There are a lot of things to complain about when it comes to the launch of Apple’s MobileMe service, which is still in an on-again-off-again state more than 40 hours after it was supposed to be available. I’ve done my fair share of complaining, though, and I’m done bitching about the launch. For now, I’d like to move on and talk about the product itself. Overall, I’m pretty impressed, but it does have one missing feature that’s kind of killing me right now: calendar subscriptions.
If you’re a heavy iCal user, as I am, you are probably subscribed to several remote .ics calendars. At Blue Flavor, we use 37signals’ Backpack for several internal calendars, for schedules, holidays, meetings, and more. I also subscribe to several .ics calendars from social networking services like Upcoming and Dopplr.
A few days ago, before .Mac was turned off, these calendars synced to my iPhone without issue. Now, with MobileMe, they don’t.
Turns out, MobileMe doesn’t support calendar subscriptions. And since the new push syncing service (which otherwise seems great) pushes data from MobileMe to my iPhone, my calendar subscriptions never make it to my mobile. That’s a hard pill to swallow, because .Mac always let me sync subscribed calendars from Mac to Mac, and the previous over-the-wire iPhone sync always let me include subscribed calendars, too.
As I see it, my options for dealing with this are:
Are there any other options? If so, I’d love to hear them. I hope Apple recognizes the importance of calendar subscriptions, particular in the enterprise world it seems to be trying to capture, and adds this feature to MobileMe as soon as possible.
Update: It turns out I have a friend or two on the MobileMe team that I didn’t even realize were on the MobileMe team. I just want to say, for the record, that I feel for you guys, and I know you’re all doing your very best to make this thing work. My complaints are nothing personal. As I’ve said before, my issue with all of this hasn’t been the rollout of MobileMe, it’s been the turning off of .Mac. Going on two days without a service I pay for and rely on has been difficult, just as it would be if your cable company or cell phone provider went down. It may be unfair that us fanboys hold Apple to such a high standard, but we only do so because Apple tends to be so incredibly good at what it does. The bottom line is that this release got botched. I’m sure that’s no one individual’s fault, and I’m certainly not going to hold it against any of you. As I said in the original piece, I’m very impressed with MobileMe in general, and I have no doubt you guys will work out the stability issues in the next few days. It’s really not the end of the world, even if I’ve complained like it was. Keep on keepin’ on, and everything’s gonna be fine. :)
001 // Kevan // 07.11.2008 // 1:55 PM
Oh, and tell them to give SOME kind of status indicator when you click on the left bar in the account section!
002 // Guillermo Esteves // 07.11.2008 // 3:10 PM
You could subscribe to your calendars in Google Calendar and use a tool like Spanning Sync to sync GCal to iCal.
Probably not very appealing since you’re already paying for MobileMe, but it’s an option.
003 // Jordan Wollman // 07.11.2008 // 3:45 PM
I agree with your article totally. I personally love the idea of MobileMe and will use it to a very hefty extent. But, until some of the failing and missing features are really resolved, I unfortunately find myself switching back to previous methods of stating synced… which sucks because I couldn’t sleep last night in anticipation.
But, onward. Apple did a killer job on 99.99% of this release. But I hate to see them going backwards in any capacity.
004 // Eli // 07.11.2008 // 5:17 PM
I’ve been using Google calendar as my main scheduler, and subscribe to the Google caldndars from iCal. I see no reason yet to change that strategy.
You imply I could still use the subscriptions if I turn off “push calendar” function in Mobileme— Is that really possible? I haven’t found a preference for the option.
Thanks.
005 // Jeff Croft // 07.11.2008 // 8:43 PM
Yep. That’s what I’m doing now. On your iPhone or iPod touch, just go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendar > MobileMe Account, and switch calendar to “off”.
006 // Dhukka // 07.12.2008 // 2:17 AM
I totally agree with you, but this problem stretches even further: No more birthdays on the 2.0 calender. The birthday calenders in iCal and Mobileme are also subscription calenders. It’s not a problem in Mobileme itself, because you can check at the calender options to display the birthdays just as you do it on your computer, but you can’t do it on the iPhone / iPod touch. So, no more birthdays as long as you use push calender.
Another thing that annoys me is that I can’t choose the aliases I have set up on mobile me when I want to write a new eMail frim my iPod. I can only use the standard Mobileme adress to send emails from. The problem is, I don’t want to use this adress at all, which is why I have set up 5 aliases in the first place. Again, no problems with that at home or on Mobileme, but it’s not possible on 2.0
Otherwise I think 2.0 is a great piece of software but these problems have to be adressed quickly.
007 // Josh Rubin // 07.12.2008 // 12:12 PM
Thanks for the post, Jeff. This has been a sticking point for me, too. While it’s not optimal, I have found a work around similar to Guillermo’s suggestion.
I’ve moved my subscription calendars to Google Calendar, which I already use as office calendaring tool, and use BusySync to bring those calendars down to iCal as regular (non-subscription) calendars. I’ve tried SpanningSync and had problems, but have been using BusySync flawlessly for months to sync Google Cal and iCal.
Of course, this solution requires my computer to be on to sync Google Calendar, iCal and MobileMe in order for calendars to update on my iPhone, but at least it’s one step closer…
008 // Andy Affleck // 07.12.2008 // 3:01 PM
This is a bitter pill. I’m looking at BusySync but I hate the idea of paying $25 for a feature I had before the upgrade. And I have to wonder if this is a conscious decision on Apple’s part or just something that didn’t make the 1.0 release and we’ll get this functionality back within a few weeks? I’ve not seen anything out there about this either way. Just notes from Apple about how it’s not supported.
009 // Jessica Ibarra // 07.12.2008 // 3:05 PM
I agree that this really sucks. I hope they do something to fix it. The good news is that Apple has posted this support article on their website: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1213 The bad news is that they list this in the article pertaining to iPod touch/iPhone: Syncing to an iPhone/iPod touch, or with a Windows-based PC: This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
I hope this article is updated soon as my company just started using Kerio mail server and I would really like that to be updated through my mobile me service.
010 // Jeff Croft // 07.12.2008 // 3:13 PM
Hey, Rubin…
I like that suggestion, as a sort of ugly workaround. I’m giving it a try now. Seems to work pretty well. One question, though: does Google automatically refresh the subscribed calendars in the background at a reasonably quick rate? I couldn’t find any settings to tell it when to refresh — do you know when/how often it refreshes them? If it only refreshes when I access Google Calendar, that’s not going to work for me (because I’ll virtually never go there). Thanks, man!
011 // Tom Fawbush // 07.13.2008 // 12:18 AM
It looks as though Apple plans on addressing this issue. This is what was posted on their site:
Syncing to an iPhone/iPod touch, or with a Windows-based PC
This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
So, one would assume they are aware of the issue and are planning on fixing it. But for now, I will hold off on Pushing until I can figure out how to get my Birthdays calendar, as well as US Holidays and everything else I use.
It’s a shame something that seems so simple couldn’t be worked out before the release. It was pretty sweet to input an event on my iphone and have it show up on my other two calendars.
012 // Mayuresh Walke // 07.13.2008 // 3:11 AM
Just came across this same discussion on the Apple Discussion forums and as someone has pointed out, you can enable the Birthday Calendar in the me.com online version by going into the calendar settings.
013 // Garrett Paine // 07.13.2008 // 7:04 AM
Another grody approach would be to figure out how to copy and convert a subscribed calendar to a personal calendar; then it (they) would work with the normal pushing processes. Holidays and birthdays change infrequently, on the other hand, important ones like my wife’s change frequently.
014 // Tom Fawbush // 07.13.2008 // 8:36 AM
Okay, I’m giving the Google Calendar approach a try because I just think it’s cool to be able to push the info. I am a slave to new techno (or at least new to me.)
I can’t really figure out how to do this.
Can someone contact me at tom@tomfawbush.com if they no how?
Thanks, Tom Fawbush
015 // tom Fawbush // 07.13.2008 // 8:37 AM
Or know how.
016 // Tom Fawbush // 07.13.2008 // 9:18 AM
Okay, sorry to be a post hog, but I figured something out that I think will help you all save a few steps. The Google Calendar step is not necessary unless you have other people making additions to the calendar.
Here’s all you have to do:
If you click on a desired calendar, for example, US Holidays all you have to do is export it to your desktop and then go import the .ics file back in to iCal. Turn off the old US Holidays calendar and there you have it.
This is a bit of a pain, but it will push your holidays, favorite football teams (Go Colts) schedule, and any other calendar that stays relatively consistent.
As for anything that is updated and requires others input like group calendars, you will have to have to import it either from Google Calendar or do the export import step in iCal every time there is an update.
Hope this helps. Again, sorry to post so many times, but any time I can save a step and make my life easier I like to share it with others.
017 // Rick // 07.13.2008 // 9:33 AM
I totally agree. I really miss the US Holidays. No US Holidays, how wrong is that? However here is what I did. It’s a bit cumbersome, but it could be worse. Each month, I take my subscriptions and duplicate them with the header MobileMe with a different color selector dot. For example, I subscribe to NASCAR, so I duplicated each race for each weekend under Calendars, labeled “MobileMe-NASCAR”. It shows up twice in iCal however once on my iPhone and once on the MobileMe website. Until Apple decides to help us, that’s about as good as it’s going to get.
018 // Josh Rubin // 07.13.2008 // 1:36 PM
Jeff asked:
“One question, though: does Google automatically refresh the subscribed calendars in the background at a reasonably quick rate? ”
That’s a great question. I’ve also searched for docs on that topic but haven’t found anything explicit. I have observed that it’s ‘reasonably fast’ but haven’t done any timing tests. It will all be under the gun starting tomorrow when the work week begins… Stay tuned.
019 // Jeff Croft // 07.13.2008 // 1:49 PM
Tim and Rick: While I appreciate the suggestion of periodically duplicating the contents of your calendar subscriptions as local, native iCal calendars so they get synced, it’s not a solution that scales.
As you’ve pointed out, it only works for things that change on a very infrequent basic. Frankly, if I’m subscribing to a calendar, it’s probably because it changes all the time (such as our Blue Flavor calendars). The whole reason I subscribe is to ensure I always have the latest calendar data, because those particular calendars are of the utmost important to me doing my day-to-day business.
So yeah — if you’re just talking about holidays and sports schedules, go for it. But for most people, that “solution” just isn’t very practical.
020 // Scott // 07.13.2008 // 8:02 PM
Enabling “Birthdays” adds in the online MobileMe Calendar adds it under a heading labeled “Subscriptions”. Clearly, the intent to support calendar subscriptions is there. Maybe it just didn’t make the release. Whatever the reason, the lack of push subscribed calendars means that MobileMe is pretty much out of the question for me.
021 // Melissa Jarquin // 07.13.2008 // 8:31 PM
I’ve been having troubles with MobileMe since the 11th and have had no luck logging in to my me.com account. I initially thought that was the reason for my iCal subscriptions not being synced. Although I now have two problems, I am very glad to have found this post as it explains why none of my calendar subscriptions from backpack have been updated on my iPhone. I hope that Apple soon recognizes the importance of a dynamic calendar system that is surely as dynamic as its users.
022 // Randy // 07.14.2008 // 3:03 AM
Somebody may have already pointed this out, I didn’t read all the comments, but the other issue with leaving the calendar syncing to be done over the wire is that it arbitrarily assigns colors to the calendars on the iPhone that do not match what they have been set to in iCal, and often two calendars with be given the same color. I guess this is just one of those ‘damned if you do, damned it you don’t’ things.
023 // Mark Eagleton // 07.14.2008 // 11:27 AM
Thanks for publishing the subscription calendar fix! You saved my ass.
I too am very disappointed that calendar subscriptions aren’t compatible with the push settings. Between that and having a crippled web interface for Google calendars hosted with their Partner Pages service (it is not the same as the regular Google calendar iPhone interface), I may be forced to switch back to a paper pocket calendar. I have strained too many relationships and lots too much money this year due to calendar compatibility issues. You’d think between Google and Apple, someone could find a way to make this open calendar format actually usable.
024 // James // 07.14.2008 // 5:10 PM
My wife and I both use iCal on our macs, both get updated frequently. Initially I thought I must be doing something wrong, but no! we can’t sync our calendars via PUSH. Very disappointing.
025 // Bush -- not related // 07.14.2008 // 7:02 PM
I realized only too late tonight why my newly synced Touch had no calendar entries: ALL my entries were from subscriptions.
In the past, I got my family’s 4 google calendars synced with my macs and palm pilot (recently deceased, all praises be unto it) by syncing and subscribing back and forth ‘tween iCal, gCal and Sunbird (with Provider for the 2-way editing). Introducing the Touch to this mess was easy.
Then along came v2.0 and in my excitement, I bought me.com account.
Oooh, the horrors, the horrors!
The iMac (Tiger) can’t sign into .me at all. The MacBook did fine after getting a software update (THROUGH the login portion of the system preferences panel?!) and even sent a bunch of data up to the cloud. I thought. Turns out, it didn’t as all the data it was pushing was subscriptions.
I don’t WANT to turn off push. I bought the bloody setup so it’d sync. SYNC d@mnit! I don’t want to export/import a constantly shifting calendar (or rather, 4 of them). I want what Jeff noted Apple’s always given me: it to “just work.”
On ALL my machines.
And now I have this vague memory that I have a horrendously overschedule day, tomorrow, but the Touch, blissfully ignorant, reveals… an empty calendar. Not useful.
Thanks for the link to the apple.com discussion; mayhap resolution’s not too far off.
026 // Wood // 07.16.2008 // 9:13 PM
I can’t help but think that this is just a feature that didn’t make it in time for shipping. If you check the Apple Support page regarding this issue, there’s a paragraph regarding how to resolve the issue that simply states “more information will be provided as it becomes available.”
The whole beauty of push is that you can change an appointment on the iPhone and have it reflected on your Mac at home (I know, duh). What got me really excited about MobileMe was the possibility of finally getting my partner to use iCal so we keep our schedules out of conflict. It’s great that I can add a new appointment on my iPhone and know that it will be updated on my Mac but if my partner, subscribing to my calendar, doesn’t get that new appointment, well, that’s FAIL. And it’s such an egregious fail that I can’t believe that Apple’s engineers didn’t think of this.
Everyone who needs this feature should 1) be patient, because I’m sure it will be updated and 2) politely inform Apple, via MobileMe support that this is a feature that we really need.
027 // Jeff Croft // 07.16.2008 // 10:10 PM
That’s possible, but if so, it’s sad. Calendar subscriptions were fully supported in .Mac, so launching MobileMe without them definitely feels like a downgrade.
I agree with you that this feature is likely to show up in MobileMe in the near future, and politely informing Apple is the right thing to do. However, I think people do have a right to be upset and blog loudly about it when a feature they’ve been using (as .Mac customers) is yanked out from under them with no forewarning. That’s just not cool.
028 // Rory Cooney // 07.17.2008 // 7:26 AM
I didn’t see this above, but macfixit.com mentions that if you change the subscribed calendars from their “ical.mac.com” to “ical.me.com” in the URL, they will sync. I’ve just done this, so I can’t report as to whether it works or not, and of course not all your subscribed calendars have mac.com origination. the article is here: http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20080715102342143
029 // Rich Aston // 07.17.2008 // 9 AM
There is a partial workaround for this using AppleScript — you can copy all the events from a subscription to a local calendar. This will then sync with MobileMe.
More details and a sample implementation here: http://www.richaston.com/blog/?p=10
Feedback welcome…
030 // Sir Thomas // 07.18.2008 // 11:56 AM
Patience is virtue and I must comment that you seem to have a good amount of it, (from the reading of a good amount of your posts) which is very necessary in our lives. A lot of people lack this quality, in this instant gratification based world that we live in today. It looks like you have a good amount of interesting suggestions coming your way, hope that you can come up with a solution that is fitting for you. Apple is indeed held to a much “higher standard” these days and we can only hope that the fix the bugs in a timely fashion, we can only wait. Graciously, Sir Thomas
031 // Kevin // 07.19.2008 // 12:24 AM
There is one more workaround that I have found for subscribed calendars. If you go into iCal and use the Export function in the File menu, export the calendar to a chosen destination that you will remember. Then import the same file back into iCal. Note that you may need to create a new calendar (that is not a subscription) that will be the destination for your import (I suggest using the same color so that you know what you’re looking at). Tada! Your subscribed calendar is now in iCal and will go to MobileMe and even to your iPhone. Hope this helps you guys!
032 // Jeff Croft // 07.19.2008 // 8:03 AM
Kevin: your solution doesn’t really solve the problem, I’m afraid. By exporting your items and then importing them into a local calendar, the calendar is no longer a subscription. That means any items added remotely won’t get added to your calendar. That might work fine for a holidays calendar or a sports schedule — things that don’t ever really change — but most of us are subscribed to calendars that change all the time. That’s why we subscribe to them — they’re dynamic. :)
033 // Leicester Web // 07.21.2008 // 4:10 AM
Until the current bug plagued version of mobileme is sorted, i wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole, but they do listen to feedback, so should be done shortly.
034 // Papa Latty // 07.21.2008 // 4:14 AM
I hope they make a fix it for it on day soon!
035 // Justin Hayes // 07.26.2008 // 3:40 AM
In some way though MobileMe must be syncing subscriptions.
I have 1 local and 3 subscribed calendars at home. I sync’d calendars to MobileMe and in the web app only my local calendar showed.
However I just came into work and sync’d and all 4 calendars appeared in iCal.
So it looks like MobileMe does have the subscription calendars, but just isn’t putting them on display in the web app and pushing them to iphone.
If it’s got the data surely it’s only a matter of time before they sort that bit out?
Justin
036 // Justin Hayes // 07.26.2008 // 5:06 AM
Actually though thinking about it, if all you want to do is share calendars with your wife or whatever I think you could just do this:
Create 2 local calendars (you & wife). On both iphones use 1 mobileme account. On her iphone set her calendar as default and only choose to push calendar. On your iphone set your calendar as default and push whatever you want.
This way you both see all the calendar items as they change, and you have your own calendars still so you can separate out your events.
037 // David Pearce // 07.27.2008 // 2:24 AM
I have started a workaround, which works, except for if you delete and event on your mobile me on the iphone.
It did work and today has duplicated some events, but maybe some applescripters will help me refine it.
I wrote this applescript to run every hour on my mac and what it does is sync both ways between the calendars on that mac. At first it didnt seem to duplicate the entries that were already there!, but this has crept in this morning, so its not perfect yet. But i think this is the way to go. I obviously have a calendar called “home” and one call “calendar”:
tell application “iCal” set allEvents to every event in calendar “calendar” repeat with theEvent in allEvents make new event at end of events of calendar “Home” with data theEvent end repeat
end tell
Its odd that at first it didnt seem to duplicate events htat had already been synced, but it just started going horribly wrong this morning!
Must be some further scripting to stop it multiplying events
David
038 // Gabriel Shirley // 07.27.2008 // 7:30 PM
I also used BusySync to make this work. In my case, I needed the ability for more than one person to edit a single calendar, so it provided that option as well. If you are interested in seeing the path for 2 people with 2 iPhones and 2 Google Calendar accounts, have a look at my blog post on the subject: http://blog.gabrielshirley.com/2008/07/27/iphone-20-mobileme-and-busysync/
039 // Sam // 07.28.2008 // 11:52 AM
via Gizmodo: Google Calendar Now Supports CalDAV, Syncs Natively With iCal (But Not iPhone)
Well, now we can at least cut out the middle-man mentioned in comment #2. Apple really just needs to finish the job and add proper iCal support to MobileMe, though….
040 // John M // 07.31.2008 // 3:36 PM
ical.mac.com/[username] shows .Mac iCal subscriptions still in place, as of time of writing. I guess this has yet to be migrated to the MobileMe interface. Helpful?
041 // thomas // 08.06.2008 // 2:57 PM
In apples support section it shows this problem under “symptoms” but they don’t offer a solution. Altough it says that the document will be updated as more information ‘ll come available…
042 // jack Scalfani // 08.12.2008 // 7:42 AM
I was unable to get my ical info from mobile me to my iphone. I tried everything. So I went to their live chat tech support. Look at the conversation that took place:
043 // Jeremy // 09.08.2008 // 9:41 AM
The solution I used before .mac was through icalx.com. It’s a free server that’s been set up expressly for this purpose. I hadn’t used it in a while; but, like others have expressed, the lack of shared, live subscriptions is very disappointing with MobileMe.
For what you want to do, it’ll be tedious to set up initially, but it will work pretty much the way you want (I think…) with virtually zero maintenance.
Setup for the site is simple, just sign up for a free account and remember your username and password. You will have two folders: icalx.com/public/username and icalx.com/private/username - uses should be obvious… Just keep in mind that every contributor will/must have access to this password. Not a big deal since it doesn’t provide access to personal email, your iDisk, etc. - just the calendars you choose to publish there.
You then select the calendar you want to sync on whatever mac you want. Within iCal, you can set up to publish changes automatically (close to real-time, as long as you have an internet connection). You can/should do this for all the devices you’ll be using. Start with publishing just one for now though…
Then set up iCal for all the users to subscribe to said calendar(s) on whatever mac(s) you want with as many users as you want; I have mine set up to check every 15 minutes, but you can go as low as 5 IIRC. You even have the option of viewing the calendars on the web (html) for those that only need read access. This calendar will show up under “Subscriptions” in iCal with an add-on. For example: if I publish “Home” on my mac and then subscribe to the exact same calendar on the same account, it will show up as “Home 2” under “Subscriptions”.
Almost there… You’ll need to setup an Apple Script on all your macs to automatically export the new subscribed calendar at some regular interval (hourly, every 13 minutes, whatever) and then immediately import that file into the regular, “original” calendar, i.e. export from “Home 2” to your Documents folder, the import the “Home 2” data into the original “Home” calendar. I will say straight out that I have not gone this far (writing a script), but the export/import works fine (I checked for fun) and I’m sure it can be setup on a timed basis. Even though I don’t really need this functionality (my wife and I simply subscribe to each other’s calendars and check for overlap, which might be another, MUCH simpler option for you), I’d love to write a script, but I haven’t coded since COBAL and Pascal were in fashion and 10MB was a huge server… time to brush up I guess.
At this point you can make sure you have published the one calendar, the “golden” calendar so to speak, then have all the other users subscribe and download, then initiate the export/import for all users, and you should be good to go. Anyone that makes a change to their calendar should have that change uploaded to the server, and then all the other users should receive the update to their subscribed calendar shortly after, followed shortly after by the export/import into their own publishable version of that calendar.
I do not have an iPhone or Touch, so I can’t say for sure how iCal subscriptions/publishing are set up in those or if Applescripts are even an option. At the very least, you’d have access to the html version if someone else was making updates, and a quick phone call/email could get a coworker to make a change for you if absolutely needed. Maybe some enterprising young soul could whip out an app (free, of course) that could do this if the functionality isn’t already built in?
Plus there’s always the option, like I mentioned earlier, of everyone having their own personal calendar which is uploaded to icalx (everyone uses the same account, but slightly different calendar names, i.e. “Vacation-Jim” or “Meetings-Mary”), then every other user subscribes to everyone else’s calendars and views only the ones they want at any given time to check for conflicts. Or is there a limit to the number of subscriptions allowed in iCal?
I do hope that a push version of subscribed/shared calendars comes to MobileMe. That was probably the biggest feature that got me to sign up in the first place, followed closely by iDisk. So c’mon, Apple… if I can figure out a way to do it…
044 // S.Lofgren // 10.14.2008 // 6:57 PM
After having been a PC user since 1984 and all the time suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous Mac users I decided to dip my toe into the Mac waters. Since my wife retired she decided that she would take over secretarial functions for my office. That required that we could maintain a schedule that updated in real time so that I could make appointments in the office and she could handle requests for appointments that came in over the phone, with her off-site. As advertised MobileMe and two iPhone’s looked like an ideal solution.
Not so. Although I can now get my Outlook calendar to upload to MobileMe and push to my iPhone there is a problem. Any recurring appointment that happens at the same time every week does not get uploaded and shows up as blank available appointment times on the MobileMe calendar.
This seems to be somewhat of an improvement over the problems noted above which mostly go back a couple of months but it still means that the software and service is unusable for my purposes as is.
Not what I expected from Apple software with its reputation for smoothly functioning programs. I have searched the net to find out if there are any solutions to this problem but have only found other mentions of the same problem of recurring appointments. If anyone knows of a place to find an answer I would appreciate it.