Time Zone Support is STUPID!!!!!

I've tried all kinds of combinations between my MacBook Pro iCal and my iPhone and it just doesn't work.

First, with iCal on my laptop, turning time zone support on gives the option of selecting which time zone to display and set events on the calendar. With support off, the calendar updates times depending on which time zone you're in. This makes no sense!!! If anything, the calendar times should stay fixed and not change at all if support is off. Turning support on should make the calendar adjust times.

Second, what's the point for entering times in different time zones anyway? If I have a meeting or a flight anywhere in the world, the time is the time no matter what. If I have travel to a different time zone and I set an event for 2 PM, that event will change time when I go to another time zone giving me the wrong time. If I set the event for 2 PM in a different time zone, it will diplay the wrong time in my current time zone.

Third, there is no option to start in one time zone and end in another. I fly all the time. If I turn time zone support on and set a time for a departing flight at 4 PM Eastern, there is no option to arrive at a time in another time zone, so the arrival time will be wrong when the calendar updates in the arriving time zone. If I turn support off, and set an event to start at 4 PM and travel an hour ahead, the calendar will then say the event is at 5 PM when it updates in the new time zone, which is wrong and I'll miss that event.

If I turn my laptop calendar time zone support and iPhone TZS both on or off, times keep getting screwed up. If one is on and one is off, it gets screwed up. Just as an example, to keep my laptop calendar to have the actual time of all my events no matter where I am, I turned time zone support on and set to Central time, where I live. With TZS off, all my times would change to one hour ahead when I go to the Eastern time zone which would screw up any event I would need to refer to. My iPhone has TZS on as well. I have a flight at 3:30 eastern arriving home at 4:30 central, but if I create the event in eastern at 3:30 there is no option to finish in central, so I would have to mark my arrival as 5:30 eastern. When I get home, my calendar would say I left at 2:30 and arrived at 4:30. If I had looked at my calendar before my trip to the eastern time zone, my calendar would say I'm leaving at 2:30, which is wrong for the zone I would leave from, but the arrival time is correct.

Now, with all TZS turned on, and my calendar set to central, and a 3:30 PM Eastern flight with a 24 hour advance alert, my phone alerted me at 4:30 Eastern of my 3:30 Eastern flight because my calendar was set to Central time, not Eastern. Had I had TZS turned off and entered the flight as 3:30, it would display at 4:30 when I arrived in Eastern and my departure and arrival time would be wrong when my calendar updated once in returned to Central and, while still in the Eastern zone, every single event in my calendar would be advance by one hour to reflect the Eastern zone and would be wrong for the actual time those events were to take place in Central, or any other time zone.

If I lived in New York and I traveled to Los Angeles and had an 8 AM meeting in LA, while in NY my calendar would say I had a 11 AM meeting if TZS was on and set to Eastern and wouldn't change to 8 until I manually selected the Pacific time zone. If TZS was off, my 8 AM meeting would display as 5 AM when I arrived in LA and the calendar updated automatically.

The whole system just makes no sense at all and serves no purpose that I can see. The time is the time regardless of where I am or what time zone I'm in. I will always be where I am and the time will always be the time. Why make it change? I want to look at my calendar and have the right time no matter where I am. Apple needs to fix this thing to either add multiple time zones for a single event's start and end time and display the time zone in the calendar or they need to get rid of time zone support altogether.

If anybody knows of a way to keep the calendar on both the computer and the iPhone to actually work in a manner that doesn't change times and will alert me to the actual time of events regardless of time zones I'd love to hear it. Outside of turning off location services, which will screw up every other app, I don't see a fix. Unless Apple give the option to turn of location services for iCal on the iPhone.

iPhone 4S, iOS 5.1.1, Aslo MacBook Pro 15 inch Early 2008

Posted on Jun 21, 2012 12:09 PM

Top-ranking reply

chrismcs

Level 1

0 points

Posted on Mar 6, 2013 8:45 AM

The problem, however, like I was mentioning in my last post - it doesn't matter what system you go to. Every calendar app you use (Google, Outlook, etc) will inherently want you to be more precise than your paper calendar because they are inherently different than a paper calendar. When you specify a time on ANY calendar app, you are inherently specifying a very precise point in time, not just a "time" (ie you are specifying that time in a given time zone) -- and this is a MUST for any calendar app to properly do its job (sharing calendars, meeting requests, etc). Think about it - if someone in a different time zone sends you a meeting request at "4pm", how in the world do you know when that appointment really is? Did they mean their time zone or yours? And if it were to appear at 4pm on both of your calendars, one of you is wrong.

Also - keep in mind...when you change time zones, the calendar is not changing when your appointment occurs..it's keeping it at the same exact point in time that you said it was - which is precisely why the time label changes when you go to a different time zone. Suppose you schedule an appointment at 5pm while in CST. If you fly to PST and the calendar still showed your appointment at 5pm, internally, it would have had to actually shift the start & end time of your appt by 2 hours (reschedule your alarms, etc).

Apple HAS given you three useful features already to navigate this: 1) with time zone support turned on, you can specify the time zone of the event you are scheduling -- so if you mean "4pm CST", you can set the time zone as part of setting the event (with time zone support turned off, Calendar just assumes you are specifying the time in the local time zone because it has no way of knowing otherwise). This is perhaps the most useful of all three features. 2) with time zone support on, you can lock all your calendar to a specific time zone. To me, this isn't a very useful feature because it would effectively make alarms useless to me while I travel. 3) You can use floating time zones where your events will shift to preserve the same "time" when you change time zones...Personally - I'd advise that you use those sparingly for alarm clock like features (like I want to run at 6am no matter where I am). I wouldn't advise using FTZ for scheduling appointments because you'll inadvertently end up making mess (consider the impact of all your appointments changing to an unexpected time because you have an unexpected business trip come up between now when when you thought you might be in a certain time zone).

You mentioned you wanted to switch to Google - but you'll have the same issue there as well. With Google, you must specify your "current" time zone. All events you schedule will be created in that time zone. Now, you could be tempted to leave your Google calendar in, say, CST, even when you fly out to the PST time zone. All your "times" will appear to be "correct" just like you entered them - but (just like option 2 in Apple's calendar app) if you rely on Google's text/email alarms - those alarms will be firing in whatever time zone the event is (so even though you are thinking about your 5pm appt as being 5pm PST, you've told Google it's 5pm CST, thus your alarm will fire 2 hours off of when you are expecting it). Additionally, if you send that meeting as an invite to someone else (or share your Google calendar with anyone), they will all see it as 5pm CST, not 5pm PST.

Google does give you 1 feature that Apple doesn't which is that you can lock a single calendar to a specific time zone. So if you live in CST and you often fly to PST, you can make a calendar that you use specifically for your PST appointments and just tell Google that your normal calendar is CST, but if you schedule any appointments on this one specific calendar, you will be specifying the times in PST.

Hope that helps clear things up a bit. I just didn't want you to be surprised when you moved to another calendar app that you'd discover it behaves just like Apple's does.

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148 replies

Jan 22, 2013 4:53 PM in response to Lexiepex

The problem with not turning Time Zone Support on is that unless Location Services are turned off (which doesn't allow you to use several apps or use their functions (i.e., weather, Facebook check-in, Yelp, etc.) the times on the iPhone calendar will update to the current time zone. An event listed as 4 pm when created while in Central time zone will show as 5 pm in Eastern, even if created with TZS off.

There's no way to avoid it. In my opinion, the calendar should just stay fixed. If I was using a paper calendar with hand written appointments I wouldn't write appointments in different time zones, so why should iCal be any different? If I fly from New Orleans (CST) to L.A. (PST) for a 10 am meeting I know the meeting is at 10 no matter what time zone I'm in because the meeting can only take place in one time zone.

It makes no sense to change time zones on a calendar to see what time an event takes place.

If you want an alert on your event, the event must be created in the time zone in which it will take place or the timer will not be accurate. Making the event a floating event ensures that the time will display properly regardless of the time zone.

mwestley

Level 1

1 points

Mar 6, 2013 8:55 AM in response to Beachbum33

Sorry you're so frustrated, but it's really not that easy to deal with phones that can move into different time zones. One cannot just opt out of that. Do you want your phone to only show you the time from its original time zone? If not, you'll have to do the math in your head to determine what time you need to add to an appointment.

I'll restate my point on time zone support. In iOS6 and Mountain Lion, if you turn ON time zone support and set your time zone to your home time zone, the calendar will work just as you want it to work. That is, the times on your calendar will not change when you travel to a new time zone, and all the times you enter will default to your home time zone, not your current time zone (the time zone can be changed per appointment).

If you're running earlier versions of iOS and Mac OS X, I guess it does not work the same way.

I see that chrismcs answered this much better than I did.

Message was edited by: mwestley

mwestley

Level 1

1 points

Jun 4, 2013 1:29 PM in response to vandana22

I seriously doubt you'll get Apple or any other calendar app to do it that way. There are a lot of us who have to know when an event is happening in our time zone, not just the event's time zone.

I think you're in the minority on this issue.

Dec 17, 2013 7:09 PM in response to hotwheels22

WH.... I think you are mistaken in what you wrote. To be honest, I don't even know what "floating" appointments are.... as I have no need or have never encountered them.

The reason gCal does not have a need... different than iCal or Outlook is the simple fact it is on the "cloud" web-based not directed by the computer. It "floats" whenever and wherever to the default TZ if I have not changed it (Mountain Time for me) when I go to other TZs. As I rarely use my comp to meet appointments on the road, I don't worry about changing clock time (TZ) on my comp... as I'm checking these things from the phone. If I were gone for a long time, I might change TZ/Clock on a comp... but still I don't look at it for meeting schedules/appointments.

As more and more people move to tablets/pads with GPS features that can automatically update TZ to do "work things"... the above Apple "problem" I think would become worse and as I understand it, the "floating" appointments would never be necessary.

To be honest, with Sunrise.... setting TZs for appointments couldn't be easier. Creating an event on Sunrise is even easier than gCal! You start typing in the address... it finds it for you like a Google search, and it's fast! That automatically sets it to that TZ. I believe they are using a hybrid address search from both Google Maps & FourSquare (which now has the most accurate geolocation database out there & what Instagram runs off of).

I've not created a 2 TZ event on Sunrise yet (flights) as I will put them in in gCal on the computer/laptop. Most airline pages now have an "export" to calendar function... making life very easy. I would use it if I wasn't a frequent traveler... however, wirth Delta (my primary carrier) it comes across as a single event regardless of the number of legs (1, 2, 3, etc) and I need/use the visual on my phone to see how much time I have for connections between flights... so I always break it out by flight leg.

I think I covered what I needed. HWs, you'll be very happy once you migrate over, trust me. It really is flawless, and since I've entered into this discussion, I've probably been on 50 flights, several countries and 6/7 TZ without a glitch. I just flew DEN - ATL - SAT (San Antonio) going from MST to EST to CST and then back... that should really mess with an event... but not a single problem. 🙂 Cheers

lbmohr

Level 1

0 points

Dec 23, 2014 12:10 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

I've had most of the problems mentioned in this discussion. It seems that many users have the need for an electronic calendar, which in a host of ways is sensitive to variation in time zone settings and user locations, and many others have little or no such need. Those in the former category encounter multiple problems and account for the need for this long discussion. Those in the latter category, including myself, don't need to worry much about alerts and conference calls and would be very happy with what some have referred to vaguely as a "paper calendar." A good example of the latter is the TripCase app. It gives all flight departure times in the local time where the flight originates and arrival times similarly -- just like you get them on the airline itinerary. It simply is not sensitive at all to what time zone you're in, or will be in, or what time zone the phone or laptop is set for. If the TripCase app were extended to include all sorts of events (not just travel times), it would be the kind of calendar many -- but not all -- users would crave. It seems to me that Apple and Google could and should offer that sort of calendar as an option. It would still have problems even for the users who would delight in it, but that set of problems would be preferable to the ones we have with calendars that are sensitive to time zones of location and event.

Jan 14, 2015 8:14 AM in response to Felix Cave

EVERYONE HERE IS THE ANSWER TO THE TIME ZONE CALENDAR PROBLEM.

UNLINK YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS' ONE BY ONE FROM CALENDAR IN SETTINGS.

SEE WHICH ONE IS CAUSING THE PROBLEM, THEN DON'T USE THAT EMAIL WITH CALENDAR.

THIS WORKS.

Feb 6, 2013 8:59 PM in response to mwestley

mwestly,

The big problem with TZS, whether on or off, is that times constantly change and will always display incorrectly if you need to refer to a time. Just as you mentioned, 8 am in Chicago shows as 9 am in NY. If someone asked you while you were in NY what time your meeting was scheduled for in Chicago, a quick glance at your calendar would have you thinking 9 am and not 8 am. Same thing if TZS was on. In NY, your event would show as 9 am unless you phyiscally changed the calendar time zone.

If you're in NY now and you have an 8 am meeting in Chicago tomorrow and you will be in Chicago at the time of the meeting the time is still 8 am. You change your watch when you change time zones, unlike iCal which changes the event time to correspond to your current time zone, causing it to DISPLAY the incorrect time.

If you used a date book or paper calendar, you would write down 8 am. It would never change. You can only be in one time zone at a time so you would write it down for the time zone that you would be in at the time of that event. Granted, if you had a phone conference and you had to travel outside your time zone you would have to update it for the new time zone. This is when TZS comes in handy.

The biggest problem I have with the whole thing is that times can display incorrectly when needing to reference an event if you're not currently in the time zone in which that event will take place (i.e., telling a friend in L.A. that I land at 3 pm, instead of 5 pm as diplayed in CST when I live).

I have a much better understanding of how it all works now. It's just a matter of knowing how to maniupulate iCal to display it in the manner in which you'd like and how to get notifications at the correct times.

Feb 7, 2013 8:26 AM in response to mwestley

I'm still running Snow Leopard 10.6.8 and it doesn't work that way. With TZS on the times display in the zone the event was either created in or the zone selected in the event window and the times change as you move through zones. With TZS off all times change to reflect the zone you're currently in.

The displayed time changes regardless of whether TZS is on or off unless you make the event a floating event.

Feb 13, 2013 11:55 AM in response to mwestley

mwestly,

The behavior we're looking for is no change in time at all, regardless of what time zone I'm in. I don't want to change the calendar time zone and I don't want times to update when I go to a new time zone. The phone will update calendar times regardless of whether TZS is on or off if location services are on. The computer calendar will not update if TZS is off.

With TZS off, alerts are not given at the correct time.

Mar 25, 2013 10:54 AM in response to mesh-arc

Agreed, mesh-arc.

And it would be nice if there was a "fixed" option for times entered on the calendar so regardless of what time zone you are in, the calendar time and all associated alerts will stay fixed and will display and alert at the appropriate times.

To me, it doesn't make sense to have every timed appointment change times to whatever time zone I'm in. It's easier for me to make a time zone adjustment in my head when scheduling one event rather than view my calendar in another time zone, view all the times incorrectly and have to change the calendar time zone to view all times properly.

When a "smart" calendar causes people to miss events due to changing time zones it can't be that smart.

chrismcs

Level 1

0 points

Mar 25, 2013 2:19 PM in response to waldhaus1

Sort of. You can turn on Time Zone Support in the Mail, Calendar & Contacts settings. From there, it will show you the time zone that a given event is scheduled in. And if you've made a "floating" event, then it will show you that the time zone is floating...and if you change time zones, that event floats along just like on the desktop. However, I don't see any way within iOS to create a brand new event that is floating - it seems like you can still only create floating events on the desktop.

mesh-arc

Level 1

14 points

Mar 25, 2013 2:21 PM in response to chrismcs

chrismcs:

two good examples: With Little Johnny, I would MUCH rather say to myself, to call Johnny at 8pm, I'll need to call at 5pm PST, so I'll set my reminder at 5pm. So there my personal experience/instincts don't align to yours.

However, in the example of the shared calendar, shared between people in different time zones, that's thorny. And that's why you are thinking like an engineer. You want to avoid conflicts like that. The only solution is to be rigorous and use absolute time to set everything. But in the vast majority of cases - where appointments are personal or within a time zone, not shared between different zones - we want our appointments stuck to a number.The current time may change when we travel, but appointments are appointments. To account for the exceptions, I would allow an option in the calendar app (an option when you create an appointment) to set "absolute" time - this would peg the time to my current time zone and if I sent out that appointment, it would adjust itself to the recipient's zone. Default would be a fixed numerical time.

BTW, when I travel, I never change my laptop to the local time. It is way easier to do the math in my head when I look at the clock on the laptop than to deal with the insanity of shifting appointments. That is kind of lame, don't you think?? 🙂

Mar 25, 2013 2:29 PM in response to waldhaus1

iOS does not have a floating option, only iCal on the computer, which is how I've been doing it and it seems to work fine.

chrismcs, I don't have to worry about multiple people using my calendar. Personally, I think that's a dangereous thing to do anyway and I'd never do it. As I mentioned above, I use floating times for most everything.

"Fixed" would just be better terminology for it, rather than floating, since the time stays fixed regardless of time zones. To me, "floating" seems to infer that it would move around with you rather than be fixed. Maybe Apple needs to change their app to have a fixed option and a new floating option where new floating times actually change with time zones. This seems to me to be the most logical and simplistic way of doing things.

Either way, there are reasons for both fixed and changing times. However, I think more people would prefer "fixed" to be that standard method and only have to change new floating times when the need arises.

Having to change my calendar time zone to input an event, then choose floating to have it display correctly for all time zones is a backwards way of having to ensure that your calendar works the way you want it to work.

Jun 3, 2013 12:48 PM in response to pinkfloyd1969

Again, I look at the replies and I come to the same conclusion. There are a subset of us who want NO TIME ZONE SUPPORT at all. We are not concerend with the impact an entry has on calendar sharing. I KNOW WHERE I'LL BE AND WHAT TIME I MEAN WHEN I ENTER AN APPOINTMENT! When I make an entry for next week at 2pm, I know what time zone I will be in and that's all that matters to me! I move around between time zones a lot, and am constantly missing meetings and running late (or early) because ICal keeps changing the time I entered. Turning off time zone support should do just that! It should turn all time support off and allow me to "fix" my appointment times to a universal time. Not only from this string of replies, but from conversations with others, I believe that this is a feature that many people want, and I can't understand why Apple engineers are so recalictrant about giving in on this.

Sep 15, 2013 3:32 PM in response to HansWorldTravels

hi all. i moved back to mac three years ago and am coming to this thread from a helpful recent post on my thread from a year ago: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4604064?answerId=22440589022#22440589022

i am strictly using MOUNTAIN LION on my laptop for entering events and i am primarily being alerted to them on my iPhone 5 (but also viewing them on the laptop when i travel).

i tried to solve this by testing last time i traveled but would really like to solve this now even though my brainspace these days is rather limited. can anyone assist per the below? i had to move from Notes to Notational Velocity and i am trying to figure out if i can solve this conveniently since iCal syncs with REMINDERS which i would like to start using more powerfully.

anyway, the first time time i relied on iCal to give me a couple of alerts for a flight back to Central Standard Time Zone from Eastern Standard Time Zone i almost missed my flight because i set it in CST and it wanted to alert me an hour later than it should have when i was in CST. not an insignificant problem which i have been struggling with and testing periodially. so - i am going to read the 47 posts in this thread and i am going to re-read the posts in my thread but it would be nice to know if there is a quick way to fix this. after hearing about thumbprint recognition on the new iphone and apparently no solution on this i am ready to cut bait if necessary.

at one point i /thought/ i had a method to set Time Zone Support to ON and to enter the event with a /pulldown/ for the time zone of the event that it was actually in and then to set it to "FLOATING". i had thought that this allowed me to see it at the CORRECT TIME in CST (because it was floating) but also have it adjust when i get to EST so that it will alert at the correct time zone that i am in (ostensibly because i ran the pulldown for the time zone the event was actually to occur i guess). the lowdown is that i thought i wrote this method down in my original post and did actually test it but i am not seeing

anyone know if this is likely to work or if i should move to Pocket Informant or Google Calendar or something...?

TIA

also i really like iCals ability to print out an actual printed monthly calendar with the alerts listed however, i would really like to be able to print out a "linear" list of days in a YEARLY view, whereas right now List view in iCal only shows events which are scheduled. i would love to get a tip on software or a method that shows /each/ day which i would find to be really helpful for seeing large projects that i am working on...

again THANKS

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Time Zone Support is STUPID!!!!!