iCal
| Developer(s) | Apple Inc. |
|---|---|
| Initial release | September 10 2002 |
| Stable release | 4.0.1 (1374)
/ November 9, 2009 |
| Operating system | macOS |
| Type | Electronic calendar |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | iCal: A powerful desktop calendar |
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.
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[change | change source]
- 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[change | change source]
- 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[change | change source]
- Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 support [3]
- Refined user interface (particularly for multiple events management)
Bugs[change | change source]
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]
References[change | change source]
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Chen, Jason. "Fun Fact Time: iCal's Birthday is Today". Gizmodo.
- ↑ "macOS - What is macOS". Apple.
- ↑ "See Google Calendar events on Apple Calendar - Computer - Calendar Help". support.google.com.
- ↑ "Apple - Support - Discussions - iCal". Archived from the original on 2010-01-14. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
- ↑ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10310088[permanent dead link]
- ↑ http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10533200#10533200[permanent dead link]
- ↑ http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2140555&start=0&tstart=0[permanent dead link]
- ↑ "iCal: Timezones". www.macintouch.com. Archived from the original on 2012-12-01. Retrieved 2019-02-14.
Other websites[change | change source]
- New Software Lets Users Manage Multiple Calendars & Share Calendars Over The Internet - Apple's July 2002 press release introducing iCal
- New Application to Manage & Share Multiple Calendars Now Available for Free Download - Apple's September 2002 press release announcing availability of iCal
- Calendar and Scheduling Consortium part of next version of iCal Server (Leopard)
- iCalFix Archived 2010-03-22 at the Wayback Machine - iCal extension that automatically adds alarms to newly created events.
- ICal4j Archived 2009-01-17 at the Wayback Machine - ICal Java library (with usage examples)
- Delegate calendars with Outlook, Entourage, and web mail users Archived 2009-05-18 at the Wayback Machine - through Kerio MailServer.
- Perl script Archived 2010-07-27 at the Wayback Machine and instructions to subscribe from iCal to a Sun Calendar Server and subsequently sync it to mobile devices through iSync
- Apple iCal calendars
- Geody iCal and csv calendars - Free (CC-by-sa) calendars