Filed under: iPod Family, Software, iPhone
Evidence found for possible upcoming iCal task support on iPhone
Today, I was messing around in the Calendar.sqlitedb file associated with the iPhone's on-line calendar application. I was surprised to discover that the onboard calendar contains all the table support needed for to-do tasks, i.e. CREATE TABLE Task (ROWID INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, summary TEXT, priority INTEGER, due_date INTEGER, completion_date INTEGER, calendar_id INTEGER);.
As of right now, this information is completely useless. Tasks won't sync to or from the iPhone. Still, it's good to see where Apple might expand their software. It's a direction that many users would find helpful. So c'mon, Apple, please add to-do list support to the iPhone.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Phil said 3:26PM on 2-01-2008
And when are the "Notes" on the iPhone gonna sync with the "Notes" in Mail?!?!
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Chroma said 3:43PM on 2-01-2008
-seconded-
I'd like to see some syncing up with notes and to-do. I'm always making list of things that need to get done (and grocery lists) in notes on my iPhone.
ChillyWilly said 3:56PM on 2-01-2008
Notes sync for the touch would be nice.
Monolife said 4:01PM on 2-01-2008
Amen, amen I say.
Right now, I have a separate gmail account just to send big notes back and forth on my iPod touch, which works pretty darn nicely, but still... "Notes" and "notes" should have been a no brainer for Apple.
Ryan Trevisol said 3:27PM on 2-01-2008
Yay! My liberation from palm will be complete!
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robogobo said 4:34PM on 2-01-2008
here here.
Brandon Martinez said 3:38PM on 2-01-2008
That goes for the iPod Touch, too! I want Mail, iCal and Address book to be a complete hub for everything. As soon as task syncing is implemented on the iPhone/Touch, I won't have to use my archaic notes system i'm using now :S
Also, I was hoping when they release the SDK, someone puts out a School App (I was going to try and tackle that myself, actually), so i can keep track of class work. So much ToDo, with no ToDos!
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sunny ray said 4:04PM on 2-01-2008
In the last 8 years or so, I've noticed that Apple's software engineering tends to go for stability and program correctness instead of just features. An example of this would be in early versions of OS X where you could set the transparency for Terminal windows by editing a plist. A year or so later, you could finally do it through the GUI.
Since nerdlings just compare spec sheets for ego rather than user experience, this is the opposite of what most people think they want.
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Vinod Ponmanadiyil said 4:17PM on 2-01-2008
Can you please share which tool did you use to open the SQLite database?. I've tried a few, but all are commercial apps.
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Mo said 1:30PM on 2-04-2008
I would imagine the “sqlite” command-line tool that ships with every copy of SQLite itself and, by extension, Mac OS X.
You can dump the “CREATE TABLE” statements by querying the sqlite_master table.
chuck said 5:20PM on 2-01-2008
AMEN! iphone doesn't cut it as a smart phone until it can tell me what I need to do today. Todo support is my #1 want for iPhone.
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dorian said 11:54AM on 2-03-2008
the lack of a task/to do list became a deal breaker for me. Once this comes out, i'll say good by to 5g ipod and iPaq for a touch. All it needs then is away to sync to RTM.
Think Adrian said 5:27PM on 2-01-2008
Todos, Notes and Contacts, please!
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moo083 said 6:02PM on 2-01-2008
Now for a request that no one thinks of until I mention it, after which it seems obvious:
The ability to set a task that changes the ring. Specifically, setting the phone to silent and back by setting a iCal or iPhone Calendar Task.
Imagine being a student and never worrying about turning your cell off before you walk in to a class. Or if you just scheduled a meeting, imagine if you could turn your cell to silent during the meeting, days or weeks or months or years ahead.
Nice feature, huh? And its pretty damn easy to implement too.
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De'z said 6:17PM on 2-01-2008
Dear Apple,
Enable .Mac sync'ing on the iPhone!
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barry said 7:00PM on 2-01-2008
I need something that tells me what I must "do" for the day displayed on the home screen. I know it might not be popular but my Windows Mobile phone had this down...maybe a ticker on the top of the screen that scrolls the things I need to get done...something like that would make my life much easier....!
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sam said 7:41PM on 2-01-2008
Mail notes already have a sync item in Leopard, see http://developer.apple.com/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SyncServicesSchemaRef/Articles/Notes.html
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byron church said 8:11PM on 2-01-2008
Is there a possibility for multiple calendars with colors like in iCal ? I cant tell my To Dos from my To Don'ts ! Not to mention my To Dids and to shoulds
Josh said 9:07PM on 2-01-2008
They should put a little time in making iCal suck a little less first....
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Jay Riether said 11:58PM on 2-01-2008
Two things:
I think Apple rushed the UI for both touch devices. Give 'em time to work out the UI for all these features. Clearly the platform can support a nearly desktop-like functionality...but the UI has to be as close to intuitive as possible. Each addition needs to be thought through and tested before implementation, because changes to basic operation cause more complaints than limited functionality.
iCal on the touch devices could certainly use a more informative calendar display. Spanning event should have colored bars across days instead of a single dot which can hide multiple events. And that seems easy enough to do by borrowing desktop iCal's calendar's settings, and a simple pull-down on the touch to select/change which sync'd calendar the event is attributed to.
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