Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools
So long iCal, hello Google Calendar
Call me
crazy, but I think Google is using some kind of mental suggestion on me while I sleep, as I am slowly falling for their
products one by one (maybe I should shut my Mac off at night so they can't get to me?). I've been hanging out
at Google News more often, I haven't started Mail.app in almost a week in favor of Gmail, and now iCal has been kicked
out of my Dock in favor of a Quicksilver trigger that takes me straight to Google Calendar.That's right, as a .Mac customer and lover of 3-plus years, I am tossing iCal and its syncing ability aside for the innovative and ultimately easier to use beauty that is Google Calendar. Sharing calendars and events is so much simpler on the gCal side of the fence, especially since the invited guests can leave comments on the event right at Google Calendar without the need for some obnoxious service like Evite.
More to the meat of the matter, Google Calendar's 'Quick Add' takes the chore out of adding an event to my schedule, inviting me to do it a little more often to make I stay all the more on top of things. In gCal, I can hit the letter 'q' to open a small dialog box into which I can type an event name, time and date almost as if I were telling someone about it in an email: 'dinner with Jessi 6 pm 4/22' adds the event right where it should go. As icing on the Quick Add cake, date spanning works too: 'Half Life 2 Therapy Camp April 22-24' creates an event that spans properly. No obnoxious tabbing around to set dates and times right, and no mousing to drag little event boxes. Call me crazy, but I'm starting to believe that some desktop app developers could learn a few things from this kind of simplicity that is found in many of today's web-based apps and services.
Google Calendar's multiple and customizable notification features sealed the deal for me. Email, SMS and popping up the browser window (if gCal is open) are all available for various notification types like events, new, changed or canceled invitations, replies to invitations and even a daily agenda email reminder that sends you a roundup of the day's events. Hawk Wings points to a blog post by Jeff Hobbs who puts it quite nicely: "it’s like Google just hired a personal secretary for everyone on Earth." Sweet, I've always wanted a secretary. Unfortunately, there is one seriously lacking feature in Google Calendar's 'secretary factor': as of yet, there is no 'pick up a latte from Starbucks' option. Maybe someone can whip up a Greasemonkey script or plug-in?
Caffeine addictions aside, you can top this all off with the 'access and edit from anywhere' factor since Google Calendar is web-based, and Gmail automatically parses email for events to add to Google Calendar (*ahem* iCal/Mail.app engineers!), and I'm already forgetting what iCal looked like.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Shane said 11:10AM on 4-18-2006
I couldn't agree more. The 'access and edit from anywhere' factor is becoming more and more of an issue for me. I've switched all my mail over to Gmail (bye bye Mail.app), I read all my feeds in Bloglines (not novel, just an emphasis of the point), and now, I have a calendar program. What's left? With Google buying Writely, it's only a matter of time before I store all my documents online too.
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Scootash said 11:12AM on 4-18-2006
Is there a way to sync gCal to iSync devices? If someone wrote a plugin so that iSync supported gCal, I would be convinced to switch.
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Ian Charles said 11:18AM on 4-18-2006
Whoop-a-de-freaking-do.
Who cares?
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Neven said 11:19AM on 4-18-2006
Agreed. I've been very satisfied with Google Calendar; in fact, I ended up importing my iCal data to it and switching over completely.
A calendar is one application that absolutely MUST be remotely accessible; combine that with Google's excellent UI for the app, and we have a clear winner.
Which is not to say that Google Calendar does EVERYTHING better than iCal; some of the options are still a bit buried, and I wish I could set the defaults better (every event marks me as Busy, and setting it to Available takes far too many clicks. I have a calendar for my monthly dinner menu, and it's annoying to have to set this for every entry).
Add two-way syncing to iCal, and we're in serious business.
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gillsans said 11:21AM on 4-18-2006
So, am I the only person who's noticed it doesn't work with Safari? Doesn't this annoy anyone else? For me it's a deal breaker.
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Christian said 11:21AM on 4-18-2006
And I can sync Google Calendar with my Treo 650 how? Yeah. I thought not either.
Sarcasm aside, iCal is hands down one of Apple's best applications. It would take a lot of effort to get me to switch.
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Dave said 11:24AM on 4-18-2006
It does look and work fantastic but what about tasks, todo items? 30boxes.com and now Google's calendar don't feature a way to manage them.
Why would I store my tasks one place and my calendar at another? It's frustrating as I want one place to store and manage agenda items and no one's yet unified them on one site.
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Guillermo said 11:27AM on 4-18-2006
Google Calendar is worthless to me until they support Safari.
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BobMac said 11:30AM on 4-18-2006
I did exactly the same thing; when I got my MacBook Pro yesterday, I decided I'd switch to Google's calendar and e-mail instead of iCal and Mail. It was easy to sync my and my wife's calendars, and using Mail just seems redundant. Now if Google would (easily) import my contacts, I'd be set. Since the calendar won't work with Safari, that gave me the excuse to convert to Camino. I'll probably ditch Word and use Writely. I've vowed not to use any PowerPC apps on my Intel Mac.
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XIV said 11:32AM on 4-18-2006
Altough I'm a fan of the new Google Calendar, I'd like the possibility to show my calendar to people like we can with Google pages. A simple link to your gCal (if you put it "Online public". Why ? Well not all of my friends have a XML reader or iCal, so the link is useless for them.
So yeah I'd like to show my calendar like PHP iCalendar, allows me too, but with Google Calendar. If only PHP iCalendar was able to read from a XML feed and not just uploaded files, I'd then use the gCal link for my PHP iCalendar.
In any case, all I want now is this "Online presentation" option with gCal to get rid of all the others. Hope it will come someday.
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SubGenius said 11:34AM on 4-18-2006
Hopefully this will put the pressure on Apple to improve .Mac or drop the price.
Google Calendar is very impressive for a beta. It is already very full featured. It makes me wonder what other goodies they will add before it is ready for 1.0.
I think an Evite like feature would be a great addition to .Mac
They could make it a premium feature of iCards(which anyone can use).
I thought .Mac groups was kind of convoluted.
Hopefully the next iteration will be more compelling.
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David Chartier said 11:36AM on 4-18-2006
You can easily still sync your devices if you simply subscribe to your Google Calendars in iCal. In fact, this is what I've done with all 10 of my calendars. Then, I set a daily appointment in iCal to start itself up to check and sync all its calendars.
:) Device-syncing ahoy!
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Ultim8Fury said 11:36AM on 4-18-2006
I exclusively use gmail and have done since before I was a mac user, it's ISP independence is what drew me and it's ease of use kept me using it.
gCal though will never be of use to me. I use iCal to trigger applescripts and have no need for remote access to my calendars as I always have my powerbook with me.
I can see it's attraction but it doesn't and probably never will meet my needs.
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Jeff said 11:36AM on 4-18-2006
I have been in the same boat as to switching from Mail/iCal to gMail, gCal. Gmail has been much easier to use and I love gMail Notifier's integration into MacOS (Mailto Links, two clicks to get to a compose window, etc). This switching has prompted me to (for now) ditch Safari for Camino with a Firefox User Agent setting.
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AlMeister said 11:37AM on 4-18-2006
Isn't anyone worried about the security of their information anymore? I can understand the need for a calendar to be accessible from almost anywhere, but that's just giving out way too much information.
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Stephen Antonucci said 11:42AM on 4-18-2006
What about seeing your calendar when you are not online, yes this happens! Also syncing your calendar to your iPod, phone, PDA, Palm? Need a way to have the best of both worlds.
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Fabien de Serres said 11:45AM on 4-18-2006
Google web-based apps are very nice indeed and iCal can be quirky, but call me crazy, but I'd like to be able to have access to my emails and schedule without being connected, which happens quite often when you are traveling (eg. train, airplane, shitty hotels).
Maybe I missed something, but I haven't seen third-party software that allow to do this, let alone from Google.
Correct me if I'm wrong (which I'd like to be, for once).
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NetworkShadow said 11:56AM on 4-18-2006
I might have to subscribe to my Google calendar with iCal so I can sync it to my iPod.
AlMeister has a good point, Google's going to know EVERYTHING about us soon.
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David Chartier said 12:00PM on 4-18-2006
#13: Your calendars are protected by your account password; it's not like it's a public interface to edit your stuff. The liklihood of someone hacking YOUR calendar if you AREN'T some silly Hollywood celebrity is pretty nonexistent.
#14: Like me, you could simply use a little applescript or local iCal event to start up any 3rd party email client to download your Gmail as a sort of 'local archive.' They offer POP access just like almost anyone else. I have also set up the same system with iCal, where it will start itself up, check all my gCals for new events, then quit itself so I still have a local copy of events.
I had a lot of the same 'oh crap, what if I can't get to the internet?' worries a while back, but it turns out that these days I'm pretty much never without the internet. We have three Macs in the household, our own wireless connection along with about 8 other free and open connections in the apt complex here, and tons of free access at coffee shops and libraries all over the place. It isn't entirely ubiquitous yet, but enough so that I and I think most people just don't have to worry about it anymore.
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Eric Wortman said 12:01PM on 4-18-2006
Until I can access the calendars and make changes when offline, I won't be switching anytime soon. Plus I need to sync to my phone, sure I could subscribe to the Google Calendars, but then I can't make changes from my phone. I basically live out of iCal.
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