Calendar is a personal
calendar app made by
Apple Inc. that runs on both the
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
desktop operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
and the
iOS mobile operating system
A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...
. It offers online cloud backup of calendars using Apple's
iCloud
iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016.
iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...
service, or can synchronize with other calendar services, including
Google Calendar and
Microsoft Exchange Server.
The macOS version was known as iCal before the release of
OS X Mountain Lion in July 2012. Originally released as a free download for
Mac OS X v10.2 on September 10, 2002, it was bundled with the operating system as iCal 1.5 with the release of
Mac OS X v10.3. iCal was the first calendar application for Mac OS X to offer support for multiple
calendars and the ability to intermittently publish/subscribe to calendars on
WebDAV servers. Version 2 of iCal was released as part of
Mac OS X v10.4, Version 3 as part of
Mac OS X v10.5, Version 4 as part of
Mac OS X v10.6, Version 5 as part of
Mac OS X v10.7, Version 6 as part of
OS X v10.8, Version 7 as part of
OS X v10.9, Version 8 as part of
OS X v10.10 and
OS X v10.11, and version 9 as part of
macOS v10.12.
Apple licensed the iCal name from
Brown Bear Software, who have used it for their iCal application since 1997.
iCal's initial development was quite different from other Apple software: it was designed independently by a small French team working "secretly" in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
, led by
Jean-Marie Hullot, a friend of
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...
. iCal's development has since been transferred to Apple US headquarters in
Cupertino
Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,8 ...
.
Features
Calendar tracks events and
appointments
Appointment may refer to:
Law
*The prerogative power of a government official or executive to select persons to fill an honorary position or employment in the government (political appointments, poets laureate)
*Power of appointment, the legal a ...
, allows multiple calendar views (such as calendars for "home", "work", and other calendars that a user can create) to quickly identify conflicts and free time. Users can
subscribe to other calendars so they can keep up with friends and colleagues, and other things such as athletic schedules and television programs, as well as set notifications for upcoming events either in the
Notification Center
Notification Center is a feature in iOS and macOS that provides an overview of alerts from applications. It displays notifications until the user completes an associated action, rather than requiring instant resolution. Users may choose what a ...
,
by
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...
,
SMS
Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...
, or
pager
A pager (also known as a beeper or bleeper) is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays alphanumeric or voice messages. One-way pagers can only receive messages, while response pagers and two-way pagers can also acknowl ...
. Attachments and notes can be added to iCloud Calendar items.
It is integrated with
iCloud
iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016.
iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...
, so calendars can be shared and synced with other devices, such as other Macs, iPhones, iPads, iPod touch, and PCs over the
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...
. One can also share calendars via the
WebDAV protocol. Google now supports
WebDAV for
Google Calendar making Calendar easily configurable.
Calendar includes the ability to see travel time and weather at the event's location, with the ability to set an alarm based on the travel time
Different time zones can be selected when entering and editing start and end times. This allows long-distance airplane flight times, for example, to be entered accurately and for that "end" of a visualized time "box" to render accurately on either iOS or macOS when time zone support is turned on in Calendar and the time zone set in Date/Time to the location in question.
See also
*
Calendar and Contacts Server
The Calendar and Contacts Server project is an Apple-developed standards-compliant server implementing the CalDAV and CardDAV protocols. It provides a shared location on the network allowing multiple users to store and edit calendaring and contact ...
*
iCalendar
*
SyncML open standard for calendar syncing
References
External links
New Software Lets Users Manage Multiple Calendars & Share Calendars Over The Internet- Apple's July 2002 press release introducing iCal
- Apple's September 2002 press release announcing availability of iCal
Calendar and Scheduling Consortiumpart of next version of iCal Server (Leopard)
iCal4j- iCal Java library (with usage examples)
Perl scriptan
instructions to subscribe from iCal to a Sun Calendar Server and subsequently sync it to mobile devices through iSync
Apple iCal calendarsGeody iCal and csv calendars- Free (CC-by-sa) calendars
iCalShare- Free calendars
{{DEFAULTSORT:iCal
Calendaring software
MacOS-only software made by Apple Inc.
IOS software
Calendar
WatchOS software
IOS