Better Schedule Time for Improvements (updated)

Google has release a calendaring app to beta. You might remember me wondering where such an app was just a short while ago. I've spent a little time playing around, and while I see great potential, I can't help but feel this is another "barely good enough" Google app.

For starters, it doesn't work in Safari. You get to see this great message.

I tried it anyway, and it barely works. You don't get a mini-calendar on the left and the agenda doesn't work at all. You also can't open any events once you've set them, so that's a deal killer. Firing up Firefox under OS X works just fine. I now have two reasons to use Firefox, Google Calendar, and IM through Gmail.

Next up, iCalendar support. Yes, it appears you can import iCalendar items, but who cares about that? That's useful for the switchover from one calendar to Google Calendar, but I want to sync events with other people. People who might be using Outlook, or iCal, or something else. I tried sending an .ics from OS X (iCal integrated with Mail.app) to my Gmail account. It shows up, but Gmail doesn't care a darn about it. This is where the integration needs to kick in boys. Google claims that Gmail is smart enough to pick out events in your messages and prompt you to add them. Ohh yeah? Then why didn't it let out so much as a peep when I sent the following text to Gmail.

Test Google Calendar, scheduled for April 13, 2006 at 5:15 PM.

As a test, I put the same text in to the "Quick Add" feature and it added it just fine. 1 point for the recognition engine. -1 point for Gmail's use of that engine.

Finally, what's up with the invite feature? I sent an invite to my home account. The email showed up with a .ics attachment. I was excited. I clicked that .ics and nothing happened. I saved it off and opened it in vi, and what did I find...

BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:REQUEST
END:VCALENDAR

Where's the calendar data? Can someone else send me an invite from Google Calendar so I have another sample?

This is a start, but more work is needed if I am going to use this on a regular basis. Jason appears to be enjoying it a little more than I am.


Update:
I got another .ics sample to look at (thanks Ian) and this one looks much better. Here, it is, raw and only slightly modified to protect the innocent.


BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//Google Inc//Google Calendar 70.9054//EN
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:REQUEST
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART:20060924T010000Z
DTEND:20060924T020000Z
DTSTAMP:20060414T185156Z
ORGANIZER;CN=Ian:MAILTO:removed@gmail.com
UID:abcdefg-removed@google.com
ATTENDEE;CUTYPE=INDIVIDUAL;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=NEEDS-ACTION;RSVP=
TRUE;CN=Ryan;X-NUM-GUESTS=0:MAILTO:removed@gmail.com
CLASS:PRIVATE
CREATED:20060413T151104Z
DESCRIPTION:View your event at http\://www.google.com/calendar/event?action
=VIEW&removed.
LAST-MODIFIED:20060414T185156Z
SEQUENCE:0
STATUS:CONFIRMED
SUMMARY:Friends and Family Night
TRANSP:OPAQUE
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR