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."

File Format

[Matthias Wiesmann]

One intersting thing is that the file format is text based and the structure seems quite obvious:

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
PRODID:-//App le Computer\, Inc//iCal 1.0//EN
X-WR-CALNAME;VALUE=TEXT:Work
X-WR-TIMEZO NE;VALUE=TEXT:Europe/Zurich
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN:VE VENT
SEQUENCE:1

I would have preferred an XML data format, but at least a text format means I can manage it using cvs (I don't want to buy a .mac account). The text encoding also seems to be UTF-8.

Does anybody know if this format is used somewhere else or even documented?

Re:File Format

[foobar104]

Does anybody know if this format is used somewhere else or even documented?

Uhhh... you mean vCalendar? Yeah, I think [ietf.org] I saw [ietf.org] some somewhere [ietf.org].

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 [ietf.org]. 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 [apple.com] 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.

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.

Re:So close...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it does support this but you have to screw with iCal for a little bit to get it to work, here's the steps:

Create Event (Around Noon)
Take the bottom of the event and strech it out so it covers the amount of hours you want
Then move the event to the proper time (Click on the time title bar)
Get info on the event (Command + I)
And make sure the time is correct

Yeah it's weird but it works as this below shows:

BEGIN:VEVENT
SEQUENCE:55
DTSTART;TZID=US/Easte rn:20020911T223000
DTSTAMP:20020910T171915Z
SUMM ARY:Weds Club Night
UID:9EA42DCC-C4E2-11D6-82EE-0003935B7706
S TATUS:TENTATIVE
DTEND;TZID=US/Eastern:20020912T02 0000
RRULE:FREQ=WEEKLY;INTERVAL=1;BYDAY=WE

Sure it sucks to have to take more than a single simple step but you can do it!

Re:iCal Library

[khoward1]

I use OmniWeb and I didn't have any problem copying and pasting the URL's into iCal's "Subscribe" tool. It is a pain that they don't work with one click, but it's not like you can't get them at all.