NoelHeikkinen.com

Monday iPhone App Review – Calendar Programs

Dec 22, 2008 Print This Post

One of my favorite things about my iPhone is the ability for me to access lots of stuff that previously had been trapped on my MacBook. One of those things is my calendar.

Ever since I got my iPhone, I have tried to find the perfect way to interact with my calendar and I still haven’t found it. The problem is I have to balance all of these:

• I like iCal a lot better than Google Calendar when I am at my computer
• I like Calendar a lot better than Google Calendar when I am on my iPhone
• Kim (my assistant) uses a PC, so she does all my scheduling on Google Calendar

I have used Spanning Sync for quite some time and love it. It connects my iCal with my Google Calendars rather seamlessly. Unfortunately, if Kim changes my schedule on Google Calendar, I won’t get the change on my computer or iPhone until I sync things with the cable. Yuck.

So, my first shot out of the box was to use NuevaSync. Very cool concept, really. It is a virtual Microsoft Exchange Server, which means it should be able to Sync changes on your Google Calendar with your phone. This it does very well…in one direction. When Kim changes something on Google Calendar, the change is almost immediate on my phone. The problem is it is very flakey in the other direction: when I add a new calendar item in the iPhone, 90% of the time it never shows on Google Calendar. Grr… I was double booking appointments all the time.

That’s why I was thrilled when Google Calendar said they were playing nice with iCal now. Well, kinda. The calendars sync perfectly but you can’t add anything to your schedule with your iPhone. That lasted about 2 hours.

So now I’m back to square one. Spanning Sync is the best option out there, but it’s still not perfect.