This is a note from your Gmail tech support person (my life in a parallel universe) just trying to help with whatever frustration you are having today.
Over the weekend I noticed that my iPhone (which had recently upgraded to the latest iOS (5.0.1) was now regularly giving me an error from within the native email app. A little box would pop up and tell me that my Exchange Password was incorrect. I use Gmail, but use the Exchange connector on the iPhone (as recommended by Google). Until recently, this was working just fine.
I entered my password 100 times or so in a fit of stubbornness. It worked every now and then. However, when my iPad started borking with the same error message, I decided to figure out the problem.
My search “gmail iphone exchange password incorrect” turned up some interesting stuff. I quickly figured out the problem what the Google Captcha. Apparently the Microsoft connector logs in but then borks on the Captcha which is never surfaced in the connector. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to unlock (or disable) the Captcha in Google Apps.
It seems like Google could fix this on their end without waiting for Apple. Just don’t toss up the Captcha whenever an iOS device hits Gmail. My guess is a recent push on Google’s side broke this as I didn’t notice a real iOS upgrade correlation. While at first I thought it might be iOS 5.0.1, I realized there was a few day delay, pinning the issue most likely back on Google.
Either way, my near term frustration has once again vaporized and I can resume ferociously emailing on my iOS devices.