Dear Apple:
I have just experienced the iCloud sync issues first-hand when my calendar synced last night and suffered errors due to an invite with multiple time zones and an "on behalf of" organizer.
It appears that as each calendar entry is added to iCloud, an invite is sent. It seems iCloud does not differentiate between existing meetings added by sync (wherein and invite should not be sent), and new meetings added on iCloud (wherein an invite should be sent). iCloud also does not know the difference between a meeting I organized and one I didn't. To make matters worse, a meeting with multiple time zones and a "behalf of" organizer caused the sync process to crash. With each subsequent sync and reset, iCloud kindly sent a cancellation and a re-invite to every other meeting in my calendar.
As a result, iCloud single-handedly cancelled a sales conference (several times over) at a customer who had invited me optionally as a guest. You can imagine what I face this morning as I explain to the EVP of Sales why I cancelled his conference three times over (this call will begin with me introducing myself, as we have not yet met -- I would have met him at the conference, but something tells me this will be somehow different).
Not only did I litter the email boxes of everyone with cancellations and invitations to meetings I wasn't even the organizer for, but now nobody knows whether the meetings are on or not. For those who received cancellations first and acted on them, I'm now cancelling flights and having to rebook meetings in far off places.
Apple: this is a terrible send-off to Steve -- your technology execution has been flawless, and this error is therefore all the more highly contrasted and amplified. We are a technology company working hard to move enterprises to Apple (we develop enterprise systems and extend them to mobile on iPad) and now I've got to explain to our customers (at meetings they likely won't attend because they've been cancelled) why Apple can be trusted with their enterprise data and systems.
Your expedient attention to this issue would be greatly appreciated. I post this here in the hopes of preventing this embarassing and unfortunate scenario from happening to others.
