raining ktula » CalDAV

How to configure Google Calendar CalDAV in iPhone 3.0

ktula — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:58:19 +0000

The last time i posted how to configure Google Calendar CalDAV on an iPhone, it was still in 3.0 beta 1. Now that iPhone 3.0 has gone gold, i decided to post updated instructions.

Go to “Settings” and select “Mail, Contact, Calendar”. On the “Mail, Contact, Calendar” menu, select “Add Account…”.

On the “Add Account….” screen, select “Other”.

iPhone 3.0: Add Account...

On “Other” screen, choose “Add CalDAV Account”.

Enter “google.com” for Server. It will be automatically changed to “www.google.com” as you go to the next field. For User Name, enter your Google Mail account username, without “@gmail.com”. As you go to the next field, “@gmail.com” will be padded to the username. If you are setting this up for an account on Google Apps, enter the full email address name, ie, name@domain. When you are done entering the password, click on “Next”.

Google Calendar CalDAV account information being validated:

Once your Google Calendar CalDAV account is validated, it will show up in Calendar.

iPhone 3.0 beta 5: End time bug in CalDAV fixed

ktula — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:18:12 +0000

Just updated to iPhone 3.0 beta 5.

The CalDAV end time bug i discovered in beta 3, which remained in beta 4, is fixed in beta 5.

iPhone 3.0 beta 3: CalDAV bug

ktula — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:30:02 +0000

Part of the time zone bug in iPhone 3.0 beta 1 returned. The start time for events that i created in Outlook and imported into Google Calendar show up correctly. However the end time is 7 hours past the scheduled time. This appear to affect only some events and i still have not figured out why some events have the correct end time but some events don’t.

iPhone 3.0 beta 3: Updates to CalDAV

ktula — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:20:43 +0000

The only CalDAV change which i have noticed is the missing Invitation button on the bottom right portion of the Calendar app.

Invitation button in iPhone 3.0 beta 1 and 2.

Missing Invitation button in iPhone 3.0 beta 3.

I did not check if a new Invitation event that has not been accepted look like in beta 2 but this is what it looks like in beta 3:

There does not appear to be a way to accept a meeting invitation. The meeting invitation was created on Google Calendar.

On the invitees menu, the inviter has a green check mark next to the name while the invitee who has not accepted the meeting has a question mark next to the name.

iPhone 3.0 beta 2: CalDAV timezone bug fixed

ktula — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:16:16 +0000

The timezone bug i found in iPhone 3.0 beta 1 appears to be resolved in beta 2. The calendar events i imported into Google calendar from my Outlook calendar are all showing up with the correct time.

iPhone 3.0 beta 2: Updates to CalDAV

ktula — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 07:07:57 +0000

One thing that was not entirely clear in iPhone 3.0 beta 1′s implementation of CalDAV calendar and subscription-based calendar is the retrieval of data. It is more apparent in iPhone 3.0 beta 2 now.

The CalDAV calendar itself has an option menu for choosing either “Fetch” or “Manual”. According to this menu, “If Manual is selected, this account will only check for updates when the application is in use.” But there does not be a place to specify how often to fetch. Does it use the same Fetch frequency in the main Fetch menu? Not sure if this is set to “Fetch” and the main Fetch menu is set to “Manually”, which option does it default to.

One additional change to CalDAV is iPhone 3.0 beta 2 is the ability to edit CalDAV events on iPhone’s calendar. Previously in iPhone 3.0 beta 1, CalDAV events are read-only on iPhone’s calendar.

iPhone 3.0 beta 1: CalDAV observations

ktula — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:04:26 +0000

I can’t seem to determine how the Calendar app in iPhone pulls the information from Google’s CalDAV server. There were times when events i created in Google calendar showed up on my iPhone just seconds later. And there were times when the events took forever to appear. There is no setting on iPhone 3.0 beta to configure the pull interval. I am not sure if Google CalDAV is push-enabled.
For some of the events that were deleted on Google Calendar but still remained on iPhone’s Calendar for several days, the only way that i have found so far to get rid of them is to disable Google CalDAV calendar on iPhone and then re-enable it. Disabling and re-enabling Google CalDAV calendar on iPhone forces its calendar to sync up with Google’s CalDAV server.
Similarly, events created on iPhone’s Calendar appear almost immediately on Google Calendar at times but on other occasions, it could take ages.
Events created in Google Calendar appear as read-only on the iPhone. There is no way to edit or delete the events.
Screenshot of an event being created in iPhone’s calendar. To specify the event be a Google CalDAV event, just select the Google Calendar in the “Calendar” field:
Events created on iPhone’s Calendar as a Google Calendar event remain modifiable until several minutes after the events appear on Google Calendar, as evident by the “Edit” button. Moments after the iPhone-created event appears in Google Calendar, the event will become read-only on iPhone’s calendar, with the disappearance of the “Edit” button and the appearance of a “Invitation from” field.
While the events are still modifiable, deleting the event on iPhone calendar will remove the event from Google Calendar. Strangely enough, the event that i deleted from iPhone’s Calendar showed up even when the event was removed from Google Calendar.
If events created on iPhone as Google Calendar have not been synchronized with Google Calendar, when Google CalDAV is disabled and re-enabled, these events are removed from iPhone’s calendar.
As of now in the first version of 3.0 beta, iPhone’s Calendar appears to support only the main Google Calendar. If you have several Google Calendars, only the default one will show up.
Google Calendar color does not carry over to iPhone’s Calendar.
A Invitation button on the bottom right of iPhone’s Calendar is available upon successful configuration of CalDAV.

iPhone 3.0 beta 1: Configure Google Calendar CalDAV

ktula — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:47:36 +0000

Update:
The instructions listed below are obsoleted. They are meant for iPhone 3.0 beta 1. For instructions on configuring Google Calendar CalDAV on iPhone 3.0 (released on 6/17/2009), please refer to this.

One of the many newly added features in iPhone 3.0 beta is support for CalDAV. In theory, configuring CalDAV on my iPhone should allow me to sync up my Google Calendar over the air. However, i had not been able to get it working until today. In order to configure CalDAV on the iPhone, you will need some information about the CalDAV server. Since there was setup information for configuring CalDAV on the iPhone on Google, i found instructions on configuring CalDAV on Mozilla Sunbird. The account information i supplied to my iPhone seemed to be correct as i went through the account validation with no error. However, i was not able to get events in my Google Calendar to show up.

Justingb, a commenter at the macrumors.com forum, pointed out the correct server address.

Here are the steps to configure Google CalDAV on iPhone 3.0 beta (7A238j):

Go to “Settings”. Then select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”. Next, select “Add Account…”
Select “Other”
Select “Add CalDAV Account”
Enter information as shown below. When you hit the “Save”, it will fail. Just ignore it and go to the next step.
The error message that you will see initially.
Use SSL: ON
Port: 443
Account URL: https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/[full_google_email_address]/user
If everything is configured correctly, you should see a section for Google Calendar (CalDAV) on the main Calendar screen and your Google Calendar events should show up.