Time Zone Support is STUPID!!!!!

You can want what you want, but you aren't going to get it. You can try looking for a calendar app that does that, but I haven't seen one on any device in the 20 years I have been using PDAs and smart phones. Perhaps you should write such an app yourself.

Wow, this discussion has been going on for over a year and it has not been fixed????

This is not rocket science. I just moved from an Android & Gmail, and there solution was seamless & effortless, and was fixed/corrected shortly after they released multiple timezone even functionality.

Here's how it can easily work.

In gCalendar via a web browser, one opens a new event. You put in the start time, say departing Denver at 4pm. You click a button "Time Zone" on the event window. A subwindow opens up, you check "Use separate start and end time zones" and two time zone dropdown menus open. Mountain Time is my default, so I need not change that for my start time. My 3 hour flight arrives in Atlanta at 9pm EST. I enter 9pm for the event end time and select "Eastern Time Zone" in the dropdown menu that follows. Hit done and complete the rest of my event details.

This event automatically shows the 3hr duration. If my computer time is MST, it shows me the event based on MST. If my computer, or more importantly my phone (which auto updates once I physically change times zones) changes to EST, that event on the phone calendar shows up for a 3 hour duration in EST where I'm at.

gCalender even has different timezone options in the dropdown menu for places like Arizona that do not observe Daylight Savings.

There is no TZS button either on the phone or web interface, there is no way to get confused. Similar problems happened with gCal when timezones were first released, but they fixed it quickly, because it was flawed.

Having just come to the iPhone, realizing it was the superior mobile device, it doesn't make me very happy to see Apple is doing nothing about this simple problem that' causes real problems for the people using the phone & who travel a lot between timezones.

<Edited by Host>

Agree entirely that this is a simple solution for people who live, work, and play in different time zones.

Many years ago, my PalmPilot, using something called DateBk, handled everything seamlessly by simply recognizing that an event can occur in a time zone different from that in which I was located when entering the event, but that was in the old simple days....

The iPhone has that capability also. I use it constantly. And yes, datebk was great, and its successor Pimlical for Android and Windows is even better. Unfortunately, not for iPhone.

Now that I understand there is absolutely no need to use iCloud, and gmail will sync without it, guess ill just try it out on my next trip &amp; hope it works flawlessly. We'll see

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

hi chrismcs.

i read your article a long time ago when i first tried to tackle this. i am also looking at other calendar apps more recently.

do you happen to know if it is possible to solve this issue in iCal by setting Time Zone Support to "On", selecting the Time Zone of the event (so i don't have to convert time zones manually on paper) and to set the event to "floating"?! actually i can't recall if this is actually possible but - i mean, this seems like it should be really simple in that i want the ability to have an event show up on my calendar at the /actual/ time that it will take place in the /actual/ time zone that it is taking place (at all times) but to also be alerted with an alert at the correct time in the time zone that i am in (for instance if i am in the actual time zone of the event when it takes place).

i mean, barring some kind of programming oddities this does not seem like it would be terribly tricky to implement - particularly if they simply gave you an option to "Show Nominal Event Time and Show Current Time Zone Event Time" which would look something like this:

Return Flight

Jet Blue

9:15 PM EST (8:15 CST)

Alert 1: 1 hour before

Alert 2: 30 minutes before

with the parenthesis being the setting for Date and Time preference for "Time Zone" (...if they let you specify a "home" time zone instead of only letting you have my laptop "Set time zone automatically using current location" but i digress....).

this then /should/ alert me 30 minutes and an hour in advance of 9:15 PM if i am on the east cost and an hour and 30 minutes in advance of 8:15 PM if i am in central standard time zone...

seems like this would solve my and AnnieDin's problems pretty easily...

Some who have posted here have mentioned this situation is so rediculous they are going back to a paper calendar. My solution at this point is one step removed from that 🙂

I make the appointment in whatever time zone I am currently in so I can see it on that date at its correct time and then in the location line below REWRITE the correct time so when I'm in another time zone and it changes (without me wanting it to) I can always see the correct time.

Example: Let's say I am in New Mexico making a dentist appointment for 2pm Nov 5th in San Diego. I put it on my calendar at 2pm...as long as I am in New Mexico I can make other plans for that same day and see it listed at 2pm. If I go to New York it will say 4pm, if I'm in California it will say 1pm but at least the second line will always say 2pm wherever I am. Stupid? Maybe...but it's the best I can come up with given the current iPhone calendar!

hi. thanks very much.

in my case i have come to rely heavily on alerts so i need it to be correct in the time zone i am in so it will alert me. i also have to be able to rely on having it display the correct time whenever i am looking at the appointment.

i /thought/ i had gotten this to work after basically doing a ton of research and experimenting and my recollection was that it involved a combination of settings such as turning on time zone support on the laptop, turning on update to current time zone on the laptop, entering the event on the laptop with a pulldown to the actual time zone the event is in (with the actual time), and then setting the event to "float".

last time i checked this worked correctly in that it showed the correct time before i left, the phone updated to the current time zone of where i was, and the iCal event updated to show the correct time for the time the event.

if there is a logic (and if this did in fact work), pulling down to the actual time zone of the event set it, turning on time zone support let the laptop (or phone or whatever) update to the correct time, and setting to float let it show up in the original time zone as the correct time - well, nevermind. i mean, i just need instructions to make sure it is working (or not working as the case may be.

and then suggestions on getting onto something that does work will help.

Hello Hotwheels.

As you saw & responded to... I found many of these different threads on mostly the same problem. The only other problems I was seeing with Time Zones in support posts, was Apple's/Google's delayed fixing of wrong UTC designations when it came to either Daylight Savings Time or religious calendar settings.

Which are clearly different than this issue.

Like I said, I'll be traveling soon and will do some tests.

My posts came from being brand new to all Apple products, and my wrong belief (based on everything I was reading) that I needed iCloud to sync gMail/gCal with my iPhone, and somehow being forced into using iCal. Hopefully this is not the case.

In other discussions, I was instructed to set up gMail & gCal through the normal gMail "add account" feature. Once I turned off iCloud for both, gMail synced no problem. I'm thinking gCal will do the same.

"gContacts" however were set up using "Other->Add CalDav Account", with iCloud turned off. This too has worked, syncing edits & new contacts only with gMail, not iCloud (especially with new contacts via iPhone). So I'm hopeful, gCal/iPhone "Calender" will operate the same. 🙂

My suscipicion is, as long as UTC/DST settings cross integrate between the two... gCal from the "webosphere" will drive the event times in the calendar on the phone, and they should be spot on regardless of what timezone location I am in.

Even with Android/gMail, adjusting/setting the event starting and ending timezones was not possible from the phone calendar event. If one logged onto gCal from a web browser (tablet, phone browser or comp) one could access.

The whole "floating events" & "alerts" work-around seem like a real clustereff. If I were a die hard Apple business traveler, I would never accept Apples' disregard for addressing this problem!!!

Cheers & I'll update!

hi HWT.

thanks for the good information. can i please follow up with you on this? i have a couple of items i need to tackle and if migrating to google for this is a simpler solution i would like to follow it though i am not all that familiar with google other than that i have a gmail account.

1. right now i access GMail using an IMAP account i set up in Mail on my iPhone. i also have Sparrow on my iPhone (and both my machines) and i access GMail with no iCloud sync for email because i am using IMAP. one of the really great things about this is that i am using a series of folders to store various information (such as incoming resumes) and this means that this data is accessible to all my devices irrespective of where i access the info. i can also move data to one of these folders which is quite nice. i went ahead and took someone's advice to get SpamSieve (i have a lot of email accounts) and in training spamsieve (recommended by mac users for spam) i can put bad email in a "bad" email folder in my GMail account and this trains SpamSieve to do this automatically. totally FWIW. but anyway.

2. i have a ton of contacts sorted into all kinds of categories/groups. i am using CardScan to handle this currently since many of these were originally Business Cards. this data is /almost/ all sorted and i would like to get it up to Linked-In and to use it in various ways. right now it is not synced to my Mac Contacts because my Mac Contacts are for daily needs and these will not sync to Mac Contacts while retaining the categories/groups. doing this without the categories/groups would be a nightmare. it would also probably trash my Mac Contacts which i need very much.

> Do you happen to know if this would be good to upload to Google Contacts? can i upload in a way that will retain categories/groups? also, are you indicating that you have a set of GOOGLE CONTACTS on your iPhone using the ADD ACCOUNT > OTHER > ADD CALDAV ACCOUNT section of the mail settings? if so, where do these show up on your iPhone? i would really find it very helpful to get my business contacts to my phone.

3. do you use Outlook? i was about to purchase it when i buy excel and i am curious to know if this will streamline some of this for me or if i can get an Outlook app for my iPhone.

4. are you using Google Calendar and not iCal in any way? if so, are you able to see and enter data in this calendar "natively" on your iphone?

thanks and apologies if you explained anything and i missed it.

i'd love to simplify some things over here as they are individually relatively small items but i am finding that they added up to a large mess for too long a time.

TIA

Hey HW!

A couple quick answers. Again I am brand new to any apple product use.

I use gmail exclusively and have two different accounts, one personal, one more professional. I use outlook for a 3rd work account, but sparingly... Not for calendar or contacts. Outlook ***** to be honest &amp; requires storage of everything on your comp/exchange server... Aka as far as I'm concerned its like old storage of contacts on a SIM. Also for work, I don't even use the computer program version of outlook, I always login via the OWA (outlook web access)... That's a carry over from being issued a POS company laptop &amp; not being given access to our internal servers. OWA works great if you've never tried it.

I too wanted groups in contacts, as I added folders for old or overseas contacts I didn't use regularly, and did so for both biz &amp; personal. It was great with visibility options on an android phone, quick way to shorten a contact list drastically, but quickly have access by a few screen touches if needed. I'm pretty certain this is lost/not available with iContacts. It was a main reason I WAS opting to use the iCloud, but it does not appear to crossover. The only contacts that sync to iPhone contacts from gmail are those labeled 'my contacts' on gmail.... So one needs to put that label (gmail's default) onto them if you have them sub-grouped, but you don't have to take those sub-group labels off, just apply the default label too. It's crappy, but it seems limited by iContacts.

The set ups should be as I outlined above. Give them a try, if they don't work, easy enough to add the old back. I did try the google apps version for gmail, but since my accounts are working 'close to' as I need them, I've not reinstalled it.

Make sure to turn off iCloud setting of you try this.

I'm hoping the calendar will work as I'm hoping it will.

Cheers for now

hi hwt. thanks for your posts and your help.

i like being back on the mac very much but your posts and this iCal time zone issue reminds me that i have real needs that i have not been able to fix - despite a lot of trying - and it is making me really cranky. your usage is a little different than mine since i never did get hooked up in a corporate way while on PC so some of this i am having a hard time following.

can i just ask you if you are using GMAIL CONTACTS basically exclusively and if this is the case if you are somehow getting /some/ of these to appear in your iPhone in Contacts? i mean, presumably you have a whole host of contacts in Google Contacts and you are tagging the ones you want to access on your phone with the "my contacts" tag is that right?

then you are telling the CONTACTS app on the iPhone (Yes??) to SYNC with Google Contacts and this is the way you are set up?

i mean, i have contacts in Contacts being synced via iCloud and i have a huge amount of contacts in an app called Cardscan on my desktop Mac Pro. i would really like to get these contacts up to Google with their categories attached and i wouldn't mind having some kind of ability to get these into my iPhone instead of having to access these from a web page.

Sorry, I was writting on my phone before.

Please read over this thread for setup.... take note of rockmyplimsoul's comments as that works to set up contacts. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3997951?start=0&tstart=0

I am using gMail Contacts exclusively (I don't use my Outlook Contacts at all)

First off, if you want to import your contacts from elsewhere into gMail ---- Login to Gmail -> Contacts -> Import Contacts. You will see in Contacts the ability to form "New Group".

Your top level group is My Contacts. New contacts will automatically go into this list. Once you make a new group, select 1 or multiple contacts you want to add to your new group. Go to the 1+ Person Icon at the top, click it, select the group name and apply the group name you want. You may remove the "My Contacts" label if you wanted. However "My Contacts" is the only label that is recognized by the Contacts on the iPhone for syncing. Sub group contacts will not show up if they do not have the My Contact label as well. You can apply as many labels to any contact as you wanted.

Ok let's set up your iPhone for gMail Contact syncing.

Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars->Add Account->Other->Add CardDAV

Add your account info. Make sure Advanced Settings have Use SSL On & Port is 443

Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendars (MCC)->iCloud -> Turn Contacts Off

Your iPhone contacts should now include all your gMail Contacts with the My Contacts label on them.

Now, create a new contact on you iPhone. Check your gMail Contacts.... it should populate.

If you had iCloud Contacts On... that new contact would go to your iContacts.

Now, if you had a second gMail account with Contacts. Set it up the same way. Once you have a second contacts account, an option comes up... Settings->MCC->scroll down to Contacts, and you will see Default Account--> all you contacts accounts will show up. This determines where new contacts will be created.

Contacts are now all set up. I'll start another post of gMail & gCal

gMail & gCal will be setup the following way.

Settings->Accounts->Add Account...->GMail

Add your account information. Make sure your Mail, Calendars & Notes are turned On

Accounts->iCloud->Turn Off .... Mail, Calendars, Reminders & Notes. Contacts should already be Off.

Settings->MCC-> scroll down to Mail section, adjust as necessary. At the bottom you can set your Default Account. This option will not visible if you only have one email account set up.

I have 3... 1 Gmail Per, 1 Gmail Biz & an Outlook Exchange account.

Ok, now that these are set up.... I'm doing some tests with calendars. I set my new events up through the web/gmail. Even with gmail/android phones, if I create a new event, options are limited, so I usually need to go into gmail/web to add extra details, etc.

I have some all day events. Say for example.... I am working out of town for 4 days, my job location, rental car & hotel run the duration. iPhone as well as Android will post these all day events in my notice screen.

Ok, say with have a 1 hour meeting.... 4pm to 5pm. gCal Events have reminders at the bottom of the event (or a default setting if you choose for new events)... options are, Email, Pop-Up or SMS. You can add as many as you want.

I added a new event in 30 minutes to test from gmail/web. I added a 20 minute popup reminder. 10 minutes later it popped up on my computer (gCal was open) and it popped up on my iPhone too. Also in the notice screen, it shows the event happening "now".

Ok... this is working. I did not address Timezones or Multiple TimeZones. This I will have to test, but because gCal/web is driving the events, not the iPhone Calendar (app), I am almost certain this will operate flawlessly based on the gCal/web driver and the iPhone clock time once it updates in another timezone, aka landing in Chicago from SF.

I have to say I do not know where the TimeZoneSupport TZS options are on the iPhone, or apparently there is one in the iCal settings somewhere. I am hoping they are shut off. But it should not matter, given gCal/web is driving the iPhone Calendar app via sync.

Hopes this explains and is helpful.