Calendar (application)
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Calendar running on OS X Yosemite | |
| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
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| Initial release | September 10, 2002 |
| Stable release | 8.0 / October 16, 2014 |
| Operating system | OS X |
| Type | Electronic calendar |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | Calendar |
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| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | June 17, 2007 |
| Stable release | 8.3 (12F69/12F70) / April 8, 2015 |
| Operating system | iOS, watchOS |
| Type | Electronic calendar |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | iOS and iCloud Calendar |
Calendar is a personal calendar application made by Apple Inc. that runs on both the OS X desktop operating system and iOS mobile operating system. It offers online cloud backup of calendars using Apple's iCloud service, or can synchronise with other calendar services, including Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange Server.
The OS X version was known as iCal before the release of OS X Mountain Lion in July 2012. Originally released as a free download for Mac OS X v10.2 on September 10, 2002, it was bundled with the operating system as iCal 1.5 with the release of Mac OS X v10.3. iCal was the first calendar application for OS X to offer support for multiple calendars and the ability to intermittently publish/subscribe to calendars on WebDAV servers. Version 2 of iCal was released as part of Mac OS X v10.4, Version 3 as part of Mac OS X v10.5, Version 4 as part of Mac OS X v10.6, Version 5 as part of Mac OS X v10.7, Version 6 as part of OS X v10.8, Version 7 as part of OS X v10.9, and Version 8 as part of OS X v10.10.
Apple licensed the iCal name from Brown Bear Software, who have used it for their iCal application since 1997.[1]
iCal's initial development was quite different from other Apple software: it was designed independently by a small French team working "secretly" in Paris, led by Jean-Marie Hullot, a friend of Steve Jobs. iCal's development has since been transferred to Apple US headquarters in Cupertino.[2]
Features
- It tracks events and appointments, allows multiple calendar views (such as calendars for "home", "work", and other calendars you create) to quickly identify conflicts and free time.
- It is integrated with iCloud, so calendars can be shared and synced with other devices, such as PCs, iPhones, and iPod touch, over the internet. You can also share calendars via the WebDAV protocol. Google now supports WebDAV for Google Calendar making iCal easily configurable.
- Users can subscribe to other calendars so they can keep up with friends and colleagues, and other things such as athletic schedules and television programs.
- iCal allows notification of upcoming events either on screen, by email, SMS, or Pager.
- iCal supports the use of the iCalendar format [VERSION:2.0]. It does not support the older vCalendar 1.0 format. [VERSION:1.0]
New in version 3
- Setting to let iCal set auto-alarms for each event created.
- Redesigned user interface
- Inline event editing
- Ability to turn off alarms for all events
- Use a CalDAV(WebDAV) account to store and keep calendars in sync on a CalDAV server.
- The date on the icon in the Dock displays the current date all the time. (Until version 3, iCal's icon displayed July 17—the date iCal premiered in 2002 at the Macworld Expo—by default until the program was run.[3])
New in version 4
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 support[4]
- Refined user interface (particularly for multiple events management)
- Automatic setup for Yahoo/Google Mail/Gmail calendars. Events are synced and downloaded from your account.
New in version 5
New
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 support[5]
- New skeuomorphic skin similar to Calendar for iPad.[6]
- Full-screen support[5]
- Agenda list and mini-month display added to Day view[5]
- Quick Add for adding events[5]
- Heat map to indicate the number of activities per day[5]
Removed
- Dedicated calendar pane (now just a pop-up menu under the "Calendars" button)
- Details pane on the right hand side
- Mini month display in non-Day views
- Ability to select/highlight days in Month view
New in version 6
New
- All calendars accessible in sidebar[5]
- Search suggestions when searching for events[5]
- Creates a search token displaying a list of events[5]
- New date picker[5]
- Event notifications in Notification Center[5]
- Add attachments to iCloud Calendar items[7]
Removed
- Ability to select variable snooze durations. Only 15 minute snooze available.[8] This was reintroduced with OS X Mavericks.[9]
Bugs
iCal supports time zones, whereby if the computer’s time zone changes, all the events in iCal are shifted to compensate for the time zone difference. The bug is that this also occurs when the time zone function is disabled, therefore whenever the computer’s time zone changes, all the events in iCal shift as well. As of today, there is still no fix for this bug, which has carried over through Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion).[10]
Alert data loss always occurs when alarm alert windows currently being displayed disappear due to reboots, system crashes, or race conditions, because they never reappear.[11]
Although not strictly a bug, full-time-zone support has never been implemented in the Calendar app. There is no way of specifying start and end times for events in different timezones, even though the underlying RFC 6868 iCalendar specification does allow this. This is a feature necessary to plan cross-timezone flights or trains.
See also
- Calendar and Contacts Server
- iCalendar
- List of applications with iCalendar support
- SyncML open standard for calendar syncing
References
- ↑ "iCal Frequently Asked Questions FAQ". Brown Bear Software. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
- ↑ McLean, Prince (October 17, 2007). "Road to Mac OS X Leopard: iCal 3.0". AppleInsider. Retrieved November 2, 2007.
- ↑ Fun Fact Time: iCal's Birthday is Today
- ↑ Mac OS X - What is Mac OS X - Mail, iCal, Address Book
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "OS X Mountain Lion - What's New". Apple. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
- ↑ "Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 2 Brings New Look for iCal". Mac Rumors. March 31, 2011. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
- ↑ "iCloud: Using and troubleshooting Calendar attachments". Apple. September 19, 2012. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
- ↑ "Set snooze duration for Mountain Lion notifications". Apple. July 26, 2012. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
- ↑ "Set snooze times for notifications in OS X Mavericks". cnet.com. January 2, 2014. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
- ↑ "iCal: Timezones". MacInTouch. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
- ↑ "iCal: Alarms". MacInTouch. Retrieved June 12, 2013.
External links
- New Software Lets Users Manage Multiple Calendars & Share Calendars Over The Internet - Apple's July 2002 press release introducing iCal
- New Application to Manage & Share Multiple Calendars Now Available for Free Download - Apple's September 2002 press release announcing availability of iCal
- Calendar and Scheduling Consortium part of next version of iCal Server (Leopard)
- ICal4j - ICal Java library (with usage examples)
- Kerio Knowledge Base with articles for delegating calendars wth Outlook, Entourage, and web mail users - through Kerio Connect.
- Perl script and instructions to subscribe from iCal to a Sun Calendar Server and subsequently sync it to mobile devices through iSync
- Apple iCal calendars
- Geody iCal and csv calendars - Free (CC-by-sa) calendars
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