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

D Hull

Level 1

19 points

Feb 15, 2014 2:28 PM in response to hotwheels22

Yeah, I know, and I use two different laptops and the phone and the cloud, which makes it a total nightmare. The other thing I've just discovered is that it adjusts for daylight savings time, too, so if you schedule something for noon but it's after the time changes it will adjust for that. I wish there was some way to just turn all those options OFF. I understand that some people use it that way and that's fine, but the Apple of old understood that we are not all the same and gave us many, many options for how to use various programs. Beyond frustrating.

Feb 15, 2014 2:37 PM in response to pinkfloyd1969

If nothing else has been solved from this discussion, one thing should be certain.... Apple is not going to do anything to change this. If Apple's system doesn't work for you, find something else to meet your needs as Apple will never change it based on their users' repeated & exhaustive requests. It will not happen.... No matter how much pleading, or ******** all do. Cheers

D Hull

Level 1

19 points

Feb 15, 2014 2:41 PM in response to HansWorldTravels

Well, Hans, you're probably right, but it would be nice to know what other options are available that work with the cloud, OSX and iOS. So far I haven't found anything with a clear description. Before I buy something I'd like to know that it won't screw me up like this did. This has truly been a nightmare.

Feb 15, 2014 2:45 PM in response to D Hull

i'm on this jag where i think i am going to buy BC, then i think i am going to move to google, then i think i am going to test my settings again on my next trip and just deal with the various hassles until they work things out. then i think i am going to buy BC, then i think i am going to move to google....

Feb 15, 2014 2:50 PM in response to D Hull

Sorry, I've talked repeatedly in the past b4 about Sunrise App for the phone.... Test it endlessly bouncing from time zone to time zone endlessly. It never fails & they are continually updating & improving it. Try that.... Under 5 minutes to setup multi accounts painlessly. :)

D Hull

Level 1

19 points

Feb 15, 2014 2:53 PM in response to HansWorldTravels

It might be fine but it's worthless to me if it doesn't work across three macs, an iPad and two iPhones via the cloud. I can see where I can get it for the phone, but that's not gonna cover it. Am I missing something?

Feb 15, 2014 3:01 PM in response to D Hull

It does work on iPhone & iPad(I don't have one). It is pulling from the servers/cloud. I just noticed the other day.... I'm using outlook.... I had an event invite through outlook, it pushed automatically to sunrise, I accepted in sunrise, it instantly pushed back to outlook. No glitches, flaws, nothing.

I can only lead horses to water, can't make anyone drink. If people aren't willing to try something that takes 5 minutes to setup, less to remove it... Just to see how it works, there's nothing left to say bc the truth is.... Apple will not change an effing thing. End of story.

Feb 15, 2014 3:14 PM in response to D Hull

D Hull wrote:

I am not sure what &amp means. It does not seem to offer a version for the Mac, which is essential. That was my question. If you don't know please say so.

"&amp" is what happens when you post to this forum from Safari on iOS and use the ampersand (&). Any place you see it, just assume "&".

Feb 15, 2014 3:37 PM in response to HansWorldTravels

HansWorldTravels wrote:

Apple tried to make a solution. It doesn't work. They are not supporting it, nor will they fix or remove it.... There is nothing left to say.

I'm not sure why you're replying to me. I don't have a problem. Perhaps you meant this reposnse for someone else?

D Hull

Level 1

19 points

Feb 15, 2014 3:41 PM in response to IdrisSeabright

I'm replying because you've suggested an alternative software. Now you're saying don't worry about the mac, it'll show up there. I don't understand how it will do that if there is not a version for the Mac. I'm trying to understand what you are telling me.

I usually, but not always, set up my events on the mac which is supposed to automatically send them to the other devices connected to this calendar.

My original question was is there an alternative software that works across both OSs and the cloud. Your answer to that question was incomplete. If you don't know, just say so. No offense, but I do know what I need.

Feb 15, 2014 3:49 PM in response to D Hull

D Hull wrote:

I'm replying because you've suggested an alternative software.

You didn't reply to me and I never said you were. I was replying to HansWorldTravel. I never suggested any alternative software. I merely explained what "&amp" meant.

I am not HansWorldTravels. I think that's who you want to be replying to.

Feb 15, 2014 6:10 PM in response to D Hull

ICal is the program is it not? Macs or iDevices is where it is expressed. iCal is over the web... It is where the data is. The problem was with the same software operating on comps that did not update time automatically and devices that did. Apple put in a software fix, applied it equally to those that needed it & those that don't.... Hence the problem. Your emails & events are just data that is expressed thru iCal or other software that can work with the data as well... Which can then be modified which will then express itself in other software. iCal on your Mac can be your primary device to read & modify the data, that doesn't matter. But you can use other softwares on your devices to read & modify that data as well aka Sunrise App.

Stop thinking about using TZS and also the concept of floating events that was a user workaround to the TZS that did not work.

D Hull

Level 1

19 points

Feb 15, 2014 8:34 PM in response to HansWorldTravels

Hans, no offense, but that makes absolutely no sense to me. How do you see or even create an event on the Sunrise App if they don't have a Mac version? There's something I'm not understanding.

I really don't want to think about timezones at all. I just want to use absolute times for wherever I happen to be in the world. I don't want them to change as I travel, change timezones or go from Standard to Daylight time.

I need something that will do this across my devices, and my manager's devices as well, no matter where we are in the world, even when we're in different places as often happens.

Thank you.

Feb 16, 2014 6:51 AM in response to D Hull

D Hull wrote:

Hans, no offense, but that makes absolutely no sense to me. How do you see or even create an event on the Sunrise App if they don't have a Mac version? There's something I'm not understanding.

Any calendar app you have on your iOS device accesses the same calendar database as the builit in Calendar app. Therefore, if you're syncing your calendar through iCloud to your Mac, you're effectively syncing Sunrise to your Mac's calendar as well.

I use Tempo a lot (don't especially like Sunrise) but it all works the same. If I enter an appointment in Tempo, it will appear in every calendar app I have on my phone and will sync to whatever accounts I sync to.

Please note that I'm not making any comments about Time Zones. However, if I understand what HansWorldTravels is trying to say, Sunrise handles Time Zones the way he wants to. When he enters the appointments in Sunrise, they sync back to his computer "correctly".

Best of luck.

D Hull

Level 1

19 points

Feb 16, 2014 8:03 AM in response to IdrisSeabright

For reasons that are too lengthy to explain here I need to be able to enter the events on the computer. Not the phone, not the iPad, on the Mac. Time zones and time changes ARE the problem. I still don't understand how this software can help.

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Time Zone Support is STUPID!!!!!