Forced to upgrade to new Mobileme Calendar and lose iCal calendar groups

Google Caldev works okay. Not perfect, but well enough and it's free. So I have iCal on my desktop and Calendar on my iPhone working with that now, and I'm just monitoring my me.com email and swapping things over to one of my gmail accounts. The end is near, for me.

Learning about delegate calendars was really key to making it work for me.

Also using my gmail and gcal for WebDAV storage, using SMEStorage "CloudDAV" as a front end via Transmit, and have converted my synching things over to other alternatives.

Finally got a chance to talk to tech support. I don't use groups, just a calender that needs to sync between my phone and laptop. They walked me through the set up without upgrading the OS on all my equipment. I find the minimum system requirements listed for this calender upgrade to be frustratingly wrong, with no support document for installing on older systems. Now I can update on my old iphone with OS 2 and my apparently old 10.5.6 laptop.

I have just read the entire email string about the mobileme calendar controversy to try to understand if I even need to be concerned. I don't use mobileme calendar functionality. I just use iCal on my computer and it syncs with my iPhone when I plug my iPhone into my laptop. Since I'm only using the calendar function that is resident on my computer do I even need to be concerned about upgrading to the new mobileme calendar? I'd rather not go through the hassle right now.

If anyone can enlighten me I'd be grateful.

Thanks

Thanks

You are using iTune sync. You can use just iTunes sync, just MobileMe sync or use both. I use both. Neither excludes the other.

You should upgrade so that if mobileme sync is desired you are properly set up.

You should upgrade so you do not accidentally accept the the upgrade when you do not want to. Do it while you are not pushed.

Summary: Upgrade now

After the upgrade on the iPhone go to

Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>.Mac(that is what it says on my iPhone and I am current)

You'll see a screen with ON/OFF toggles for each of Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks and Find my iPhone.

Since you do not wish to sync iCal via MobileMe, turn that one Off, it is not already.

You can choose which to sync via MobileMe, and which not. That does not change iTune sync capability.

I sync all by Mobileme and sync with iTunes about once each two weeks or so - whenever I'm at the computer with the iPhone and need to charge the iPhone or need to move apps about.

I do not know how the May 5th switchover date impact those not wanting to update now.

Thanks Frank. I appreciate the reply. I heard that Apple is coming out with an upgrade to the OS this summer. Or sometime soon. I was thinking to waiit until that happened and upgrade to that new OS and then do the mobileme upgrade rather than upgrade to 10.6 now. If we are that close to another OS upgrade I'm thinking it doesn't make sense to get 10.6 now just to be able to upgrade mobileme, which I'm not really using. Think I can get away with waiting for the new OS?

I really appreciate your input.

"Think I can get away with waiting for the new OS?"

Yes.

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I know nothing except what Apple says about 10.7. It is announced for this summer.

I do major upgrades slowly and will wait a bit when 10.7 comes out, probably moving to it in October or November.

I don't recall skiping an upgrade, so I can't comment on what might happen.

If I were buying a new computer it would come with 10.6.7. If I were installing an older computer for someone else I'd put 10.6.7 onto it. I'd buy 10.6 for list price today.

Thanks for the advice. I ususally wait for a while before upgrading as well so maybe it's finally time to go to 10.6.

THANK YOU!!! This took care of my probs. All of my calendars are back!!! You rock my face off. Still love Apple.

I'm missing my synced calendars now Apple have turned off the old system.

I wondered, what are people's experiences who have upgraded?

Have people still been losing their stuff?

Should I upgrade, or have people found safer alternatives?

I don't want to lose everything again like when I tried the beta last year...

I've lost nothing I know about since organizing my calendars to not use groups and upgrading as outlined.

I've gained some efficiency since I'm handling fewer calendars.

My upgrade went fine, thanks to Frank for the reassurance!

I did not have calendar groups, but did have 9 or 10 separate calendars that I use simultaneously (I think that's a pretty basic setup.) I don't share calendars usually, but look forward to being able to, with my office staff in the future.

My big concern was my forced upgrade to iOS 3.02 for my 3G iPhone. The initial upgrade last summer was horrible, and I managed to successfully downgrade, no thanks to Apple... I still love them anyway. So, this one went much better, and although there is a very minor speed issue with most apps opening, etc, it is miniscule by comparison. So, I can continue with MobileMe, which I sync between 3 computers, my 3G iPhone and my new iPad 2, and survive the summer until I can upgrade my phone this fall. If your issues center around a 3G phone upgrade, take heart, as it seems to be working fine... no loss of battery power, minimal slowing, maybe a few apps that don't hang now, with the newer system.

OK, thanks for the feedback folks...

Maybe I'll get brave this evening! :-)

tried a little, may be this helps:

go to Calendars (upper left side of your new calendar) - you'll see "On My Mac", "yourname@cal.me.com" etc.

Export all calendar groups under "On My Mac" separately to your desktop.

Drag these ics files one by one into the same calendar groups under "yourname@cal.me.com".

Voila