No matter what time of day or night there is one constant and familiar sound in my life. The short burst of vibration emitting from my iPhone. My wife knows it all to well and the sequence of events that soon follows. The reach for the phone, the slide of hand to unlock it and the tap for the email icon at the bottom of the screen so I can quickly learn what urgent news awaits me. On the rare occasion that I have left my constant companion around the house my kids will quickly bring it to my attention when they hear it vibrating, lonely on a forgotten kitchen countertop.

I have mused about leaving it at the office or in my car outside of the mythical 9 to 5 business day. I have even shut it off during a movie and several times allowed it to charge on the bathroom counter as opposed to my nightstand.

But recently an unforeseeable event caused me to rethink my real time communication lifestyle. The culprit? Google Sync for iPhone.

It began innocent enough last month, when I decided it was time to put my Microsoft Online Services “BPOS” account to the side so could investigate Google’s progress. I have to play with all of many different toys available so I can properly advise my clients, and there is little substitution for first hand experience. So one weekend my partners and I flipped the switch on our DNS and purchased a few Google Apps Premier licenses online. In less than 24 hours we were up and running and for the weekend I was content to use the web interface. Come the work week I would export and import contacts using Outlook Sync for Google Apps and complete my iPhone transition.

The following Monday morning I completed the change. Google Sync for Outlook was everything it promise me it was and after starting my large 20GB import I activated the iPhone sync and headed out to lunch. Everything seemed to be working swimmingly and I even wondered that I hadn’t thought to make the switch sooner. I was a happy clam. Or at least until about 3 hours later in the middle of a client meeting…

I stepped out of a budget review to grab an urgent phone call and as I hang up I realized my formerly charged battery was nearly drained. It had only been 4 hours since I activated sync. It didn’t occur to me at first that the issue could be related. Why would it? Google is a huge company and I had been hearing about Google’s licensing of Active Sync for almost a year now. Surely there ducks were in a row.

To make this story short, after a week of extensive testing on multiple firmware and hardware versions I can tell you that Google Sync for iPhone is not ready for prime time! A quick google search on the matter will reveal the many perils former Exchange users are facing and Google hasn’t so much as nodded their had at the issue.

But, some good has come from all of this. After a day long debate following our week of testing and analysis I decided this could be a welcome change. I simply turned off push notifications on my account and left it to manual. No 15 minute or hourly fetches, just pure manual downloading of email.

I have to give partial credit to an article I read at MSPMentor recently. Joe reminds us that email is not instant messaging. And, to quote Oprah, you teach people how to treat you. The faster you respond, perhaps, the faster they expect it the next time.

So what is the result of my daring initiative? Peace. Silence. Not a single complaint to date on lack of response. No more fighting the urge to check what you know is nothing more than a email marketing message or newsletter. I don’t know how long this will last for me, nor I am letting Google off the hook for their horrible implementation of Active Sync, but I am somewhat satisfied that these series of events has led to this needed change.