Outlook on PC
Time zone – do not change ever! Or else your event times will change
I enter event times in Outlook as per the local time of the meeting (e.g. 10am Fri in France is entered as such, NOT as 1am Fri Phoenix time) So do not change time zones in Outlook and I highly advise not to add any extra time zones to your calendar. The people who programmed this feature at Microsoft have never left their desks or have ever traveled in their lives. Dual time zones will get business people in big trouble. What’s not to understand about a 10am meeting in New York? Is there calculus involved so that you’re forced to add a calendar if you live in Denver?
Incoming email – will always be time stamped as per your Time Zone setting. Example: You’re in Germany (noon), and your Time Zone is set to Phoenix (3am), the time stamp of an incoming email will be “12:00PM”no matter how you have your PC clock set.
Calendar Alerts – This will totally screw you up. Alerts sound off based on your PC clock. Example: You’re in France and have entered your event time on your calendar for10am (local meeting time in France even though you entered it from your desk last week in Phoenix). The alert will sound off 9 hours late because Outlook matches the time/date in the Calendar with the time/date of the PC. Remedy –where ever you are, quickly set your PC clock to local time. Only then will your alerts be accurate.
PC clock – Affects calendar alerts
iPhone – Settings – Mail, Contacts, Calendar – Calendar –Time Zone Support
Time zone – set to your home base (e.g. New York, NY) and DO NOT touch EVER! Changing this will shift your entire calendar – that’s all of your events. Which Apple programmer decided this option was even an option? Very short sighted
Time Zone Support – Leave ON at all times. Otherwise your appointment times will shift (all of them in your whole calendar) This is not very helpful; in fact it’s downright destructive. Which Apple programmer plagued us with this option?
iPhone Calendar Alerts (Useless when out of your time zone)
The phone will sound an alert based on the lead time you requested and the time of the event based on the time zone you have selected in Time Zone Support – see above. If you are planning to call someone or attend a meeting while you are physically out of your time zone you will not be alerted correctly. The alert will sound based on the Time Zone selected on the iPhone. Remedy – there is none and don’t even think about changing the Time Zone setting or turning off Time Zone Support.
It’s not my job to calculate differences in time zones for my appointments while traveling. This is Apple’s job – they forgot to connect alerts to the local cell time like they did with the alarm clock feature. At least they did one thing correctly. I recommend setting default alerts for all calendar inputs to “OFF” if possible. When I’m in a foreign country my iPhone is constantly waking me up in the middle of the night sounding alerts for the wrong times based on my home base time zone. Now you’d think that since the Apple nerd programmer got the wake-up alarm correct by connecting it to the local cell time, that it would be a slam dunk doing the same with alerts. I guess not; that’s why they’re called nerds.
All of the above is testimony and proof why the iPhone is not for business even though every mobile device critic in the world rates the iPhone as #1. There’s something fishy when the iPhone beats every HTC phone on the market. Don’t get me wrong – I think Jobs invented a fantastic smart phone and marketed it correctly. But now that everyone owns AAPL stock, the reviews are getting very biased in my opinion. CNET critics for example will feature the top 5 smart phones taking 60seconds tearing each one apart until the iPhone is shown last as #1 and he simply says, “And the iPhone stills holds first place.” And then goes to commercial.
