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

What I'm trying to get across is that if you go to apple and tell them that their product has a bug, they will inspect the code and tell you that the behavior is exactly as written. If you buy a BMW that is red, but you would prefer a blue car, the car is not broken it just doesn't meet your requirements. Complain all you want and BMW will tell you the car is the color it is supposed to be. However, tell them in the future you would like to see a car available in blue and they will determine if it is possible and all other factors considered make it happen.

To re-iterate: just because you don't like HOW it works doesn't mean it DOESN'T work.

Your analogy misses the point entirely and proves that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.  Your answer that if they check the code, and determine "that's how we wrote the code so everything is fine" means everything is actually fine is a total fallacy of logic.  If they wrote buggy code, that causes unintended behavior, that's a BUG.  Simply looking at the buggy code and saying "well that's how we wrote it" doesn't make it "normal behavior."

And for a THIRD time....APPLE ENGINEERS have confirmed this is a BUG.  What part of that do you not understand?

One workaround I found was that I make a new entry repeating. Then after saving, I open the entry again and change it to a single instance. This for some reason preserves my local time zone and I don't need to correct the times for the entry. So in your view this would be a bug - not that all new entries are put in GMT?

Could you please provide a link to the Apple design document which describes the behavior as per your theory.  If indeed this is the "desired" functionality as per your claim then please explain why was the behavior different prior to iOS 8.  Could you please provide a link to release notes which indicate a change in behavior as of iOS 8?

Thanks!

abubasim66,

I tried that with the repeating entry .... yes it did remove GMT but it did not replace GMT with the correct time.  Just the event Title was displayed.

You have to set the entry as repeating when creating it. It will not help if you change a single entry to repeating after creating the event.

I do this:

1. Tap + to add a new entry

2. Enter title, location, start and end time.

3. Tap Repeat and choose Every Day.

4. Tap Add to save.

5. Wait for a few moments for the entry to sync with Google.

6. Tap the entry, then tap Edit.

7. Tap Repeat, then tap Never.

8. Tap Done and choose Save for future events in the popup.

With the above, I don't need to change time zone and start time for entries.

I will concede that Apple has declared this a bug. One thing I have found while investigating though is that a Google event created on their web calendar does not create the event automatically in your time zone, you must do it explicitly from Edit Event. If this is done, Calendar on iOS seems to behave correctly for that event. Only new events seem to have the time zone information stripped from them.

We as end users have very little visibility into the requirements process for software such as iOS. What I was getting at regarding bugs and code was that unless the spec specifically said that timezone information was to be preserved a verification of the code would pass. Validation against end-user usability however does not pass. Given that this worked in previous versions it would be labelled a regression bug, and I would then have to agree with the other users here that Apple should have been faster identifying it as an issue.

abubasim66,

That is exactly what I did.  Are you telling me that on your iOS calendar, after switching back to non-repeating, that you do have the correct 'Time' showing under the event 'Title'?  I do not have any time displayed.

I am doing all the event 'creating' and 'changing' on my Macbook Air which uses Google Calendar for syncing.  iOS device is an iPad Air.

I don't see the event time for an entry displayed within the entry. I only see it lining up against the time vertically. To see the precise time, I tap the entry.

Like in the screenshot here, only the first Test entry at 19:00 is shown with 15:00 as the entry is in GMT. The other entries are in the local time zone so the time is not displayed within the entry in this view.

AFAIK this is the way the calendar app has always worked even in older versions of iOS. You will only see a time on the entry if the time zone is different from the one you have set on your phone.

abubasim66,

Ok ... I can't say for sure but I sure thought that on pre-iOS 8.1.x that events showed the time too.

Events on my Macbook Air OS X Yosemite all show the correct local event time along with the title of the event.  Since Yosemite and iOS 8.1.x have a similar look and feel, I have a feeling the intent of the iOS calendar is to show the time as it does in OS X.  Problem as we are all experiencing is that it shows GMT instead of local.

Macbook Air screenshot - Here

I powered on my old iPod Touch (4th gen with iOS 6.1.6) to view the calendar and this is how it's shown there. As you can see, the entries do not display the start time. Also note how the first entry is shown here. It's shown correctly with the local time zone - not GMT.

For the record, 8.1.3 does not fix this issue.

Yup.  I updated both iPhone and iPad to 8.1.3 today and this bug persists.  Maybe in 8.2 but frankly I feel like Apple just doesn't care about this.  Assuming it comes in 8.2 that will be nearly 6 months after it originated.  They are happy to let us all deal with this BS for that long?  I bet if you call AppleCare 2 weeks from now they will still tell you "We have never heard of this issue before!"

abubasim66,

Thanks for taking the time to post the screenshot of the older device/OS.  That clears that up.  Also definitely documents that it did not act this way in previous versions.

Okay so 8.1.3 does not fix ....

Only reasonable explanation .... they are saving the fix for the next iOS version that Tim Cook will announce at WWDC in June.  Hey they have to have something for the crowd to 'cheer' about.  They'll market it as a feature to make iOS more closely align with Yosemite.  ha! 

Example of Yosemite vs. iOS 8.1.2 (iPad)  HERE