Time Zone Support is STUPID!!!!!

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.

The behavior you are seeing is actually inherent in most calendar apps -- the deal is that you are telling your calendar when something happens, not what time. Our company writes a calendaring+task management app for iPhone called Pocket Informant - we get this same question on occassion, so I wrote up a Knowledge Base article discussing some details (keep in mind - this article discusses some features specific to our app that you won't find in iCal/Calendar on MacOS X):

http://webis.kayako.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/123/0/why-do-the-times-change -on-my-appointments-when-i-travel-to-a-different-time-zone

In iCal/Calendar on MacOS X, when you turn on Time Zone support, you then get to choose the time zone that you are entering your appointment for. This helps you not have to do the "time zone math" in your head. Thus, if you are in CST and want to set up an appointment for 6pm PST, you can choose PST in the event editor as you enter 6pm. Note that while you are in CST, your event will display in your calendar at "CST time" (8pm), but when you fly out to PST, it will show the "correct" PST time.

While iCal/Calendar supports "floating time zones", I personally would caution against using them for everything (I mentioned a few reasons why in the above kbase article). Use those for events that truly are "time driven" rather than "point in time" driven (such as "I want to go jogging every morning at 5am no matter what time zone I'm in).

Hope that helps some!

Chris,

Your article was very helpful in explaining the difference between alarm times and calendar times.

The effects of changing the Time Zone Support switch appear different than what you seem to suggest though.

It seems to me that turning on Time Zone Support allows you to enter events based on different time zones than the current calendar time zone, but always shows you the time in the time zone selected for your calendars even if you are in a different time zone (i.e. if my calendar time zone is Chicago and I am in New York, all my calendar times will show Chicago time not New York time).

Turning off Time Zone Support always shows you the event times based on where you are. (i.e. if my event showed 8 a.m. in Chicago, it will change to 9 a.m. when I am in New York). However, when you enter events with Time Zone Support off, you can only enter the times based on your current location. The time zone option is gone.

One way to deal with this behavior is to turn Time Zone Support on and then change your calendar time zone to match the time zone you are now in, much like setting your wristwatch to the new time zone in the olden days. That way, you'll see calendar times based on your current location, and you can add new events based on different time zones when necessary.

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!

Am I right here that our goal is to have the time of an event be the time the event is to occur at the location where the event will take place . . . and that time should not be adjusted to some other time if/when we change time zones?

I find that selecting "Floating" for the event keeps the time as it should be.

The annoying thing is that I can't make Floating the default in Preferences. So I need to selected it each time I enter an event.

I have no idea why Apple calls this "Floating." I think a better term would be "Stable" or "Fixed."

It is stupid BUT here's a simple solution I found.....

Go to "MAIL, CONTACTS, CALENDARS" - then scroll down to "CALENDARS" and select the first option "Time Zone Override" and turn it "OFF"!

This will ensure all events display according to the time zone of your current location - which is just what everyone will presumably want!

Really hope this helps as it's things like this that can spill frustration levels over to maximum proportions!

Ok, here's my solution to this vexing little issue:

1. Turn on time zone support in iCal

2. Enter all events in your home time zone.

3. When you are traveling, go ahead and set the sytem clock / time zone to the local, so your computer / phone / pad shows the correct local time

4. Set the iCal time zone (in upper right of iCal) to your home time zone.

Seems to work.

This seems to be working in iOS and OS X for me. The only problem is that the OS X Calendar doesn't allow me to set the start and end times in different timezones, but the iOS Calendar does. Both display correctly with Timezone support switched on.

In the screen grab below, I have created a flight event that leaves UK time at 06:25 and lands in Paris time at 10:25. The times are displayed with their timezone code in the info panel, but look at the event block.... the start and finish times are correctly shown in UK Time (as that is where my Mac is). Thus the event block is a bit over 2.5 hours long, which is the duration of the flight. On my iOS devices, when I get to the destination, all calendar events are adjusted, so I just make sure for any events taking place in the new timezone have their start and finish times bound to that timezone.

I still don't understand why OS X calendar doesn't allow me to create events like this, but hey ho.

The problem is that it would be a complete disaster for many (if not most) people if modern calendaring systems worked like a paper calendar. I listed a few reasons why in that knowledge base article:

-Conference calls always occur at the same point in time no matter where you are - thus if your calendar changed the time of a conference call because you flew to a new time zone, you'd miss it.

-Sharing calendars

-Meeting Invites

-Unexpected trips (I didn't actually list this one) - suppose you scheduled an event that will occur in your local time zone, then unexpectedly you need to fly out somewhere. You no longer have a sense of when that event really is.

Then finally, there are alarms. The problem is in order to keep your events "at the same time", under the hood, an electronic calendar actually needs to constantly update the actual "point in time" that your event occurs every single time you change a time zone...that also means it needs to go update every single alarm attached to those events so that it fires at the right time in your new time zone.

That all said - I think that electronic calendars can do more than they do today to help people manage multiple time zones. I think iCal's current approach of letting you set the time zone when you create the event works well because then you don't need to do the time zone math in your head. It would also be handy, though, if it put some sort of badge on that event so that while you are in this time zone, you could see that you expect to be in a different time zone when that event actually occurs (we do something like that in our app when you lock a calendar to a specific time zone).

To be fair - I don't think Apple engineers are "recalictrant about giving in" on this...Apple hasn't commented at all on this thread, so who knows what they think about this topic.

Like someone mentioned in a previous post - this is great feedback to suggest to Apple on their feedback page. That said - you need to be clear on what you're asking for. When you say that you don't want "any time zone features" - that's not accurate...you DO want time zone features. Currently, when you turn off "time zone support", you DON'T have any time zone features - Apple (like every other calendar app on the planet) merely saves the timestamp of when you scheduled your appointment to occur (ie a specific point in time - not just "a time"). iCal is not "changing" anything when you move to another time zone - your appointment still occurs at the same exact point in time that you specified when you created the event (it merely "feels" different to you because your new location calls that point in time something different than your previous location).

What you're really asking for is that Apple to create a feature where the DO change when your appointments occur every time you move from one time zone to another (I realize this sounds counter-intuitive based on what you see on your calendar, but in order for your 3pm CST appointment to still say "3pm" when you fly to California, iCal would have to change the time of your appiontment to 3pm PST). Internally, all calendar apps have to process things in the context of when they occur, not just "the time" something occurs (otherwise, how does a computer know when to fire your alarm, etc?). And like I mentioned in a previous post, this feature already exists in iCal - it's called a "Floating Time Zone". You simply need to turn on Time Zone support and you will have the option on all your events to schedule them as "floating" (I personally think that would create a nightmare of a calendar where you never actually know when something occurs, but to each his own - the feature is there for you to use).

So that all said, I'm not sure what else it is you're looking for Apple to do since they've already given you the floating time zone option.

vandana22 wrote:

Let's say I know there is an event happening (I'm making this up...) at 7pm in New Delhi on December 22nd. I want to be able to look on that date and see that I have something scheduled at 7pm. I don't want to see it as 6:30am which is the time (more or less) that it is in New Mexico when it's 7pm in New Delhi. I don't want to have to enter it in a different time zone..or change time zones back and forth.I just want to enter an event on a certain day at a certain time and have it remain that way no matter where I am.

You seem to be able to do that with Google Calendar. It lets you chose the time zone of the indivicual appointment.

You can also choose the time zone of the individual appointment with iCal, with Calendar on the iPhone, and with the various calendar apps for the iPhone including Pocket Informant and Week Calendar (the two best IMO). Also with MS Outlook, Pimlical for Windows and Android, and most other calendar apps. And they all work pretty much the same way. @vandana22 doesn't want to have to choose the time zone, however.

Hello HWs

I just discovered this..... https://vimeo.com/sunriseapp

1) links & searches in Google Maps, easy edits too!
2) supports different time zones, shows both & they are editable on the phone!
3) multiple gCal support
4) links to FourSquare, LinkedIn, Facebook, others
This is brilliant! Thankfully, somebody realized Apple's flaws and fixed them!

It's likely, I might revert back to Google Apps for email on the iPhone... not decided yet, but Sunrise just solved most of my problems as I use locations/gps coords in the calendar events regularly/religiously, and "iMaps" was not working very good at all.

Contacts, I will probably continue to use as I have setup & outlined above.

Cheers!

Hotwheels, yes the way I use it works flawlessly.

I just added some flight itineraries to my calendar via gCal web and they will come up correct time no matter where I am. gCal can have infinite reminders if you wanted to add them either by text, popup or email for whatever time interval you want to set them.

I also have gCal set to email me my schedule every day. It comes to me at 5am in whatever time zone I'm in. A bit early, but it's there in my inbox if I want to look.

Opening Sunrise app on the phone lists your events for the day and gives you a summary of your events for the following day. Kind of nice also, it shows the weather for that location if you have set an address/location for the event. I believe it also shows the days even on my phones start page, but w pass code security on the iPhone it tends to bypass that page.

I've no complaints/issues w this setup. Not sure if I mentioned above, but I've completely jettisoned iTunes as well, in favor of iTools. Until & unless I get another Apple product, I don't foresee me using any of the Apple related software... There's just been nothing that has worked flawlessly that I've tried or to put it another way, hasn't been a complete hassle every time I've tried to use it.

You don't know by now.

Get a gmail account & dl Sunrise Calendar app. That's the only settings you need to know. Why continue wasting time & effort w something that doesn't work, hasn't worked & will continue not to work?

You'll be up & running in less time than it takes you to read this all a 21st time. :D