.ics files - outlook meeting.ics attachment won't open

I was really looking forward to getting an iPhone, thinking they would have fixed this very simple omission in the new 3GS and OS 3.0, but I'll be sticking with my Blackberry until they fix it. I have reported this to Apple using the user feedback page. So it now shows as a calendar icon but the phone still fails to interpret it. Amazing.

Stuart

Because of this poor poor state of affairs... and from what i can see no follow up from Apple.....I am moving over to blackberry!

It is hard to find the words to describe how ridiculous this is.

It was a +completely egregious+ omission on the original iPhone, and now, two major hardware and many software upgrades later, it seems like a flagrant invitation to use another platform. A dare. The meeting invitation sent by a co-worker from his shiny new unibody MBP to my mail account accessed on my whiz-bang iPhone will languish unread (and completely opaque -- no idea what, where, when, who, ...) until I can open the message using Mail.app, Outlook (shudder), or a web client. I can access/read the tabs in a complex binary Excel attachment, but can't even read a raw small text attachment, much less process it as a real invitation.

What's the story, Apple?

HEY APPLE: F*@K YOU!

Ditto, this is absolutely ridiculous. I just got an iPhone this week and love it -- but the inability to open and accept/decline meeting invites is going to drive me crazy. How could Apple possibly let this lack of basic functionality continue?

And I can't believe that my two partners who already had the iPhone didn't mention this to me!

I hope this gets resolved quickly. I'd be willing to pay for an app that provides this. Apple is losing a lot of its potential customer base. The iPhone is fun but if it becomes just a bit more functional it could rule. Don't let history repeat.

Apparently this was an intentionally misleading feature of 3.0, just like MMS. Remember when they said if you upgraded to 3.0 you'd get that too?

< Edited by Host >

4.0 will have the ability to make your appointments telepathically, especially doctors appointments. Apple will pay for all your doctors visits too! It's called Apple (Health) Care. Sorry, couldn't resist a bad joke.

I agree it's inexcusable that Apple's iPhone mail client can't read .ics attachments. Very very bad. Pathetic even.
However I found a really easy workaround for Gmail users: Install the free Google app from the iPhone App Store and access Gmail directly through the Google app instead of using Apple's email client. Voila! Gmail via Google app reads .ics attachments, no problem at all.
Can't help you if you're stuck with Ughlook ... er Outlook, except to suggest that you configure your Outlook/Exchange server to redirect your incoming messages to your Gmail address like I've done. With luck you'll never have to launch Outlook again, and you won't miss it. I know I haven't missed it in ... let me see, five years and counting.
Regards,
MTB

As submitted to Apple this morning:

I would strongly suggest that after reading through lots of pages on the internet this morning that it is absolutely imparative for Apple to incorporate full .ics support and fuctionality into the iPhone ASAP. It has been an extreme frustration that this simple but essential business function not be available to those of us who use the iPhone for their day-to-day work. If this is an attempt to "smite" Microsoft, I think it is important that Apple accept that even if your product is better that Outlook, etc., Microsoft is not going away in the near future, especially in large corporate environments. I am not a programmer, but if I can open a forwarded Gmail and see the particulars of a meeting (from an .ics attachment), then it would seem that it should be NO PROBLEM to incorporate this into the iPhones features.

I absolutely love using my iPhone, and have sunk quite a bit of money into applications and music that I wouldnt have without the iPhone, however, if this basic business function cant be added to the iPhone in the near future I will be forced to yield to business and professional requirements, and consider switching to a Palm Pre or one of the various Blackberry products. I hope it doesnt come to that.

That is actually not completely true. I received a .ics from Outlook, and it did not get automatically processed and added to iCal. Further, it is bad that invitations do not prompt you to accept or reject them. You have to manually open them once in iCal to accept/reject, even on 10.6.1. Apple: please change this behavior and enable automatic prompting to accept/reject invites, and add Outlook and other .ics invites automatically.

Thanks!

Not only will it not open the .ics file all of the other text in the body of the email containing the ics is invisible. Missed my 3pm today!

"However I found a really easy workaround for Gmail users: Install the free Google app from the iPhone App Store and access Gmail directly through the Google app instead of using Apple's email client. Voila! Gmail via Google app reads .ics attachments, no problem at all.
Can't help you if you're stuck with Ughlook ... er Outlook, except to suggest that you configure your Outlook/Exchange server to redirect your incoming messages to your Gmail address like I've done. With luck you'll never have to launch Outlook again, and you won't miss it. I know I haven't missed it in ... let me see, five years and counting."

Adding to that, as long as you are using software V 3.0 or higher you can set up Gmail as an IMAP account (instructions can be found in GMail for doing this), that gives you better push to the iPhone and makes the GMail through the iPhone app better, but still not as good as the google app that uses safari to view GMail in the mobile web version.

A big addition is to set up google calendar as a CalDAV accound in your iPod/phone. By doing that the calendar on your phone/pod will automatically sync through the web with your google calendar. If you have the settings set right in google calendar, all meeting notices sent to your GMail will populate your Google calendar, and you can set it to give you reminders even if you haven't accepted the invite yet. Also, you can view the ics in the apple calendar just like in outlook, etc.

Still, it seems funny that you have to use google to get a function that the iPod/phone should already have.

Now, about that flash player....

Your TV commercials show the kid in the T-shirt making fun of the man in the business suit. Great. However, I suggest you focus more on seamlessly integrating the Mac world with this man in the business suit if you want to gain more than your paltry ~5% market share. This thread/post being one of them! I know compatibility things lag so I waited until last week to finally buy the iPhone and I can't believe I can't accept a meeting. Entourage/Microsoft is still better until you fix this. I suggest you establish a 'department' in Cupertino consisting of 100 of those men in business suits, find out what they do, and integrate with them! Here is another thread with the same gripe:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=530014

Who are you addressing the post to ?
You this, you that, you the other ?

I can't do anything about this and nobody else can on the forum.

Speak to Apple if you have something to suggest. Reopening a thread thats very old and venting certainly won't get you anywhere.

BTW, an invitation to a meeting from an Exchange account works just fine on my iPhone.