iCal

iCal is a personal calendar application made by Apple Inc. that runs on the macOS operating system. iCal was the first calendar application for macOS to offer support for multiple calendars and the ability to publish/subscribe calendars to WebDAV server.

Developer(s)Apple Inc.
Initial releaseSeptember 10 2002
Stable release4.0.1 (1374) / November 9, 2009
Operating systemmacOS
TypeElectronic calendar
LicenseProprietary
WebsiteiCal: A powerful desktop calendar

Originally released as a free download for Mac OS X v10.2 on September 10 2002, with the release of Mac OS X v10.3 it was bundled with the operating system as iCal 1.5. Version 2 of iCal was released as part of Mac OS X v10.4, Version 3 with Mac OS X v10.5 and Version 4 as part of Mac OS X v10.6.

Apple licensed Archived 2016-12-21 at the Wayback Machine the iCal name from Brown Bear Software, who used it for their iCal application Archived 2010-01-06 at the Wayback Machine since 1997.

iCal development is quite different from other Apple software because 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 been transferred to Apple US headquarters in Cupertino.[1]

Features

  • It tracks events and appointments, allows multiple calendar views (such as calendars for "home", "work") to quickly identify conflicts and free time.
  • It is integrated with MobileMe, so calendars can be shared and synced with other devices, such as PCs, iPhones, and iPod touch, over the Internet.
  • 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 e-mail, SMS, or Pager. There is also a third-party Dashboard widget called iCal Events that allows notification of upcoming events using Dashboard.
  • iCal integrates Apple Sync Services to sync its data with MobileMe, devices such as PDA, iPod, iPhone or other mobile phones via iSync and third party software.
  • iCal supports the use of the iCalendar format. It does not support the older vCalendar 1.0 format.

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.[2])

New in Version 4

Bugs

It has been reported that some users of iCal who have their calendar on a CalDAV server can not view or add events to their calendar. This issue is specific to Google Calendar users.[4]

The release of Snow Leopard introduced several bugs into Snow Leopard, with regard to iCal alarms.[5] These problems include alarms not firing;[6] all alarms being set to one fixed date and time in the past,[7] preventing them from firing; alarms from repeat events being fired for all historic occurrences of that repeated event, resulting in dozens of alarms for one event.[8] Updates to Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and 10.6.2 have not addressed these problems.

iCal supports times zones, i.e.: if the function is enabled, and 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 function also occurs when it is turned off, therefore, whenever the computer's time zone changes, all the events in iCal shift as well. [9]

ICal Media

References

  1. McLean, Prince (17 October 2007). "Road to Mac OS X Leopard: iCal 3.0". AppleInsider. Archived from the original on 2007-10-19. Retrieved 2007-11-02.
  2. Chen, Jason. "Fun Fact Time: iCal's Birthday is Today". Gizmodo.
  3. "macOS - What is macOS". Apple.
  4. "See Google Calendar events on Apple Calendar - Computer - Calendar Help". support.google.com.
  5. "Apple - Support - Discussions - iCal". Archived from the original on 2010-01-14. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
  6. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10310088[dead link]
  7. http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10533200#10533200[dead link]
  8. http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2140555&start=0&tstart=0[dead link]
  9. "iCal: Timezones". www.macintouch.com. Archived from the original on 2012-12-01. Retrieved 2019-02-14.

Other websites