As the months tick on without improvement, one that has bubbled up for me as a top issue is what Dan wrote above: ” particularly find the REPEAT function useless since you cannot tell it you have a meeting on the 2nd Thursday of every month, for example. All it can do is place an appointment on the same date each month… useless.”

I am forced to make a weekly repeat out of several appointments that occur only on the 2nd and 4th (Monday, Tues, Wed, Fri) of the month. Then when the alarms go off I must manually double check to make sure that the appointments are really happening.

Here’s hoping!

I don’t know why a 3rd party hasn’t stepped up to the plate and done a better calendar. I am assuming that Apple would reject or has been rejecting calendar apps on the grounds that it interferes with built-in functionality.

Anyone know the real scoop?

I think respectfully lobbying Apple for a better calendar is a fine idea, although I do not have time to do so. Perhaps one of you gentle readers does.

Philip

Congratulations on articulating so well the shared pain of all the posters here. I am in violent agreement with you too.

The question now is… What can be done?

To my mind two things can be done:
1. Apple can fix it or
2. A third party can write an app to do what we want. I personally would $200 for such an app. Seriously.

As for 1., Philip, do you know who manages these things at apple? Could you email them a link to this post/blog of yours and ask for an answer from them? Or even snailmail them a formal letter, reproducing your post and our responses? (You’d be amazed what happens when you snailmail a formal letter to a senior manager within an organisation with other people (their boss) copied in! I snailmailed the CEO of vodafone a few weeks ago to complain about poor reception. There ensued a flurry of phone calls from very senior people including the national network manager and then a personal visit from a very deferential network engineer).

2. Assuming the iphone’s touch technology actually allows direct entry into the calendar, how would one go about finding and selling the concept to a software developer? I don’t know about these things but surely there are people out there who share our opinion and who do know how to do these things get done! Ideas please!

Let’s find a solution!

Regards William Jones

Sent from my iPhone

I have used palms on and off for the past 7 years. Every time i have moved onto another phone i find myself longing for the palm calendar.

Everything about the iphone is great EXCEPT FOR THE CALENDAR.

APPLE Please do something about it.

The palm interface is genius.

I would also like to be able to see a list of my days appointments on the background screen when i press the standby button on my iphone instead of just seeing the background.

I LOVE MY IPHONE but this is killing me.

Fix the calendar and the phone will finally be fully functional for me.

In the mean time i am going to lug around my iphone and my palm.

Apple you’ve always done it in the past, SO DO IT NOW follow the KISS Principle (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Also make adding birthdays easier.

I know there is extra functionality in ical but i need the portable functionality.

PLEASE APPLE FIX IT before i convert back to my old palm.

My suggestion would be to use Google calendar and the Google calendar app for iPhone. (No syncing; you just access Google calendar over the Internet with an app specialized for the phone.)

used all kinds of Palms with a Treo 650 in the end. Now with my fancy iPhone I face the same problems you folks do.

The calendar really sucks when it comes to entering the data. I looked for agendus which was an application for the palm which I never needed because the original calendar was good enough. Now thre is a version of agendus for iPhone but without calendar support. Read why here http://www.iambic.com/agendus/iphone/?cnt=calendar_info

Though I never needed nor liked agendus this might help someone.

By the way. Looking for a godd memo pad? I now use “Notebooks” which syncs with a Java Toolkit on your Mac or PC and just works fine for me. Also supports categories and password protected entries just like my good old Palm memo pad.

Termi

My palm is pending to die, which forces me to buy a replacement, may be i-Phone.
But I think Apple loves Palm that they don’t want Palm to be out of the market this soon; I mean if Apple provides a Palm Calendar for free or in the app store. Very likely, almost all current Palm holders will sync all data to their new i-Phone, and out the Palm RIP.

If anyone found anyway to have a Palm-like Calendar that can be used in i-Phone, please let me know.

Regards,
Philip

Final conclusion – since Palm has given up on making user friendly phones and Apple does not want people to manage appointments or input calender events in under an hour, I am forced to use small sheets of scrap paper crumpled in my pocket with all of my tasks and daily phone calls. I will be going back to the Iphone in hopes that the 3GS will be fun to play with and a bit faster than the Pre or the old Iphone. I am also praying that some genius from the late 90’s can help Apple develop a user friendly calender with an alarm. Good Luck

1. No way to set an alarm that goes off 1 min before the time 5mins is the nearest option. I’m able to set it to 1 min in iCal but not on the iPhone. Most of my events are for conference calls – and it doesn’t take me 5 mins to pick up the phone and dial the number, a 1 or even 0 min alert is all I need.

2. No default alarm when creating new events on the iPhone. Do I really need to go through all those steps on every new event – for me 99% of my events need an alarm. iCal does provide this feature, but sadly not for it’s data detectors! I’ve missed a few appointments because I’ve forgotten to set the alarm – that never hapend on my palm.

3. No repeating alarm. Palm would repeat the alarm every minute for 10 mins until you acknowledged it – I’ve missed hearing my iPhone’s one and only alarm some times and that means I miss the appointment. (I know I can set multiple alarms, but that is a time consuming job AND acknowledging the first alarm doesn’t cancel the remaining alarms)

I was hoping that some of this might be addressed in the 3.1 OS, but alas it was not…

Love my iPhone but can’t stand Calendar.

Also from what I understand of the App Development kit, there’s no way for an app that’s not running to schedule an alarm to go off at a specific time without using push which is overkill for such a thing and doesn’t work when your not connected, so Apple is the only ones who can solve this problem for us! And apple probably wouldn’t approve the app, since it would be duplicating something they already provide NOT!

Add me to the list of Iphone + 700P users. Talk about juggling, this is crazy. If I were still within thirty days I would be fully rid of the Iphone.

To me the Iphone has been delegated to life as an elaborate toy, not a production tool like my various Palm devices always were.

I really didn’t expect this. What a let down.

I had a chance to spend a few minutes playing with a Pre recently. Unfortunately even Palm’s own 2009 calendar is not as streamlined as its 1995 calendar.

I wish Apple would take some time out and invest in the calendar. It makes my heart drop every time a new iPhone OS is announced without this being fixed.

Steve Jobs used to denigrate PDAs. He was right that the market for PDAs as a standalone product were coming to a close. But PDAs fulfilled an important need — they subsumed the needs of paper planners that were very popular back in the day. The need for an electronic calendar that is as efficient as jotting something down on paper is as strong as ever.

I was given the iPhone as a gift by my thoughtful, yet not-palm-oriented husband, before he knew the Palm Pre was on its way. And was just SHOCKED at how poor the calendar/tasks/memos functions were laid out on the iphone. Searching today to rectify that, I came across this article.

So yes, this is just a long note to say “Ditto AMEN Brother” to Phillip Haine and thank him for so thoroughly noting all the terrible things about the calendar. I’m not crazy after all! I’m keeping the faith with Zire and hoping that in 2 years perhaps I won’t mind cancelling ATT and picking up Pre. iPhone is a fun toy with lots of features that have added to our life (including becoming an expensive toy for a 3 year old), but no way does it do what I need, even as a stay at home mom, for the vital parts of my life.

I should clarify that although the calendar is a daily pain to me, the iPhone as a whole is a daily joy. I just wish it could be all joy.

I spent just a couple of minutes with the Pre over the weekend. Their calendar is a more direct-manipulation than the iPhone. And the keyboard, while cramped and squishy, is still better than typing on-screen. Unfortunately the calendar UI did not at first blush appear to be as efficient as the old Palm’s. Sadly, Palm borrowed the vertically scrolling pickers (like Apple’s annoying slot machine UI). I’d prefer they’d just lay out the times so you could just tap the time you wanted with minimal scrolling.

It would be cool if someone did a 3 way usability study of the 1997 Palm, the 2008 iPhone and the 2009 Pre.

Thanks and well said.

I completely agree that the Palm calendar, todo list etc. is excellent. Unfortunately my Palm m505 finally died. So, I bought an iPhone. There is plenty I love about the iPhone, but the one thing I really need is a good calendar system that I can backup on my PC and iPhone doesn’t come close to offering this very basic application.

I need to enter appointments, reminders, memos, to do items into my phone while the idea is fresh in my mind – not wait until I have time to perform 9 steps for each entry, or on my computer later (I’m guessing this is the preferred Apple iPhone iCal programmers method), then sync.

On my Palm:
if I need to make a quick note to myself,
1) I press the Calendar icon,
2) Type note,
3) press sleep, then put my phone away – my note is entered without a time in Today (assigning a 3pm appointment requires an extra step – I touch 3pm before typing. (or select the icon to the left of the note later)

On my new iPhone:
If I need to make a quick note to myself,
1) I press the Calendar icon,
2) Press +,
3) Press Title,
4) Type note,
5) press save,
6) press done.
(evidently, iPhone assumes the time is the next available slot after your last timed entry)

Adding a specific time only requires 3 more steps:
1) I press the Calendar icon,
2) Press +,
3) Press Title,
4) Type note,
5) press save,
6) press start & end,
7) roll time time to 3pm,
press save,
9) press done.

I know it’s less than 2 years old, but where’s the double-click, cut, copy, paste & global find?

I truly believe Apple’s products are a superior technology that force other companies to improve their products.

Apple has the talent to make the iPhone the most functional smart phone on the planet. If they believe thier iCal & iPhone calendar Apps are adequate, someone at Apple is either asleep at the wheel, or they are using some other Calendar Application.

I hear the new Palm has a killer OS…

Here is an ancient paper I published at the CHI conference in 1997 on the design of the contact card [pdf], which I think is still better than iCal’s!

For all the programs and games they have out for the iphone, too bad nobody can come up with a better organizer.

For the moment i put up and test any calendar/todo application I can (I spent a few euros for nothing, yet) hoping in an upgrade.

Not to mention that they still continue to “pull the wool over our eyes” with this software keyboard that everyone hated for 10 years until the Treos came out with a full qwerty keyboard. Would it be so hard to have Treo/Centro type keyboard flip out of the iPhone (at least in the US version)? Also a 5 direction keypad helps also. A solo touch screen is not the way to go.

Also I need reminders for my calendar events!

AND FINALLY: WHERE IS THE SELECT, CUT, COPY, AND PASTE FUNCTIONS!!!!!!

Havent quite got new iphone yet because of that darn Calendar functionality not being as good as windows pocket mobile. Let me know before It’s too late & I settle for a normal XDA, PDA etc.

Was thinking about the Samsung Omnia. Any comments?

Paul

Thank you so much for your article. I have been going mad trying to find a solution to this calendar problem. I don’t want to have to carry around both iphone and my old Tungsten T5, but it seems for now I will.

As well as all your valid comments, I have found the repeat function to be the most rubbish of all. I put all of my kids movements with regards to school, after school clubs, etc. on my palm, but 1) it doesn’t obscure the whole day by colouring it in and 2) I can pick and choose which days to repeat (as school times are different on a Friday). It is so flexible and I felt sure the iphone would be even better, but have been disappointed. I have looked at Google calendar as a possible replacement, but it doesn’t support these features either.

I guess we will just have to wait for someone to produce an app which is worth using!

Joanne

I’ve just found this article while searching for a Palm-style calendar for my new iPhone 3G…
All the above is true and I feel it myself every day, regardless of loving the *great* phone. I got a 10 year-old Palm user experience, with 5 devices (last is/was Centro). Reading your iPhone love/hate list I found I think pretty much the same about this question. Thank you for summarizing it so well.
And please inform us if you find a better calendar (notes, todo, etc.)!
P.S. Let me share I’ve found two interesting applications: SaiSuke and SmartTime.

Regards,
Akos

I had previously been using the Windows Mobile Outlook calendar on an O2 Atom phone. It was fast and easy to use, all the information could be edited from the same page! And viewing your upcoming calendar events was as simple as turning the screen on – because the events are displayed on the home screen. In comparison, the iPhone calendar makes you constantly “press & wait” for the appropriate options.. I wish a new calender app would arrive to replace it! It’s HORRIBLE.