Tag Archives: ical

OS 3, CalDav: update

In addition to Shep’s helpful comment, right after I posted my last entry I discovered that the settings at m.google.com/sync apply to the Exchange sync. Apparently the Exchange sync worked in OS 2.2, so there was no reason to upgrade at all, if I had just known that.

Of course, there are some nice additional features that I got, and it was only $10, but it’s rather irritating to me that I have to set up 10 different accounts to sync my 10 different Google calendars. That seems odd, to say the least.

Anyways, perhaps this is an enhancement that will come along shortly. Meanwhile, I’ll probably just keep using the Exchange connector.

OS 3.0 and CalDAV

I had one single motivation for upgrading my iPod Touch to OS 3.0 – CalDAV. According to very vague reports I had read before, it would “support CalDAV”, although the actual explanations of what that meant varied somewhat.

But iCal on the Mac started supporting CalDAV – actually allowing editing of CalDAV calendars – a while back, so I figured maybe the iPod/iPhone would too. And, hey, it’s only $10.

I found several conflicting instructions on how to configure CalDAV for Google Calendars. The best ones were here and here, suggesting that you set it up either as an Exchange account or a CalDAV account. While CalDAV seems more probable, the one that says to do it as Exchange is at Google. Weird.

Also, if you go to m.google.com/sync on your iPhone, you get a thing that lets you select which of your calendars you wish to connect to.

So far, sounds pretty good.

Yes, I said “which of your calendars.” I have a dozen calendars on my Google calendar account, because I share calendars with several people. It’s the only way to fly. But the iPhone seems to assume that I’ve only got one. As far as I can tell, it is syncing quite happily with one, but the other ones are being entirely ignored, despite what I configured on m.google.com.

Is this expected? I vaguely remember reading somewhere that I’d have to create a “new account” for each calendar, but that’s so completely ludicrous that I must have misunderstood, right? In that case, why would there be this tool at Google for saying what calendars I want to sync?

I *think* I have it set up right now, but now m.google.com says that my iPod hasn’t sync’ed since yesterday at 15:46, so … apparently something is still not set up right.

So. Frustrating.

MobileMe, and syncing with subscribed Google Calendars

I just signed up for the free 60 day trial of MobileMe, and already, I hate it pretty hard.

The main – indeed, the ONLY reason for wanting MobileMe is to ensure that the calendar on my iPod and the calendar on my laptop are always always always in sync. Most of my really important calendars are shared, and so are maintained on Google Calendars.

Turns out that MobileMe only syncs calendars that live on my Mac, not calendars that I’m subscribed to from somewhere else – like Google Calendars. This renders MobileMe completely useless to me.

Now, I know someone out there has solved this. So, I adjure you to tell me the solution, some time before the 60 days run out. Or before I, once again, schedule two overlapping lunch meetings, neither of which can be cancelled.

Thanks.

FOLLOWUP:

Looks like this is a well-known issue. MobileMe won’t sync subscribed calendars. This means that MobileMe is utterly worthless for me. Shame, since with this one feature, it would be worthwhile.

Rumor is that iPhone 3.0 will have native CalDAV support in the calendar App, so it looks like I’ll just have to wait for that.

FOLLOWUP TO THE FOLLOWUP:

iCal on OS 10.5 now support CalDAV, and so does Google Calendars, so I can actually now manage my Google calendars directly from iCal. This was a bit of a revelation to me, since this has always seemed to be The Missing Feature of Google Calendars + iCal. Yay. Now I just have to wait impatiently for the iPhone 3.0 update.