Apple Releases iCal

Freezebot writes, "Apple released his new iApp today, iCal. iCal is a calendar manager, which allows you to share your calendars online with your colleagues, family and friends, through your .Mac account. It is a free download." It also works with any WebDAV server. Friendly Canuck adds, "However, iSync is nowhere to be seen. I thought the whole point of iCal was syncing with other devices. Oh well."

Comments

Re:File Format

[h0tblack]

iCal uses an industry-standard iCalendar (.ics) specification. This is a text file that can be easily shared on the Internet. For more information on the iCalendar format, see http://www.imc.org/pdi/ or RFC2445. So yes, it's documented rather well and is far from a proprietary thing, you can relatively easily setup your own .mac iCal style server :)

iCal Library

[JHromadka]

Apple also has a library of calendar subscriptions available. Movie and DVD releases, sports schedules, holidays, fall television premieres, and more.

I was really hoping for iSync though, as I won't be able to really utilize iCal until the iSync beta is released later this month.

iSync

[h0tblack]

AFAIK iSync is in beta and will be available pretty much on schedule - end of september. I think Apple are using ical to push their .mac services for now rather than it's integration with iSync, which I'm sure will follow.

HOWTO: Configuring Exchange to publish Free/Busy

[Fiery]

http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/five/70t3 _4.htm

This useful document explains how to configure an Exchange server to allow the publishing and searching of Free/Busy information, and how to configure Outlook clients to use the F/B information.

You could theoretically then configure iCal to use that same F/B publishing location -- at which point, iCal becomes a client for Outlook calendar sharing.

Not a bad thing, really, and certainly useful information to have around.

Quick iCal-iPod Sync until iSync comes out

[helixblue]

If you want to be able to view your iCal entries on your iPod, simply copy ~/Library/Calendars/* to /Volumes/(Name of iPod)/Calendars directory when your iPod is mounted up.

No need to export all your calendars since it's just .ics files :)

Re:"Share your calenders online!"

[Garin]

Ummm... I think you're missing the point. It's not just for other people to a "admire", it's for them to use. You can have a shared calendar that other people subscribe to for their scheduling. For example, one soccer mom can make up the master carpooling schedule, and all the other soccer moms in her group can subscribe to the published version. Or you can publish all of your indie band's concert dates, so all your groupies can be sure to attend. I'm sure you can think of lots of examples where groups of people share a common event calendar.

It's a way to publish a single calendar to lots of people at the same time, and have it integrate into their iCal seamlessly. Maybe you won't have a use for it, but I sure do.