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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Source: http://calendar.google.com/
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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...
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I just started investigating gcal and I'm quite impressed. But I too want 2-way synching as I sometimes tend to use my phone to store events (SMS won't work globally yet, nor would I want to pay a fee to add events).
So, adding the google API for gcal to the isync tool apple has, I don't see why my good ol' powerbook shouldn't be able to act as the go-between of gcal, ical and my phone.
As long as gcal is already committed to the ical standards, how hard can it be? I so wish I had time to spend writing the plugins for it...
I have to say that Google has me totally hooked. I love gmail, and gcal is great too. Now for the over the air sync app that they promised for mobile devices! (I know gcalsync - available from gcalsync.com - is looking like a winner, but it still won't work on my Nokia N70).
Incidentally has anyone tried the mobile url for checking gmail on the road. It's fantastic! http://m.gmail.com
Hi,
sync is possible if you use Outlook 2003 ;), with the plugin RemoteCalendars
http://remotecalendars.sourceforge.net/google.htm
Here are all the instructions
http://remotecalendars.sourceforge.net/google.htm
I'm interested in how you set up your Quicksilver trigger. I have looked online and can't find any resource to set up one of these triggers for myself. Please help...
May 02 2006 at 12:12 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyGoogle Calendar is looking really slick but there are some drawbacks when you have to manage schedules on-line and off-line.
I am trying to collect information about mobile phones that will fix this problem.
Please hop over to http://ekive.blogspot.com/2006/04/google-calendar-making-coordination_20.html and leave a comment that lets me know:
- Make and Model of Phone you use
- Your Carrier
- Whether the Calendar capability on the phone allows you to send a calendar booking as an SMS or MMS message.
For instance the Sony Ericcson P800/P900 models provide send vCalendar as SMS or MMS on T-Mobile or Cingular.
Please help on this fact finding mission. There is a solution that can bring the off-line and on-line calendar worlds together.
How do I drag a link to Google Calendar to my dock or desktop ?
April 19 2006 at 10:44 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOut of the first 20 comments, I'm really baffled to see none seems to know there have been webcals existing years before the Google one, including versions which support syncing with iCal, some even free (WebCalendar, PHPiCalendar...)
Yes, Google does use "some mental suggestion on you when you sleep". Indeed.
Herv頠:-(
Here is a question tat has blown my mind ever since switching to Mac years ago - why didn't Apple do a Google Calendar? i.e. why did they not create an online iCal that synchs with iCal app? (If you are thinking about talking to me about "publishing your iCal" you can sit down). The probelm with Google calendar is that I cannot add to ift rom my Treo - someone needs to write a nice little app for that and then I am set. I do dream about a homepage a la Google Personalized Hompeage - designed by Apple.
April 19 2006 at 1:19 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyMy iBook is the computer I use most often, and I often have to use it offline. I use gmail, but I access it through Mail.app so that my messages are always available to me. If I'm using another computer I can still access them through gmail itself: best of both worlds.
If iCal were able to sync with Google Calendar as easily as I get gmail through Mail.app, then I'd be using that setup in a second. As it stands, there's no good reason for me to adopt gCal because I'm not caught without my laptop (or sync'd iPod) often enough.
Uh.. doesn't Apple have .Mac for this?
April 18 2006 at 9:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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