Understanding ToDo's in iCal and Apple Mail

I have the same question.

My problem is related. After switching to the new calendar on MobileMe, the account was by default named <xxx@me.com> (my email address), not "MobileMe" as earlier. In the ToDo section of Mail, I now have "On My Mac," "MobileMe," and "xxx@me.com."
Only the ToDo-s created in <xxx@me.com> are reflected in iCal and are synced to the web-version of MobileMe calendar. But the Mail (preferences > composing) gives a choice only between "On My Mac" and "MobileMe" to create Todo items.
What is the utility of the sections in both iCal and Mail, titled "MobileMe," when the account itself now has a new name "xxx@me.com"? Confusing indeed.

exactly same question. it's confusing.

seems one sync with iCal and the other sync with mobile me.
Hope imminent 10.6.5 will correct this issue.

It seems the topic of todo's never gets addressed on the boards here. I suspect the Apple people that do visit and help answer things are as lost on this topic as the rest of us. There are two ways to create todos on your mac and neither sync to the iPhone??? For a company that creates such beautiful polished software, this is embarrassing. As a software engineer myself, I would offer the following advice to Apple:

Todo's are NOT mail or Calendar events. Mail is Mail. A calendar event is an appointment that must be done at a scheduled time. A todo, even one with a due date, can be done by that date or before it. Make a nice, clean simply todo application for the Mac, iPhone and MobileMe. Allow todos to have tags, recurrence, nesting (for projects). Allow todos to be "linked" to contacts, mail or calendar events.

In other words, come up with a real "Apple" solution that gives us a nice, elegant and integrated todo program.

I agree. I refrain from using or creating any "events" in iCal or To Do in Mail.

I use Notes on my iPhone, enabled Notes syncing via iTunes and then access those Notes through Mail. In my various notes, I just use each line of the note for a new "To Do" lol and brackets " [ ] " for a check off box, filling in "X" between to show that it's completed.

Now, to somehow get OSX Stickies application to merge with Notes app from iPhone and sync themselves... that would be awesome.

Hi -
I agree - I've always found the ToDo part of both Mail and iCal totally counterintuitive.
I wish someone could point me to a guide that explains the logic behind it - because I simply don't get it. Does anyone know of one?

Thanks

MtD

Amen, Mark!

yes, please, please. can someone (anyone) point me towards some document explaining this mess? it gets even nastier and ickier when you include mobileme and ios mail todo lists. i am completely baffled, and i've been using apple products since the early 80s. for example, how counter intuitive is it that in order to sync to do lists on mobileme, you must put then in the “on my mac” folder instead of the mobileme folder? huh? wha?

/applaud this has to be the right answer...

...and three months later they are still unaddressed. The integration of Mail with iCal is pretty weak. We need Mark's "iTODO" that is integrated with Mail and iCal and synched between the iPhone and computer.

-- If these guys ( http://spanningsync.com/) can synch gCal with iCal across multiple devices, you would think Apple could do it with MobileMe. (Meaning over the net rather than over a cable via iTunes.)
-- If I can hover over a date in Mail and it creates an iCal entry, why can't I CONTROL click an email and create an iCal entry with a reminder. Entourage did it.

The solution I found is to switch from iCal to BusyCal, which will sync via Mobile Me so that the Calendars on my MacBook Pro, Mac Pro and iPhone all sync. The BusyCal calendar is much more flexible in terms of appearance and personalization over iCal. They make a great ToDo app called BusyToDo for iPhone and iPad and it works intuitively and quickly - pushing ToDos from my iPhone to the calendars on my desktop and laptop.

The only gnat in the yogurt is that when you launch the app on the iPhone, it has to sync with Mobile Me which makes it take a while to launch.

BusyCal website:
http://www.busymac.com/busycal/index.html

MtD

I use this solution also. I am still a bit miffed that iCal will not allow for repeat ToDos. The BusyCal Desktop Solutions cost £29.99. Too steep for me. I have the IPhone App which is brilliant. I add my ToDos on my phone.