Q: BUSINESS TRAVELER:  Dealing with time zones

I travel for a living, and see several time zones each day.
The time zone support provided by Apple provides is a partial solution, but does not yet solve the problem.

If you don't leave your time zone too often, then you probably never thought much about the problem. But for those of us who do, there are basically two types of ZONERS.

1. Somebody who works simultaneously with people in different time zones. ZONE-NETWORKERS
2. People who travel in several time zones, but works locally in each zone. ZONE-HOPPERS

ZONE-NETWORKERS:
These guys reference one UNIVERSAL time, because they work simultaneously with people all over the world. They want to schedule a phone meeting at 4pm NYC time, and be sure the guys from Los Angeles get the invite for a 1pm meeting. ZONE-NETWORKERS do care about time zones, and everything they schedule is relative to a universal time. As they travel to different time zones, their scheduled events shift time (as they should) so that the phone conference is done at the proper world-wide time. Every time they land in a new city, the events on their Calendar should change. These guys can either use the default modes of iCal, or can enhance their usage by selecting "TIME ZONE SUPPORT" in the options. This feature seems to work for both iCal and iPhone.

ZONE-HOPPERS:
Take an airline pilot (or salesman) for instance. He references everything in LOCAL time. He takes his flight schedules right off the itinerary and puts the times directly into iCal (no time zones ... everything assumed local time, because everything at the airport will reference local time). And if he meets a buddy for lunch in Dallas, he schedules it at 12:00 noon, and his calendar always shows this event at noon. He simply wants his calendar to say "Friday @ noon", no matter what time zone he's in. He needs to know what time the flight leaves, what time the van leaves the hotel, etc. An 8AM departure is scheduled as 8AM local (no messing with time zones). This ZONE-HOPPER would like to maintain his calendar ignoring time zones (take the time from the system clock, but throw away the zone information).

Apple has tried to implement a solution for the ZONE-HOPPER in iCal using "floating" time-zones. Unfortunately, the iPhone does not have this new feature. If you have an iPhone, and use iCal's floating time zone, your iCal event times remain fixed, but your iPhone event times change will change. Not good!

One hack solution for the ZONE-HOPPER with an iPhone, is to use "Time Zone Support" on both the iCal and iPhone. Then pick ONE calendar time zone and stick with it on both machines. This solution (or as I said, "hack") is not without side-effects. Any calendar alarms set will not ring at the right time zone (except when you happen to be in that ONE time-zone which you always leave set. Don't use floating zones on events, if you have an iPhone. The times will change on you, as your phone's system clock is changed to a new time zone.

I am a ZONE-HOPPER. I am anxiously waiting a solid, integrated solution from Apple. Most of what I've written here about the iPhone and iCal features were knowledge gained through experimentations. There doesn't seem to be much documentation or guidance on this topic, and I can tell from other posts, that many are having trouble with this issue. I hope this is helpful to others trying to do the same thing, and I welcome any shared knowledge or suggestions.

-Craig