Spanning Sync looks to be the holy grail of true, two-way calendar synchronization between Apple's iCal and Google Calendar. Yes: by 'two-way' I mean 'you can edit the same calendar in either place and the changes will synchronize.' Nasty translation I know, so maybe you should go watch their demo video to really get your mouth watering. In it, one of Spanning Sync's creators shows off how easy it is to link iCal calendars with equivalents in Google Calendar (bonus points for the ability to chose exactly which calendars shake hands), as well as moving an event in one calendar and having the change sync to the other. If this doesn't have you excited, please excuse me while I go check my blood pressure.
Spanning Sync's blog has more details, and its release is billed as 'coming soon.' Stay tuned to TUAW as well, as I was fortunate enough to get my name in on the private beta before the signup list closed, and I'll have a screencast and a review for you as soon as possible.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
11-01-2006 @ 4:37PM
Dmitry said...
F-ing great news! I've Just been wondering how I could do this myself. I use iCal, but other people I want to share calendars with don't have Macs, so this is going to be perfect. Willing to give half a kingdom for this (not mine, of course)
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11-01-2006 @ 5:03PM
www.turbino.dk said...
this is super... my way... its great.. cant wait to do it
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11-01-2006 @ 5:10PM
PuterSaurus said...
Holy Mother Load. I hope I'm not being teased. This is great news.
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11-01-2006 @ 5:56PM
superman said...
i'm so freakin excited for this :D
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11-01-2006 @ 6:15PM
Brian P said...
I hae been waiting for this for so long. Simply amazing. My wife was shocked when she hard me all excited as I watched the video.
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11-01-2006 @ 6:25PM
Dels said...
This looks great! I don't want to rain on this program's parade, but isn't Leopard + .Mac going to offer this same functionality for iCal?
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11-01-2006 @ 6:27PM
iMatt said...
This is great news.
Too bad Apple didn't provide a more robust iCal implementation in .Mac, b/c I think that SpanningSync will provoke a mass exodus to gCal.
I have 2 questions:
1. Does SpanningSync need to be running at all times (or at least all times you want to sync) in order to work?
2. Does SpanningSync also sync the colors of the calendars that you're sync'ing?
Thanks!
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11-01-2006 @ 6:30PM
Daniel Bergey said...
Wow. I was just trying to set up something like this a few weeks ago, but I couldn't figure out how to do it without a WebDav server for both calendars to sync themselves with. Plus, it wouldn't have been two-way syncing.
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11-01-2006 @ 6:34PM
smoove said...
woo hoo! about effing time someone did this. Hopefully I can finally make a change on a calendar, syncing it with ical, then sycn that with gcal for my girlfriend to look at.
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11-01-2006 @ 6:42PM
David Chartier said...
#7: For both of your questions:
1) Yes, but it runs as a background daemon, as it's installed as a System Preference pane, so it runs as often as you specify.
2) Not sure, but calendar colors should be the least of your worries. Those are a set-and-forget thing.
As for #6:
Sort of, but Google Calendar offers a lot of functionality that Apple's .Mac/iCal doesn't. For example: sharing and collaborative editing work differently, and having data in Google Calendar opens up a lot of other doors with their services.
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11-01-2006 @ 6:47PM
Dave Schultz said...
Very, very cool. They have my money *now.*
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11-01-2006 @ 6:53PM
smoove said...
So in theory, if i had a Palm and Missing Sync installed, I can make changes on my palm calendar, sync it to ical, then sync it to gcal and vice versa?
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11-01-2006 @ 6:59PM
Randy Metzger said...
Wow..this looks great! Now if they would just add Address Book syncing I could lose my dotMac account for good.
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11-01-2006 @ 7:00PM
Thayne Miller said...
a great piece of software! I still think Apple's move to the open standards used in Leopard will make this same thing possible. However, I really like google and their calendar software simply because I know a lot of people that aren't mac users yet. Of course I prefer to use iCal over gCal, but this makes it so that you can use what you want. Good job!
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11-01-2006 @ 7:05PM
David Chartier said...
#12: Yep! If you watch the video, you'll see that you can determine how often Spanning Sync works its magic; I think it can go as often as every 10 minutes, up to once a day and maybe longer. Your choice.
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11-01-2006 @ 9:21PM
Ryan Maxwell said...
sweet! Ive been waiting for something like this.
Its currently possible to subscribe to your google calenders via an iCal web feed and view them in iCal (im sure many people already knew this), but this means I can finally make events in iCal and have them sync back online to my google calender.
In the last few months ive resorted to doing all my calender entry through google calender, but keeping my feeds live and updating in iCal just so that they sync to my iPod.
Only problem was I had to be online whenever I wanted to add calender events. This solves that - woohoo!
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11-01-2006 @ 9:27PM
Ryan Maxwell said...
Just wanted to add I think that iCal will natively sync with google calender in 10.5
We are seeing a lot more google integration in OS X lately (Those hidden Google Maps/GPS integration in iPhoto, GOogle search in Safari), and with Googles CEO now on Apple's board, I can only see the 2 getting closer on projects like this.
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11-01-2006 @ 10:21PM
Macskeeball said...
Awesome.
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11-01-2006 @ 10:51PM
Christopher said...
Fantastic! This will be my holy grail for iCal. I've done the ol' update everything on Google Calendar and subscribe to it with iCal for a few months now, but I much prefer a local app interface than a web interface, and when this comes out I'll buy it up in a heartbeat. If they add GMail/Address Book syncing, I can see this becoming a "must have" app for new Mac users.
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11-02-2006 @ 9:21AM
Adam said...
if anyone is interested.. i have a perl script that will take a text file of dates and convert them into a iCal formatted file.
i uses this for motorcycle racing dates. i take the 3 series and put them into one iCal. it makes making a calendar with a TON of dates easier to create.
if you would like the script email me: enzochi at gmail.com and put iCal in subject line.
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