Comments on: Apple’s iCal Team is hiring

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:36:06 +0000

I’m late to the discussion, but in addition to what everyone else has said, I would love to have a link between iCal and Mail – a preference in iCal to set a Mail account as the account for that calendar. Everything from that mail account is assigned to that calendar (editable) and everything created in that calendar gets sent via that Mail account. The current fly-by-the-seat functionality is just negligence on Apple’s behalf.

By: Amy

Amy — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:31:15 +0000

No To-Dos in iPod Touch or iPhone. Ignored. Abandoned.

How can Apple have just ignored a basic part of iCal? They say iCal syncs with your device but it does not mention that the to-dos are simply abandoned, no error, no message. There simply are no to-dos there at all. AT ALL.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:17:31 +0000

#1) RECURRING To-Dos. I would have switched over from my Palm Pilot years ago but for the lack of this. These are super-important to me. Things like “pay quarterly taxes” and “file regulatory reports” which have big consequences if I miss them. The only reason I switched over today is because now that I have an iPhone I want it to replace my Palm Pilot. For the time being, however, it looks like I’ll have to keep my Palm Desktop calendar around to keep those recurring to-dos recurring.

2) End times for events. I miss seeing end-of-event times in the text of the event. Sure, I know I have a meeting that begins at 3pm. When does it end? I have to guess from the shading in the daily calendar what time it’s over. I see no reason not to show the event as 3pm-4:30pm instead of just 3pm. Of course, this can be a configurable option.

3) Update to iSync would be nice, too. I couldn’t get my calendar to sync from my Palm Pilot to iCal despite repeated attempts and being a developer myself. I had to export from Palm Desktop and import to iCal instead.

By: Jenniffer Lee

Jenniffer Lee — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:31:59 +0000

I’ve be anxious to switch to ical and get an iphone but will NEVER do so because of the weekness in the to do’s… most importantly the LACK of RECURRING to do’s. In some businesses, to do’s are far more important than events. To do’s are different. They are “call client” that may occur every other tuesday or “buy stamps” that may occur once a month. Entourage and Now up to Date both are excellent examples of how to handle them. Entourage is the best. I have emailed this suggestion to apple for years, stating they would get more business users (who can afford iphones & new computers) if they would upgrade their central calender software to be business user friendly and incorporate the recurring to do as the other business calendars offer. I can never switch without this simple tool. I know I am not alone in wanting this upgrade because it is all over the discussion boards. Apple’s missing a large segment of potential customers with simple omission.

By: jeffharris

jeffharris — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 12:27:37 +0000

As far as I’m concerned, iCal has been in dormant mode since the day Apple released it. Apple has this nasty habit of releasing an application for effect… See what WE have!… then letting it sit in stasis, adding the occasional bug-fix.

iCal wasn’t very good to begin with and the situation hasn’t changed.
Seriously, WHAT exactly has changed in iCal over the years?

The old Claris Organizer (now Palm Desktop) still beats it in terms of usability and features, though built on a pretty creaky foundation.

With Palm’s fortunes on the wane, I recently abandoned Palm Desktop (on my terms rather than by force, as sooner than later it WILL break… speaking of never upgrading an app) and have been trying several alternative full-featured third party applications.

SoHo Organizer is by far the best and best looking.
iCal is clearly the weakest, though you get what you pay for, I suppose.

By: J. Greg Williams

J. Greg Williams — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 14:47:06 +0000

Date fields are horribly broken. I used to be able to type in a date. e.g. “July 17″ or “Next Tuesday”. Now I have to select each field and manipulate what it should be. This manipulation becomes an exercise in frustration when you try and delete a number only to have a single digit left that you want to delete but can not and have to leave it, type in the correct number and then go back and delete the errant digit. In addition in the reminder field if you choose to be reminded 1 day before an event and then decide to change it, you are now stuck with “the day before” making it another pain to try and get back to a number field.

Horribly horribly broken and all for no reason.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:32:43 +0000

I wrote about my disappointments in the following Apple Discussion Thread…

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=5707932#5707932

The inability to group local and subscribed calendars (ie to turn them on/off together or “republish” them as a consolidated calendar) is a MAJOR drawback for me.

By: D9

D9 — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:49:40 +0000

I also miss the event icons that would indicate whether the event had an alarm, or notes included.

By: Damian

Damian — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:59:32 +0000

One more: let e-mail notifications go to ANY address in your address book — not just your own. Sometimes you want to remind someone else of something they’re liable to forget.

By: Damian

Damian — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:57:21 +0000

I miss the way that, when you clicked on a single event, all the events that were on the same calendar would pop to the front. So if add or click on an event in your “work” calendar, all the other “work” events pop out. Why they’d lose this, I do not understand.