for any iPhone user who has access to GroupWise WebAccess.
GW Calendar
As you can see from the screenshot below, GW Calendar brings a real iPhone look and feel to the GroupWise WebAccess calendar, and of great interest of course is the “Week View”, which is unavailable in the WebAccess simple templates. Version 1.0 does not have the ability to add new appointments, so it will be a “read-only” view. You will still need to go into the WebAccess application to add appointments for now.
GW Mail
GW Mail version 1.2 (due out in the App Store this week) not only gives users a real iPhone mail “look”, but adds the ability to access folders (version 1.1, currently available in the App Store does not have folder support, but the developer has it ready for approval). GW Mail can access the GroupWise Frequent Contacts Book and System Address Book for address lookup as well. We certainly have a few things on the wish list – like swipe to delete, move to folder, and multiple item actions, but we know this developer will continue to improve and enhance the app as it moves forward.
The nice thing about having both GW Calendar and GW Mail on the iPhone is that you get a similar experience to using the native iPhone apps. Click the GW Calendar icon to go directly to your calendar. Click the GW Mail icon to get directly to your inbox. No more loading up WebAccess, just to click more links to get to where you wish to go.
Have fun iPhoners!
Danita
Hi Danita,
Do you know if these apps will work with a GW7 backend (GW7 WebAccess)?
Thank you!
Hey Danita! 🙂
Great post on two very nice app additions that will absolutly be on my iPhone. Hope these two become real hits as they are a perfect alternative to the more expensive/harder to maintain sync solutions out there. Thanks!
(posted from my iPhone)
Nice apps. But i think Novell itself should have made them a year ago and give it away for free.
Much better than the GW Web app but why is it so expensive? Novell should be encouraging people to use this stuff especially as they still haven’t managed to deliver a replacement for GMS yet! They should be delivering this free!
These are really great apps and very efficient to use. These would be a perfect alternatives to other sync solutions out in the market today.
PTCruiserGT,
The apps work just fine with GroupWise 7.
Daniel
Just bought the app – unfortunately, though I am able to access the groupwise web access site via Safari on the iPhone without difficulty, when entered into the app I get “Error 404: not found” “Invalid url”.
Our groupwise server web address is configured as:
http://gw.companyname.com/servlet/webacc
(where companyname is… well, the domain name of the company ). It is not a https but an http. Any suggestions now that I paid for the app? 🙂 Thanks!
Stephen,
You say “servlet/webacc” which leads me to believe you might be on GW 6.5? I know that Daniel is trying to work out some bugs with 6.5. But the description of the app in the Apple Store says it does NOT work with GW 6.5. If that’s what you got I’m not sure it will work. I’ve asked Daniel to drop by and let us know the plans for 6.5.
Stephen,
Your url has a /servlet/webacc in it, which implies that you are running GroupWise 6.5. GW 6.5 does not work with the app. Hopefully it will soon!
Phil,
I agree that it would have been nice if Novell had provided similar functionality – but they didn’t. So it’s good that Daniel has done it for us!
I’m so pleased to find this app – downloaded it yesterday! I’m wondering if there is a possibility for it to do push notifications? (or at least put the little badge on it showing me how many new emails I have)
I’m also wondering about an option to have to put in your password before opening the application. Many school districts use Groupwise, and there is sometimes student-sensitive information that should not be available to others if the phone is stolen or lost. (I know putting a passcode on the phone is an option too)
6.5 folks,
GroupWise 6.5 support is in the works. To be honest, based on the time that I spent selling GW Web, I didn’t think there were that many 6.5 users out there. I was wrong.
6.5 and 7/8 are different enough that I have to put some extra effort into making 6.5 work. The /servlet/webacc vs /gw/webacc is a good indicator. The big thing that was holding me back on 6.5 support was having a VM for me to test against. Danita has helped me get that started.
I fixed a few 6.5 things in the latest update. Now the apps mostly work with 6.5. I’ll get the last bits fixed before to long and get an update out.
Thanks,
Daniel
http://www.ghostpattern.com
Cindy,
Push notifications is pretty tricky. Well, the tricky part is getting the data from GW on your behalf. But I know that everyone wants the feature, so I’ll definitely work on it as soon as I can get the major features of the current apps stabilized. Will I be able to really get it to work? We will see.
I could probably do the badge thing based on the information from the last time you ran the app. Would that really be helpful?
You make a pretty good case for having the option to prompt for the password each time you go into the app. I’ll add the feature to my todo list.
Daniel
support@ghostpattern.com
http://www.ghostpattern.com
Please don’t require a password each time. If you lose your phone, just update your GW password.
So today I had a perfect use for GW Mail, even though I normally sync my email to my phone with NotifyLink. I needed to access a message from March 17 that was not on my phone. It was very quick and easy to pop over to GW Mail and find that message.
I think EVERYONE needs this app 🙂
Peter,
I agree. For me that would be really annoying. But I think I can figure out a way to make it an option to prompt for the password every time, if it is important to somebody.
Daniel
Great app’s. Work’s perfect.
I can’t see my “sent mails” folder. Any workarounds
for that?
Rasmus
I can see mine. Do you have any problems with sent items in the regular webaccess client? Has your mailbox been around a long time (upgraded from 6.0 to 6.5 for example)? There have been issues with sent items folders being renamed in the database and causing oddities.
Rasmus,
Please email support@ghostpattern.com and we will do some things to figure out why the folder isn’t showing. I’m sure we can figure out something and get it fixed for you.
Daniel