Get Google Calendar and Apple’s iCal in Sync (Maybe)
Google appears to have quietly added CalDAV support to Google Calendar which means you can now get two-way syncing with Apple’s iCal. In theory any calendar program that supports the CalDAV protocol should work, but for now only iCal is supported.
That should be good news for Mac fans. Previously the only real option was to shell out $65 for SpanningSync, an app that could keep iCal and Google calendar in sync. However, before you curse your purchase of SpanningSync, be aware that Google’s implementation has some serious and annoying shortcomings.
I haven’t actually been able to get iCal to recognize the Google Calendar URL, so I haven’t tested it first-hand, but the list of known limitations is extensive. For instance, event alarms don’t sync (they work, but they only come from the app where you created the event), there’s no e-mail reminders for events created in iCal, you can’t create calendars in iCal (only on the Google Calendar side and each calendar is a separate URL) and perhaps most disturbing: “for a small percentage of Google Calendars, a certain iCal bug will prevent your events from appearing inside the iCal application.”
Rick Vugteveen was able to get the new features working and reports that there are even more problems once you have things up and running. For instance, you can’t drag and drop events between calendars like you can with ordinary iCal calendars, and normal re-ordering and organization of calendars does not work. In essence much of what’s compelling about the iCal user interface doesn’t seem to work with Google Calendar.
If that list doesn’t deter you, there are instructions on how to set up iCal over at the Google Calendar site. Just make sure you read through the list of known issues and understand what you’re getting into.
While it’s nice think that perhaps eventually syncing Google Calendar with iCal will be an easy and free process, for the time being I’d recommend sticking with SpanningSync or, if you’re looking for a free solution, check out Calgoo.
[via Google Operating System]
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