Does iCal work better with iCloud (or other accounts)

I've used Google calendar for as long as I can remember. When the latest iOS version came out it stopped playing nice with iCal. I could send events to my wife's cal for example, they just went to her email inbox.

If i sign sign up for an iCloud account (or any other service) is iCal going to work nicely again? I've ha this problem for a long time now. If signing up to a different service will fix it, I'm happy to do that.