Sharing iCal between two users

I would love to know how to do this too - but with iPod Touch. DH and I both have one, and we would both like to have iCal and see each others calendars....

Seems like it should be obvious really, different users share a mac and a life - why couldn't we have a common calendar?

will have a snoop....

Right, seems the answer is 'Not really'. You can publish an ical calendar - but that is read only.
Which is really quite terrible. Not what we expect from an apple solution.

2 adults with 2 iphones can share one life and one mac - why can't we build a shared calendar?

BUT.........

There is an alternative that isn't TOOOO hard to set up.

Google calendars will sync with ical, so if you both have gmail addresses you can create a calendar you can share in iCal.

It's a bit faffy but not too taxing

1 open your gmail and set up a calendar

2. look under My calendars/settings

/share this calendar
and add the gmail address of your sharee
select "make changes"
this means they can add to it when they accept the invitation.

3. go to the first tab and select

/calendar details

look for
/Calendar Address: ICAL

copy this address and mail it to the new user.

when they log in they can then use that ical url to add to their calendar list.

Phew...

This may not be the exact way to do it, and some steps may be superflous - but i now have a shared calendar between 2 people's ical diaries on one mac and visible on two separate iphones as a google calendar (the iphone ical however will only update when you sync)

Boo:
1. having to use googlecal to set up or edit events - iCal will treat the shared calendar as 'read only'
2. iphone ical not updating automatically - you need to use the calendar in google to see if any new dates have been added since your last sync

Yay:
1. as its google - it will ACTIVELY share any new events on your iphone - at least in the google calendar (see 2)

-----------

So - all in all, a flawed 'pc-style' workaround sticking out conspicuously in an otherwise 'apple standard' experience.

At the moment it seems google calendars are a better bet than ical - this will not do.

Apple! Deal with it please - shared calendars between users first - then you can worry about 'push' updating later.

Oh it gets worse!

Google calendars won't let you create events properly on the iphone - it just gives you a 'quick add' feature that puts a note down in the calendar when you write it.

It won't choose WHICH calendar you add - so it goes in your main default calendar - not the new one you created to share.

Apalling.

I think i might just buy a pad and paper...

See this thread.

AK

Tried the "terminal" method, but kept getting the same message

when I put in
+Macintosh:~ wifeid$+ *-s /Users/Shared/Calendars/ /Users/wifeid/Library/Calendars*

and hit return, i get:
*-bash: -s: command not found*

?

Never used terminal before....

the command is ln -s

AK

Ok - that worked better. Sort of.

Trouble is - it keeps copying the calendar info into her library, duplicating everything.

Any ideas my helpful chum?

If you followed al the steps you should now have only one shared calendar. If either of you are synchronising to somewhere else I imagine it could cause problems.

It might be worthwhile making a new empty calendar, then export any other calendars, delete them, and import them with a different name.

AK

You're right about one thing : it seems easy...Google does it...for free. Not Apple

AK - we had a 'pebcac' error.

I went back and followed your method again from the start and it works great!

I must have got a step out of order and the duplicate 'library/calendar' folder had appeared before the terminal stage.

Cheers!

"You're right about one thing : it seems easy...Google does it...for free. Not Apple"

To be fair - the google calendar interface on the iphone is all but useless, you can only doodle notes in the margin as it were.

You can't make a new event, only jot a note in the default calendar.
how useless is that?

With the AK fix we now have a proper shared calendar that works on the iphone and mac.

I Imagine 'push' updating isn't far off either.

Have mailed my displeasure to both apple and google - hopefully these features will be added soon - but I can't see me sticking with google now.