Is there ever to be .vcs/.ics support?
I get many appointment notifications via email, my business relies on it. With the email is a .vcs (vCal) attachment containing all the relevant information. Also attached is a .vcf (vCard) file with customer contact info.
iPhone Mail app opens imports the .vcF information flawlessly into Contacts with a mere touch of my finger. It has no idea what to do with the .vcS file; all it shows is a question mark. This limitation has been present since the first gen iPhone, and has survived OS upgrades 2, 3, and 4, despite "targeting business users" since OS2, and expanding attachment support in OS4.
Currently I have to go to my desktop, open Outlook (which understands the formats just fine, thank-you-very-much) to import said attachments into the calendar there, then have GoogleSync relay the additions to a Gmail calendar that updates the iPhone.
Changing the .vcs extension to .ics at least gives me an attachment that OS4 will allow me to view, but only as a text file; no option to import the event into Calendar exists. I did stumble across an iPhone app (Calendar Happy) that will convert the .ics to something usable for Calendar (via their servers), but it still requires me to download the .vcs file to my desktop computer, change the extension to .ics, then email it to the iPhone for processing by Happy Calendar; a "workaround" that is much more consuming than using Outlook.
My questions are these:
-Is there anyone out there with another workaround that eliminates the need for using my desktop computer?
-Is there anyone out there with knowledge that Apple is working on this? Similar threads abound on the Web (google "open .vcs with iPhone" or similar and grasp the enormity of the need)
-Is this a power play/struggle between Apple and Microsoft, similar to the Adobe/Flash broo-ha-ha (which was finally satisfactorily addressed by Jobs himself)?
The iPhone has radically changed the way I do business for the better, and I've long been a user, but this limitation is frustrating beyond words.
Any help/advice would be welcome.
iPhone Mail app opens imports the .vcF information flawlessly into Contacts with a mere touch of my finger. It has no idea what to do with the .vcS file; all it shows is a question mark. This limitation has been present since the first gen iPhone, and has survived OS upgrades 2, 3, and 4, despite "targeting business users" since OS2, and expanding attachment support in OS4.
Currently I have to go to my desktop, open Outlook (which understands the formats just fine, thank-you-very-much) to import said attachments into the calendar there, then have GoogleSync relay the additions to a Gmail calendar that updates the iPhone.
Changing the .vcs extension to .ics at least gives me an attachment that OS4 will allow me to view, but only as a text file; no option to import the event into Calendar exists. I did stumble across an iPhone app (Calendar Happy) that will convert the .ics to something usable for Calendar (via their servers), but it still requires me to download the .vcs file to my desktop computer, change the extension to .ics, then email it to the iPhone for processing by Happy Calendar; a "workaround" that is much more consuming than using Outlook.
My questions are these:
-Is there anyone out there with another workaround that eliminates the need for using my desktop computer?
-Is there anyone out there with knowledge that Apple is working on this? Similar threads abound on the Web (google "open .vcs with iPhone" or similar and grasp the enormity of the need)
-Is this a power play/struggle between Apple and Microsoft, similar to the Adobe/Flash broo-ha-ha (which was finally satisfactorily addressed by Jobs himself)?
The iPhone has radically changed the way I do business for the better, and I've long been a user, but this limitation is frustrating beyond words.
Any help/advice would be welcome.
3GS, iOS 4
