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

Sorry- here's a follow up. If you change the default to iCloud it doesn't sync with google any more- all you will be using is the iCloud Calendar. So it is not exactly what we want as a fix.

My default account is my iCloud, and I have a gmail calendar enabled. Still have the GMT problem.

I have tried all of these options. I can't even enable calendar in iCloud or Gmail calendar - my iPhone  just crashes. The apps won't even force quit. I have to turn air plane mode on; complete power down the phone to restart (press home and lock button at the same time). Then I can turn the calendar off, then turn airplane mode off. Please Apple, fix this.

You are right when making an entry in Google calendar or move it to Google Calendar the GMT comes back. This solution requires you to only use iCloud & iCal and unfortunately as I just discovered any entries using iCloud as the default using the iPhone or iCal will NOT also show up on your Google Calendar so it's not a solution unless you are ready to ditch Google calendar altogether

if you are willing to switch altogether (which my husband did unbeknownst to me) this could work for you. I'm not wild about this so I'm going to keep looking for a better way.

In response to Devinw go to Settings; Mail, Contacts, Calendars, then scroll down to CALENDARS and at the bottom it will let you change Default Calendar, there you can change your default to one of the iCloud calendars

SO weird it got rid of it for me!

AEPU, under Settings: Mail, Contacts, and Calendars, the only settings under Calendars are:

Time Zone Override

Alternate Calandars

Week Numbers

Show Invitee Declines

Sync

Default Alert Times

Start Week On

Regardless, it sounds like you are suggesting not using any synced calendars (gmail, exchange, etc..), which is the crux of this bug. It's just ignoring the bug, not a workaround.

@JG - you have been particularly helpful in this topic.  Thank you for the boilerplate text for the bug report.

I've been reading (almost through all 28 pages), and testing various discussed theories between Google calendar and my iPhone 5s on Google sync (not exchange).  I noticed that when items are entered on the iPhone calendar, the sync *removes the time zone*.  I read Google's explanation of how they determine time zones, which involves converting all appointments to GMT, and then determining the time based on time zone settings.
     To minimize potential disruptions of these changes, Google Calendar relies on UTC time (Coordinated Universal Time, previously known as Greenwich Mean Time or GMT) -- a single “true” time -- to help avoid conflicts in all locations.

The appointments I entered in my phone show PST.  Once it syncs with Google (typically instantly), it shows no time zone other than GMT.  In Google Calendar, they show NO time zone associated.  When edited on the iPhone to my time zone, it will then show correctly as PST in both places.  If I open the appointment in Google and ADD my time zone, it will correctly apply to the phone as well.  When the time zone is removed from Google, it reverts to GMT on the phone.  (All appointments created in Google Calendar do not change time zone, regardless of where edits made.)

It looks like sync is causing the preferred time zone to be *removed* from appointments created in the phone.  (No time zone = GMT shown)  When a time zone is applied, it keeps the new time zone (although when applied in the phone, the actual time needs to be altered as well).

I can't explain why this would also be the case for Exchange other than the time zone is somehow not linked with the iPhone created appointment when it syncs.

This issue did not present itself on my coworker's iPhone using a Hotmail calendar.

Don't do this.  Causes pain and does not work.

The only way to resolve this issue at this point is just to link your calendar to anything but Google.  The problem is Google and nothing else.  Worked fine when linked to my Yahoo account instead of my Google account.  For now, it's an easy fix to avoid GMT annoyances on my calendar.  I hope the next update will fix this bug.

"The problem is Google and nothing else."

^^ That statement is absolutely not true.  If you had even briefly skimmed this thread you would see that this affects Microsoft Exchange as well, and that some others are reporting the same problem with iCal.

I don't use a single Google product for anything and I have this same problem just like everyone else on here.  I use Exchange.  Just because you use Google and Yahoo!, and you observed that this affects Google but does not affect Yahoo! does not give you enough data to conclude that this affects "Google and nothing else."  Have you tested this out on multiple other available sync services?  How about on any sync service other than the two you mentioned? I hope you don't do forensics for a living.

When you post totally inaccurate information like "The problem is Google and nothing else" you are setting back MONTHS of work that we have been doing to identify the causes of this bug, and to pressure Apple for a real solution.  New people who show up here....including apparently yourself....usually don't make any effort to read previous posts.  They will read your post and say "OK I'll just use something other than Google" instead of understanding that this is due to a BUG in iOS and calling Apple to report it....which will ultimately generate a REAL solution.

People these days have a tendency to simply believe whatever they read without thinking critically about it.  That's why if you are going to post information in a forum like this, you need to do just a little due diligence to make sure your claims are accurate.

@stearns003:  I think this doesn't show up on Hotmail because that is a POP3 protocol whereas Google and Exchange are IMAP protocols which have far more complex data structures.

What is actually happening with this bug is described to perfection in this article on the AppRiver blog:

http://blog.appriver.com/2014/12/ios-8-calendar-events-display-dual-time-zones/

iOS isn't "removing" anything from appointments.  Instead, iOS is "adding" something.  Buggy code in iOS 8 is picking up the time setting of your physical server's clock and then converting your appointments into whatever time zone the server's clock is set to.  That's why it does this on Exchange as well as Google even though Exchange does not manage time zones the same way as described for Google in your post above.

If you use a service like Yahoo! or Hotmail, which do not have nearly as robust a data structure as Exchange or Google, the buggy code won't pick up the server's time setting because that setting is not communicated to the Calendar application and therefore there is nothing for the buggy code to pick up.

The only people who can fix this issue are the engineers at Apple....and we have been informed Apple has confirmed this is a bug in iOS and is working on a solution.  There is no magic bullet quick fix that somehow all of us have missed over the past few months of working on this.  It's buggy source code in iOS.  There is no "fix", just some very inconvenient work arounds.

I read a lot of posts (nothing helped).  And lucky for you JG in SB, I DONT do forensics for a living.  All I am saying is for someone who's life doesn't resolve around their iPhone, a quick fix for NOW is to use something else other than Google.  Sorry to have offended you.  I think you're wound a bit too tight.  If you're so savvy, why haven't you joined the Apple engineers and help fix it yourself?  No need to be such a jerk.  Please do not respond. 

@Cswalsh2002:  You can't call someone a "jerk" and then order them to not respond.....

I'm a land use consultant...not a software engineer.  So if Apple needs help getting discretionary entitlements for a new facility in California I can help them out, but they aren't going to hire me as a software engineer..

Sorry if you thought I was "being a Jerk."   Having invested a great deal of time and effort into this issue, I get nervous when people post inaccurate and misleading information that might unravel everyone's (not just my) previous efforts.  I certainly was not "offended."  Perhaps you shouldn't get offended quite so easily?  And there's no need to call names and make passive-aggressive (i.e. "if you're so savvy why don't you work for Apple") attacks when someone steps in to correct a totally untested, inaccurate, universal proclamation you have made in a public forum.  No offense intended OK?

If you want to get something done about this, make an effort and take 30 seconds to file a bug report:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Don't just resort to using something else that you never had to use before because Apple screwed up iOS.

@JG in SB - Thanks for keeping on this from the beginning.  As a multi iDevice user, I have also experienced this issue.  I wasn't thinking much about it, but my wife has been experiencing lots of odd behavior and asked her IT support (me) to look into it.

This thread contains a lot of very good information, work arounds, partial fixes, etc.

As I read and tinkered, I came across a hypothesis on the root cause of the problem.

Let's say Apple is doing us a favor and NOT tagging our calendar entries with a time zone.  When our iCal/CalDav servers receive this entry, they are left to guess at what time zone to place this in.  Since all iCalendar entries are translated into ZULU, GMT, +0 by the client (see RFC 5545 for the iCalendar standards), the server correctly senses that the entry is GMT.  Or in cases of servers set to other time zones, the local zone of the server.  This would account for some of the variety being experienced by users across the world.

Now, once Google, exchange, or your other server using iCal interface has your entry, it stores it as a GMT entry.  Open one of these entries on Google's web interface and you will see no time zone selected.  When it bounces back to your device(s), it is flagged as GMT and converted to the local time zone for display.  Users with iCloud that set their default time zone seem to have better luck with it returning correctly, but on Google, it sees a GMT entry and therefore stores a GMT entry and serves up the GMT entry.

Work arounds include opening the entry and getting a time zone set using a variety of methods (e.g. web interface, another client program, calendar and flipping all day on/off and setting a time zone, etc.)

So, the fix would be that Apple needs to update the calendar program to explicitly provide the user's current calendar time zone for all new entries created.  This is set in TZID, TZNAME, etc. properties.  They can also be in a UTC-OFFSET format that indicates the entry is GMT-5 (EST), GMT-7 (MST), etc.  These settings can be global to an entry or uniquely set for the start and end times.  You will note that Google allows users to specify the start time with a time zone and end time with a different time zone and it figures it out.

The only way to prove this issue is to sniff the data coming from an iDevice and decode the calendar data being shipped to the server... or have a server where you can inspect the entries upon receipt.  I don't have the equipment available to test/prove the issue, but I'm sure someone on the Apple side of the house may be able to prove/disprove this theory.

@sterns003 - I saw your response after typing this up and think you are pretty much on the mark.  Exchange generally handles time as UTC, but there are some exceptions.  There are a few versions out there and some seem to not experience the issue, while others do.  It looks like some exchange instances may use iCal, which could account for this.  If the apple calendar program is not tagging a time zone property, servers will be left to guess.  Since it is GMT, it won't be "wrong" just won't have the proper time zone stored to help with display.

Ok all. Riddle me this. I had an iPhone 4s for two years and upgraded to iPhone 6, 8.0 on the rollout date in mid September 2014. Neither with my old phone and my brand new iPhone 6 did I have this issue or any other between my iPhone calander or my Google synched account. Whether I created multiple events using my Mac or PC desktop or if I was creating multiple events straight from my iPhone, NEVER, NOT ONE TIME, up to and including an entry I made via iPhone 6 on Jan 2, 2015 did I EVER have this GMT problem occur. I updated all software as requested, when requested and I still had no GMT issues. Then, out of nowhere, on January 5th, I was struck! I created a minor event, saved it and BOOM, GMT was now affecting my iPhone 6. One day all was well, no changes or software updates done, and I've had the GMT issue on each created event since. Now, I've read every post in this thread and have been faithfully following ever since and there are plenty of reasons aspoused throughout but explain to me (a self proclaimed novice), how in the world did I go from having no GMT issue to having the constant GMT issue in one day without updating or changing software? Somebody please explain to me how this is possible? Thank you!