iOS 8 Calendar on iPhone showing GMT times for new events.

Wow Gator5000e. Thanks for the convoluted, yet solid work around for getting the GMT notation to disappear from your iCal events. This worked great. In fact, it let me demonstrate one other technique that also worked:

After entering a new event, go back and edit it.

When you tap on the start time, it reveals a time zone as well - GMT.

Change the time zone to your local city.

Back up the appt start time to the original time (I am Eastern US. GMT -5 in the winter)

Save it. The GMT display goes away.

Still stupid that you have to edit an event after creating it just to get the GMT to disappear. Definitely a bug.

I guess I'm just too impatient to go through a multi-step process for each event. Fortunately for me, connecting to my Google account through the Exchange setup has made it so new events on my iPhone retain the correct time and don't revert to GMT. And I have my Google account connect the usual way for all my other calendars (Turning off the main calendar to avoid duplication)

Although I've recently discovered another irksome thing with that setup. Even when I have the calendar turned off, and only one set of events appears in the calendar, I seem to be getting two alerts for each event. As if my iPhone is still giving me alerts even though that particular calendar is disabled.

Strange.

Having read this thread carefully starting on page 13, I concur with your assessment and have reported the bug to Apple, as you suggested.

Thank you, JG in SB, for all of your careful debugging efforts, for your logical approach, and for succinctly outlining the problem as you found it. I ran through a very similar process and discovered the same set of factors contributing to the problem.

For completeness, I have an iPhone 6, an iPad 2 - both running iOS 8.1.2, and a Macbook Pro with Outlook 2011 and using Google calendar. I do not use Exchange. All syncing is done through the applications mentioned. The problem first occurred when I upgraded to the iPhone 6, and showed up on the iPad when I updated it to iOS 8 for the first time. To be precise, I purchased the iPhone 6 and then changed time zones from EDT to Mountain. THAT's when I first noticed the problem.

Again, thank you!

There is still no viable fix for iCal on iOS?

There are working instructions to fix this in iCal on Mac.
- System Preferences > Mail, Contacts & Calendar, remove gmail account with the ➖ sign.
- Restart your computer.
- System Preferences > Mail, Contacts & Calendar, add your gmail account (particularly calendar).
- Wait for the calendar to sync

I tried similar on my iPhone 4S and it doesn't work. 1/2 of this issue is taken care of, but weird that Apple hasn't pushed a fix yet for iPhone Cal

The only thing that worked for me is the workaround suggested by Gator5000e:

Gator5000e wrote:

A temporary solution is to enter the appointment as usual on your iOS device. After you click Add, the GMT will appear. Then edit the appointment, change it to an All Day appt and then immediately change it back to a non-all day appt; The time listed for the appt will now be the GMT time but you can now change it back to the proper time. do that and save the appt and the GMT entry will go away. As I said, a pain for each new appt but its worked for me.

However, I just wanted to chime in that this GMT problem appeared out of the blue about a week or so ago, on my iPhone5, running OS 6.0. I had never updated my OS on my old phone. Out of nowhere, this GMT thing popped up. I figured this happened because I never updated my OS and the phone had started acting wonky in other areas too. My phone syncs with google calendar only. I got a new iPhone6 today, with OS8.1.1 on it. I restored my new phone with a back up of my old phone. The GMT problem followed. My point is, this problem appeared on the OS6.0. So it can't just be a problem with OS8 and above.

Hello and thank you all for your posts on this issue. It is good to know I am not alone in this. It is frustrating. I am having the same issue on my iPhone 5c. Before I updated to the latest ios version, just about Thanksgiving 2014, it started happening.

I live in Boston, MA and when I enter a new event on my phone calendar, while it shows up in the correct (for Boston) time slot, beneath the event title reads in parenthesis a "GMT" time. It is distracting and odd. I have tried to reset, update, turn on and off time zone support, etc, basically everything that has been suggested, and it still happens.

Anyone have a sound solid solution????

No. There is no solution or even a decent workaround. This is a BUG in iOS 8. It is baked in to the code of the operating system. Even a brand new device you purchase at the Apple Store today will have this exact same problem because it will be running iOS 8. We are all stuck waiting for Apple to fix this.... The best thing you can do is repott your case to Apple. Use the link provided in my post above.

I just spent a chunk of time with Apple 2nd level support (maybe should have pushed for 3rd??

After troubleshooting all kinds of different things, and talking with other 2nd level support for even more creative troubleshooting ideas, I conclude that they really have tried everything they can to resolve this. They believe that, since this issue is ONLY occurring with Google Calendar as a 3rd party, the timezone override issue lies with Google. It seems to them that the issue is not in iOS 8.

@rajshree: this is incredibly frustrating. Have you READ through this thread? The problem is not "only with Google." I don't use a single Google product....I use Microsoft Exchange and I have had this problem since September. I have spent hours of my practically non-existent free time trying to work toward a solution on this. So has Aaron Cohoon at AppRiver, my Exchange host. He also has confirmed this is a BUG in iOS. And by "confirmed" I mean received written confirmation from Apple that this is a bug in iOS 8.

When you go and call Apple tech support.....and make claims such as "this only affects Google Calendar" you are MOVING US BACKWARD!

Again, if you had bothered to read all of the extensive troubleshooting that has been done, and is documented in this thread, as well as documentation of correspondence with Apple, including correspondence from Apple CONFIRMING THIS IS A BUG IN iOS, you would have been able to convey this information during the time you just wasted talking to upper level tech support.

Instead, you have allowed them to log a case and state "Customer confirms problem is unique to Google Calendar. Problem is generated by Google not Apple." That is undoing all of the work we have been putting efforts into for the past 3 months.

If you had bothered to read this thread, you would have been able to tell the tech helping you that they were full of sh1t when they claimed the problem is generated by Google, cited several examples the very same problem occurring in environments that don't include Google, and actually gotten them to look for a solution or at least register an additional case of the problem.

I don't care what sort of "creative troubleshooting" you tried or how "adamant" you were. No amount of "troubleshooting" is going to generate a solution because the problem is due to bad code that is part of the iOS operating system. Until Apple fixes their buggy code, this issue will remain. Having them talk to Google.....which they won't do in any case....is a waste of time. Apple needs to FIX ITS CODE. Period. That's the only solution.

Everyone, please do your research before you go and provide incomplete information to Apple that they will ultimately use to blow all of us off.....

I did not make this claim, THEY did. I argued with them. Thanks. If you would like to call, I suggest going for 3rd level support. I just spent 3 hours.

I agree with you that Apple needs to fix it.

Seriously, give them a call. 800-694-7466.
I have the guy's number and extension who I talked to, and have to move on to other things, but do plan on calling him back. In the future, do you guys really want to focus on berating other people who are also looking for solutions? That's what you want to do? Make the forums an antagonistic place?? Interesting approach.

No rajshree, the purpose is not to berate other people. But you would be surprised how many people will jump on here, spend ZERO time reading through all of the previous work that has been done on this, and make a claim like "this only affects Google." That's merely irritating, but it's actually DAMAGING when those same people state that to Apple, or simply agree with Apple when Apple tries to pawn this of on Google like they did in your case. Your post madeit sound as though this is what you did, so mi=y response is an impassioned plea...to newcomers who aren't going to look beyond the page they land on.....to please read before taking actions that will unravel all four previous efforts.

The goal here is to get Apple to do something to make this right. This bug is a joke in that it's so obvious that any amount of quality testing would have revealed it. It confirms they basically did no testing and just released a beta product.

Please do call them back and please relay the following facts:

1) there are many instances of this bug occurring on setups that include no Google Products,

2) this thread includes confirmation from Apple that this is a bug in iOS, not a problem with Google as a 3rd party provider; and,

3) Apple appears to be doing nothing to prove information about this to their techs. Despite many reports, and confirmation that this is an iOS generated problem, you are calling in and being told "we've never heard of this before" which is a complete lie.

Thanks, and no offense intended.

@kb122512: I understand you are seeing something similar on a device running iOS 6. There are isolated reports of something that looked like this from 2009. It's entirely possible that there is/was some other issue out there that looks similar to this, and is far less common. Most people report that when they use older iDevices, running iOS 6 or 7, and sync to the very same Calendar accounts, that they do not see this bug show up. That's part of how we have confirmed this is unique to iOS 8. That doesn't mean there is not some other bug, or combination of settings, that could appear in iOS 6 and look similar to this. The current issue appears unique to iOS 8, affects thousands of people, and is widely reported since the iOS update.

Also, to reiterate, the "Time Zone Override" feature in iOS 8 does not actually do anything. You can flip the little switch back and forth, and it changes not a single thing in your calendar or on your iDevice. It is also not documented anywhere in Apple's official user manual for iOS8. It is a likely unfinished component of the operating system which made it into the public release, and it is also highly likely that this not-fully-baked feature is related to the current GMT bug that everyone is seeing.

I will also just reiterate the fact that although this issue for me is happening on my iPad air and not my iPhone 5s, it is because I updated my iPad air to iOS 8 and left my phone with iOS 7. I do in fact use Google calendar, but the GMT issue is not happening on my phone, but it is on my iPad. So this is definitely a software problem and not a Google problem, as if it was stemming from Google, my phone would be doing the same thing.
I have also submitted a report. Fingers crossed this gets fixed asap

This is NOT a Google problem and from what I've read on several forums, Apple is trying to say it IS a Google issue and therefore not addressing it.

I had this problem briefly when I update to iOS 8 on my iPhone 5. However, after rebooting several times, the problem magically went away and never came back.

I received an iPhone 6 for Christmas and GUESS WHAT?? The same problem is back. If I add a calendar event in Google, NO PROBLEM. Event is in the correct time zone.

If I add the event from my iPhone 6, it has the GMT issue. And, it seems to be permanent.

I've tried every possible fix: Time Zone Support off then back on then off again, rebooting multiple times, resetting calendar in iCloud, I don't use iCal so that can't be it, checked Google Calendar settings, etc etc etc.

I'm about ready to scream because I add events to my calendar from my phone about 50% of the time and ALL of those are jacked up. SO annoying!

Please let me know if you hear of a fix for this. Thank you! 🙂

QUICK UPDATE: As I was writing this, it occurred to me to try a different sequence and see if that worked. I went to Settings-Mail, Contacts, Calendars-TURNED OFF the calendar for my Gmail account, rebooted, then turned it back on and turned the toggle switch back on in the same Gmail account. That appears to have worked (for now). I will report back if it reverts. I fully expect it to. LOL.

I am unclear about whether my set up is the same or different from others posting on this discussion, in Mail, Contacts, Calendars. What i see when i go to Calendars, Default Calendar, is two headings. One says iCloud, the other says my email address which is my Gmail address, which is my Apple ID. I think that my iCloud address is considered (in the iOS system) to be a sort of Apple ID as well, it's a me.com email. but i don't use it for anything, email or anything else, except logging into iCloud.

Anyway, again, i have two headings under Default Calendars, iCloud and my apple ID gmail email address. Does this make any sense to anyone? Does anyone else have headings, one or more, in Default Calendars? Neither of these headings are selectable as 'default calendar.' They are just (apparently) category headings for two types of default calendars. Under the iCloud heading are 9 selectable calendars, including Health, Finance, Family, Pets, etc. Any one of these can be selected to be the default calendar. Or, under the second heading, which is titled my Apple ID gmail address, there is one selectable calendar. It has my user name, which is my actual name--that is what i can select, if i want to choose a non-iCloud calendar as default calendar. Does anyone else have anything that looks like this? If not, what do others have on the Default Calendar page? What does it look like?

I have to some extent located the problem in my system that causes GMT to be included in my new calendar entries. I have always been using my Apple ID gmail address as my default calendar, at least as far as i know. I never had an issue that drew my attention to this until i got the iPhone 6 on 11/25, so i never knew there was such a thing as a default calendar until i encountered this GMT problem and two other apparently related calendar problem, a few weeks after getting my new iPhone. i did not have these problems immediately, they started after a few weeks, independent of any iOS change. Before that i had a 4s running iOS 5. i just restored from back up and so, i assume my settings were the same.

I don't remember now what drew my attention the default calendar setting in my effort to trouble shoot this (and the other two) Calendar problem/s, but i discovered that as long as my default calendar is the Apple ID Gmail address user name one, i will always get GMT info on my new calendar entries. On the other hand, if i change my default calendar to any of the iCloud calendars, i get no GMT info on my entries, just like before the problem started, so the problem is apparently solved simply by changing my default calendar to any one of the iCloud calendars. I created a new iCloud calendar called All Cloud and that is my default calendar, but it could be Pets or Health or whatever, just so it's an iCloud calendar.

The other two apparently related problems i was having that were also solved by this change were, one, all my entries would have a 30 minute alert, despite no alert in settings, and no alert selected when creating the event, and two, the worst problem, my calendar entries weren't syncing to iCloud, nor, therefore to iCal. They were only on my phone. Changing to an iCloud default calendar eliminated these three problems. Now, my calendar is functioning correctly as it did before.

I would like to know if others who have had this GMT problem have an iCloud calendar as their default calendar. i don't know, at this point, whether there are any negative consequences from no longer using my long-time Gmail address user name which is my main Apple ID, as my default calendar.