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Apple Implements the CalDAV Standard For MobileMe 152

Vermyndax writes "Apple announced the new MobileMe Calendar beta on July 6th. The mainstream press picked up the story and plugged the gorgeous new iPad-like interface for all devices. It seems, however, that they missed the real story: MobileMe's new Calendar application is an implementation of CalDAV, the proposed calendaring standard. This may be the same implementation that exists in Snow Leopard Server and is open sourced. The hidden gem in all of this is that Apple plans to bring this CalDAV connectivity to Outlook users on MobileMe. Where might they take it next?"
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Apple Implements the CalDAV Standard For MobileMe

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  • Unpossible (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rational ( 1990 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @04:04PM (#32844586)

    As everybody knows, Apple is a closed and evil company, therefore the headline is misleading and the story inaccurate. QED.

    • Re:Unpossible (Score:5, Informative)

      by leamanc ( 961376 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @05:04PM (#32845164) Homepage Journal

      Yeah, I know because Apple never [cups.org] gives [zeroconf.org] anything [webkit.org] back to the open source community at all!

      • Re:Unpossible (Score:5, Informative)

        by mean pun ( 717227 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @05:59PM (#32845680)
        Agreed [llvm.org].
      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Guy Harris ( 3803 )

        Yeah, I know because Apple never [cups.org] gives [zeroconf.org] anything [webkit.org] back to the open source community at all!

        To be fair, "developed by Apple" in "CUPS is the standards-based, open source printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other UNIX®-like operating systems." in the CUPS home page means "Apple hired the guy who created CUPS, and it's now an Apple project", not "Apple were the original developers of CUPS".

  • iCal (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @04:10PM (#32844658)

    Apple was one of the three companies that wrote the CalDAV RFC and they implemented it immediately in iCal in 2007. (iCal is the built in calendaring app in OS X.) Previous to that that iCal already used WebDAV. They offer an OSS CalDAV server in OS X server. Why would anyone find it surprising that the rewritten WebApp version of iCal is using CalDAV?Apple has already been pushing it as hard as possible as an open standard alternative to Exchange.

    • My only question is "Why did it take so long?".
      • Re:iCal (Score:4, Interesting)

        by ZERO1ZERO ( 948669 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @04:21PM (#32844732)
        Apple always seems to 'take ages' to implement stuff. This applies in hardware, software, services etc. The upshot is that when they do it's usually implemented properly, in a nice easy to use way, with a shiny interface layer on top. Look at Ipod. When they firstbrought it out people said it was lame and it had less space than current competing mp3 players. But what they did have was solid. And there wasn't even an itunes store at that point. A few revisions later and they dominate the mp3 player space. iPad will be the same. Look at some of there software offereings and it's the same story.
        • Re:iCal (Score:5, Funny)

          by Mononoke ( 88668 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @04:29PM (#32844820) Homepage Journal

          Look at Ipod. When they firstbrought it out people said it was lame and it had less space than current competing mp3 players.

          NO WAY! Someone really said that? In public?!? ^_-

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by kabloom ( 755503 )

      It's worthwhile to have someone point out that the protocol behind this service is CalDAV, because that lets us Evolution users know how to synchronize with it.

  • I'd rather have syncml support in osx calendar and iphone. The only reason to hang on nokias...
    • Re:syncml (Score:5, Informative)

      by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @04:45PM (#32844954) Homepage Journal

      Yeesh. SyncML? Have you ever looked at that standard? Ghastly.

      Besides, converting CalDAV to SyncML on the server side shouldn't be hard, since CalDAV is iCalendar files in a set of directories on a WebDAV server, and SyncML is iCalendar files wrapped in XML and sent to a SyncML server across whatever protocol the vendor chooses. In fact, a quick Googling suggests that there are already numerous SyncML to CalDAV gateways, including open source ones.

      • Yeesh. SyncML? Have you ever looked at that standard? Ghastly.

        Yes it's horrible and obsolete, technically speaking. It's still used in lots of collaborative calendar software. Having syncml clients for OSX and iPhone would help me and lots of other people too to get rid of horrible nokias etc.

  • iDONTKNOW. In any case this is incompatible with my lunar calendar.
  • As long as you have to pay for mobileme, it doesn't really matter. One of apple's biggest blunders is not considering mobileme a loss leader.

    • In fact, as mac.com, MobileMe was free for a few years. I tried the paid service for a while but didn't find enough value in it to make re-upping worth it. Besides, "MobileMe" has got to be one of the worst names for a product to ever come out of Apple

      • Besides, "MobileMe" has got to be one of the worst names for a product to ever come out of Apple

        But it does sound like a good name for a DS flash card product [pineight.com].

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by e4g4 ( 533831 )

        "MobileMe" has got to be one of the worst names for a product to ever come out of Apple

        No argument there - I'd put it one step down from the "iPad" as far as bad product names go. You do have to admit, though, that me.com is a pretty good domain for an email address.

        • You do have to admit, though, that me.com is a pretty good domain for an email address.

          No I don't... I have a MobileMe account and I've stuck with the "mac.com" domain, which still works. "me.com" is too weird for words.

    • Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HumanEmulator ( 1062440 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @04:49PM (#32844992)

      One of apple's biggest blunders is not considering mobileme a loss leader.

      Back when it was known as iTools [wikipedia.org], it was a loss leader. They gave that up after 2 years so there was a probably a good reason. Perhaps because people are willing to pay?

      • by IANAAC ( 692242 )
        Because I don't use MobileMe (or mac.com), I don't know... this is an honest question:

        What does MobileMe offer that the free options out there don't? What's the feature that would make me want to pay?

        • by maxume ( 22995 )

          Shiny integration and a Christmas card that supposedly comes from Steve Jobs.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by BitZtream ( 692029 )

          If you want features, you won't pay for it and you'll be disappointed when you see it.

          Its strength is actually, imo, its lack of features.

          It does have a pretty interface that works reasonable well for standard email client, web host/photo album, but its not particularly impressive. Its simple and elegant.

          The MobileMe photo browser that gets created or whatever when you upload an album from iPhoto to MobileMe is surprisingly pretty for something so plain.

          I only have an account for the Find My iPhone feature

          • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            You'd pay for Finding your Phone? Most other mobile platforms that have GPS can read an incoming SMS and report back the GPS coordinates, or remotely trigger the ringer, etc, etc. It's just a simple program on the phone that sits there idly. Most of the time, there's at least one that's free.

            Oh wait, that's right. The Fruit only recently added background services, and even then, would probably ban all the apps that competed with their own service. /don't have any Fruits.

        • I am a subscriber; could I replace it with equivalent "free" alternatives? Probably... but - having one service to handle the calendar syncing (and syncing to my iphone), the contact syncing, bookmark syncing, as well as the easy web mail interface, plus the easy online storage & gallery functionality - I prefer that to having to find ways to integrate flickr/picasa, delicious (or another bookmark sync service), gmail, google calendar, together.

          Plus, for me one of the killer apps here is the ability t

    • A lot of these features I get for free with google/android - if I didn't have them for free I'm certain I'd probably shell out for it these days :(.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        Google supports CalDAV which they give away for free.

        Exchange support on Google accounts, Dropbox and Wordpress makes MobileMe worthless, unless you want to find your lost iPhone.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by darrylo ( 97569 )

          There is one reason to get MobileMe: contact groups

          MobileMe is the only big name to support automatic/bidirectional syncing of contacts in multiple groups. I like keeping my friends, family, co-workers, and business numbers separate. The only big question here is whether multiple groups is worth the price. I think it is, but others won't.

          Google's idea of contact sync is to shovel all of your contacts into one big steamy pile (on the iPhone, since we're talking about MobileMe -- I think multiple group

      • A lot of these features I get for free with google/android

        As with all of these things, when you pay for something it means that the party you're buying from has an actual interest in delivering what they say they will, as opposed to the other model, where they let you sharecrop a corner of their server in order to funnel your eyeballs to the highest bidder.

        The nice thing about paying directly for things is it eliminates that fundamental conflict of interest that the service provider has between the end user

    • by afabbro ( 33948 )

      One of apple's biggest blunders is not considering mobileme a loss leader.

      Particularly since you can do everything it offers for free.

      • "Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. In sync on all your devices." My work and mail/contacts/calendar are already perfectly in sync. For contacts and calendar, I sync with Google (from my home, from my work Outlook, etc.) and then my iPhone syncs with that. Works just great. My mail has been accessible from all my computers and phone for a long time.
      • "Create a beautiful web gallery of your photos and share them in just a few clicks. Store and share e
  • Google and Apple (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Irick ( 1842362 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @04:28PM (#32844818)
    People seem to forget these two companies actually press open standards above proprietary formats. For two companies that are pitted against each other so much by the media and marketing, they really do remain nearly seamlessly interoperable. I have no problems switching between Apple's default software to alternative applications just because of how standardized it is. Mail, iCal, etc.
    • by Itninja ( 937614 )
      Are they pitted against each other? Other than the Android (which Google only makes the OS for) vs iPhone, what else is there?
      • Are they pitted against each other? Other than the Android (which Google only makes the OS for) vs iPhone, what else is there?

        Advertising on mobile devices.
        http://advertising.apple.com/ [apple.com]

    • by ducomputergeek ( 595742 ) on Thursday July 08, 2010 @05:15PM (#32845266)

      Apple became the white knights of Opensource by adopting a BSD-based userland (It wasn't Linux but it gave the Linux fans the ability to say "See, Apple is doing it we can too"). Then Apple embraced and extended CUPS. But it's been how many years and they've not extinguished it. CUPS is used by every Linux distro I've tried and Apple has done nothing to stop them. Same with all their other technologies, they embraced the open standards and contributed a lot to different projects, but still held parts to be propitary. They were "open" but not "open enough" for some people. But largely the early appeal of OSX was to the geek crowd. Every LAMP developer I knew at the time left Linux for OSX as their desktop (usually laptop) of choice. I was one of them after spending 2 years trying to get printers and my sound card to work with Linux I got tired and just wanted something that worked. So I bought an iBook and never looked back.

      Then things changed when Apple forked KHTML. For some reason, that was seen as suspicious by the /. crowd. I'm not sure why. Eventually Apple created Webkit and offered it back to the community with the KHTML folks eventually adopting it (iirc). But that's when the negativity began and then continued with the iPods.

      But then, there was iTunes and the iTMS. Apple was against DRM, but added just enough DRM to get labels to sign up. And the DRM they added never once got in my way. If I wanted to burn to CD to listen in my car, I could. I could copy to a number of computers and iPods and listen to what I had purchased and the biggest factor was I could buy the couple tracks I wanted from a CD and not the entire album for $.99. It didn't mesh with some peoples idea of "freedom", but to the masses it became having cake and eating it too. Apple was the first company that was able to put it all together in a package the average person could use.

      And because Apple was for the masses now and no longer aimed for the "geeks", the /. crowd began hating Apple as Apple found more and more success with more people. It was OSX that was becoming the *iux of the masses, not Linux. This continued with the iPhone. Although at first it was more of a shrug, then came the iPhone 2 with the App Store and it was full on rabid hatred. Mainly I think because, again, Apple developed a product that went over extremely well for the masses, but ignored what the "geeks" might want.

      And so the Geeks went to Google. What was not to love about google, lots of geeks, lots of geeky tools made by geeks for geeks. And so, Google is now the company that replaced Apple about 2007 as the great "white knight". It will last another 3 - 5 years, and then Google will become the new "Evil company that must die" replaced by someone else. Who knows, maybe by that time the new white knight will be Microsoft. Stranger things have happened.

      • Even in a seemingly anti-apple place like this, I don't think there's much negativity towards OS X. It started with the iPod and continued with the iPhone/iPad because they're not open enough.

        I dislike the iPortables because without modding I can't open a terminal and browse the filesystem, install arbitrary software, and look at the source. I suspect a lot of geeks want something that 'Just Works' AND is open. The anger comes from the thought that IF only Apple opened the iDevices then geeks could finally

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Wow, you're completely and utterly brainwashed. You actually sincerely believe that people buy Apple products merely because they're cool and shiny, and not because they work well and are easy to use?

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
              • > else why isn't *EVERY* Joe Sickpack with an Internet connection these days using a Mac

                Ummm, because..

                > I find a PC works well and is easy to use - and much cheaper

                It's the "much cheaper" part, which YOU used as a point.

                Really, your sophistry needs some work.

                Maury

          • But then the Apple people start touting on about the wonders of a BSD core to OS X and this strikes me as a complete contradiction.

            Your argument confuses "simplicity" with "lack of depth".

            For general use, OS X is extremely simple to use, aesthetically pleasing, consistent, and quite stable. I have experience with Windows (3.1 through 7), Linux (Fedora, Red Hat, and Ubuntu), and Solaris (their x86 workstation) "desktop" environments - none of them have matched OSX in the desktop space, in my experience. Th

      • The love/hate relationship Slashdot has for Apple that's been going on since early 2000's is really fascinating. I think there is a bit of resentment from the rabid F/OSS crowd, to which I once belonged. These days I just can't bring myself to care that much about twisting my daily habits 5 different ways just for "The Cause." Above all I want shit that works. The option to spaz out in the command line is always couple of keystrokes away so I don't feel like I'm in the wilderness such as Windows where you h

      • Wow, that was a great post. I think you're spot on.

        The rough edges are already showing on Google.

    • Of which, both iPhone and Android both use CalDAV for Google services. They are not "pitted against each other" in any way when it comes to calendar services.

    • They're both aiming at Microsoft, the company that makes all the money in this space. You don't see the same level of love and happiness in their core businesses.

  • where ever they want you to go.

  • Where might they take it next?

    It'd be nice if they ported their fancy web interface over to OSX server. The webmail and other web interfaces are kind of weak points in Apple's server offerings.

    • by stiller ( 451878 )

      Better webDAV support would be nice. Mac OS 10.6.4 finally works for me with 3rd party cardDAV servers. webDAV is the only thing left standing between me and full open-standards syncing of my user data.

  • running an xserve, OD user configured, with their email address in the open directory 'info' pane. user receives .ics calendar invites - double-click - and these always get added to her default local calendar - any geeks out there know any way to get invites to default to a CalDAV calendar? i think its not a feature, but if you can ctrl-click to select which calendar to belong to - but is there no way to make the CalDAV calendar the default instead of a local calendar? any leads much appreciated.

    j

    sorry for

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by curmi ( 205804 )

      This has always been this way, and I have logged a bug with Apple over the issue. With 10.6.4 it seems that some of us have suddenly found the invites go in to the CalDAV calendar by default now, instead of the local calendar. This is great, but we aren't sure why, and we've seen it only occur on some machines. There does not seem to be an option to say which calendar should be the default, so it is all a little bizarre.

      • Just a guess, but try opening iCal, and clicking on the calendar that you want the events to go into. Now go back to Mail, and click on the invite.

  • Well that's just great. Do you think this time it might be able to remind me of my appointments more than one time before it doesn't remind me anymore

      My Microsoft phone did a much better of scheduling my tasks and appointments that my iPhone

      Dictated on my iPhone using drag

  • by Anonymous Coward

    So, lots of weird meta comments about the nature of Apple fanboy-ism and rabid Apple hatred, the intricacies of pro/anti Apple moderation, gayness, etc.

    Haven't seen a comment about the actual STORY though. Or the CalDAV standard. Or anything pertaining to the article at hand.

    I submit that you are all horribly short on critical thinking and long on free time.

  • Has anyone got that to work yet? (I signed up for the beta two days ago but didn't get an invite yet). That would be really useful, I work with Google calendar people and need to check two calendars.
  • To get this working in Microsoft Outlook, you have to install the MobileMe Control Panel for Windows. The hidden gem in all of this is that Apple plans to bring this CalDAV connectivity to Outlook users on MobileMe.

    Did they explain how the first sentence necessarily implies the second?

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