iCal

This article is about the software developed by Apple Inc.. For other uses, see Ical (disambiguation).

For the standard file format for addresses and calendar entries, see iCalendar.

iCal

iCal 5 under Mac OS X 10.7 Lion
Developer(s)	Apple Inc.
Initial release	September 10, 2002
Stable release	5.0.2 (1571) / February 1, 2012
Operating system	Mac OS X
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 Mac OS X operating system. iCal was the first calendar application for Mac OS X 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 as part of Mac OS X v10.5, Version 4 as part of Mac OS X v10.6, and Version 5 as part of Mac OS X v10.7.

Apple licensed the iCal name from Brown Bear Software, who have used it for their iCal application since 1997. With the release of OS X v10.8 in the summer of 2012, iCal will be called Calendar, similar to the iOS version.

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 since been transferred to Apple US headquarters in Cupertino.

Features

• It tracks events and appointments, allows multiple calendar views (such as calendars for "home", "work", and other calendars you create) 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. You can also share calendars via the WebDAV protocol. Google now supports WebDAV for Google Calendar making iCal easily configurable with Google Sync.
• 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.
• 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 [VERSION:2.0]. It does not support the older vCalendar 1.0 format. [VERSION:1.0]

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.)

New in Version 4

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 support
• Refined user interface (particularly for multiple events management)
• Automatic setup for Yahoo/Google Mail/Gmail calendars. Events are synced and downloaded from your account.

Version 5

New

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 support
• New skin similar to iCal for iPad.
• Full-screen support
• Agenda list and mini-month display added to Day view
• Quick Add for adding events
• Heat map to indicate the number of activities per day

Removed

• Dedicated calendar pane (now just a pop-up menu under the "Calendars" button)
• Details pane on the right hand side
• Mini month display in non-Day views
• Ability to select/highlight days in Month view

Bugs

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

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 problem also occurs when the time zone function is disabled, therefore whenever the computer’s time zone changes, all the events in iCal shift as well. As of today, there is still no fix for this bug and this bug has carried over through Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion).

Alert data loss always occurs when alarm alert windows currently being displayed disappear due to reboots, system crashes, or race conditions, because they never reappear.

See also

• iCal Server
• Darwin Calendar Server
• SyncML open standard for calendar syncing
• iCalendar
• List of applications with iCalendar support

External links

• 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)
• ICal4j - ICal Java library (with usage examples)
• Delegate calendars with Outlook, Entourage, and web mail users - through Kerio MailServer.
• Perl script 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