iCal in Lion: RIP

I’ve been an ardent user of Apple products for many years now.  While I don’t always agree with their approach to certain things, in general their approach lines up with my expectations for computing machines that try to get out of my way.  Apple’s newest release of their desktop and laptop operating system, Mac OS X Lion, doesn’t fail in this regard, bringing a lot of great features to make my life easier and generally get out of my way, scrolling direction loyalties notwithstanding.  However, there are a few thorns left over from earlier versions of the OS.

Let me start by saying I love the direction that Apple is heading with the cloud.  Many think it’s bucking the current trend of doing more and more in web applications, to the detriment of native applications, such as iWork vs. Google Docs, but I for one love the approach.  I think there is deep value in having aUI running as fast as it can, natively on a device that fits the layout and design of the system you’re using (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, KDE, Gnome, you name it).  There are of course many examples of fantastic, speedy, and well thought out applications that are entirely web based.  At Cantina, some of the tools we use internally to manage projects come to mind, such as Basecamp, Harvest, andLighthouse.  However, for some types of applications, I prefer the fast launch times and responsiveness of a native app.  Why do I bring this up?  There are many friends and colleagues that would tell me to just use the Google Calendar interface via the web, which is the canonical interface for Google Calendar.  I guess I’m still more of a native app kind of guy.  Enter iCal.…

iCal has been a part of Mac OS X since 2002, and it has made great strides since then.  It is the de facto calendar application for OS X, and a multitude of 3rd party applications will sync their calendar event-based data with it.  That being said, it’s due for an overhaul.  I was hoping for this overhaul in Lion, but it didn’t come.  Leatherette effects on the toolbar and permanently frayed remants of ripped out pages is great and all (and that was sarcasm, I personally don’t believe in Apple’s recent move towards realism in the user experience), but there are some issues that have been lingering for a while:

• Google Calendar syncing leaves a lot to be desired.  It’s hard to say which end it’s on, but as updates come into our Google Apps account it can take an indeterminate amount of time for that to show up in iCal, which makes it difficult to rely on iCal as the canonical interface for my meetings.  Add to that a random smattering of miscellaneous and indecipherable CalDAV errors, and ultimately sync just doesn’t work.  Some would argue that Apple has no incentive to maintain good support for syncing with Google as their own MobileMe and iCloud offerings are meant to replace Google’s online services, but it is hard to ignore the sheer number of folks out there using Google services, especially organizations that have standardized on Google Apps.
• Do you know how to see the rest of the location line in this iCal Event?  I don’t.  This is a clear cut bug that remains to this day.

• iCal Reminders (formerly To Do’s) could have used some real love in the Lion release, but got none.  There are a great many tools out there for task management (and once the Things Cloudimplementation is complete, I’ll probably have a winner), but there is someting to be said for doing more with less apps open, as I imagine the integration of Reminders in iCal was meant to accomplish.  Also, it would be handy to have a more mature, sensible Reminders feature in iCal given the promise of iCloud sync happiness that is coming this Fall.  The iOS Reminders app trumps Lion in this regard.

As a wise coworker (and a prominent Railsist) once told me, using Apple’s suite of built in tools out of the box has a lot of inherent advantage in data exchange and interoperability over 3rd party solutions.  As Steve Jobs once said, “It Just Works”.  In general, I agree.  However, for me, iCal just doesn’t anymore.