As to calendar, with the builtin apps, you essentially have the choice between using Google Calendar or having the calendar app subscribe to a web-accessible calendar.

There are probably ways to accomplish what you want, but it likely involves replacing the Google Mail, Calendar, etc. apps with alternatives.

The real issues are two-fold: First, most of their (non-technical) customers probably don’t realize the amount of control they actually have over the set-top boxes. Secondly, on the practical side, the only thing this will really do is upset customers – I already heard enough of their advertising about the ABC thing on the radio and on regular TV ads, it just pushes it one step further when I have to see it every time I turn on my TV.

Simply put, its in their rights to do this, and to expect that they can’t and shouldn’t be able to do this is simply naive.

But I don’t want ALL of my email contacts and calendar entries ported into the maw of gmail.

Have you found a way to sync locally from thunderbird and lightning to your droid?

Googling brought me to many forums and your site. So that’s good. But I don’t see info out there on how to avoid the google cloud with a google os phone.

Thanks.
Chris