Item: Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)
Rating: 1
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use the Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) app on my Mac to view and manage my Microsoft Exchange/Outlook powered calendar. In my experience, the Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) app is incredibly buggy and I often end up with duplicated events (or no events) that don't/do appear if I view my calendar directly in Outlook. It's more common than not that my Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) calendar is out of sync in some way with Outlook. I've been using this setup for about five years and Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) has been a constant, consistent battle for me. I don't recommend using Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendars.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Simple layout
It tells you the current date on the app's desktop icon
The easy-to-access month vs week views are helpful

Cons

Integration with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendars
Staying in sync with third party calendars
Ability to easily re-sync / reset events with third party calendars

Return on Investment

Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) has caused me to miss meetings because it didn't sync up properly with my Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendar
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) has caused me frustration because it will often show duplicate events that aren't duplicated in my Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendar.
Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) has caused my headaches and wasted my time by causing me to have to manually re-sync my Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) calendar with my Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendar. Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) offers no easy way to do this automatically.

Usability

As I've said, Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) does not work well when integrated with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendars. It's not very usable. Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) does not stay in sync well at all with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook. You will waste a lot of time manually resyncing your calendars and you will never be able to fully trust Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal).

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Exchange

The Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) desktop app is useful as far as convenience goes on a Mac, versus the Outlook website, however it doesn't work as well as Outlook. In my experience, Outlook is more trustworthy and doesn't duplicate and hide events nearly as often (if at all) when compared to Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal). There is no easy way to reset/re-sync your Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) calendar with a third party calendar.

Key Insights

Do you think Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal)'s feature set?

Did Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) again?

Other Software Used

Slack, Microsoft Visual Studio Code

Likelihood to Recommend

In my experience, Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) does not work well when integrated with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook's calendar system. It gets out of sync incredibly easily for no apartment reason. And when that happens, there's no easy way to re-sync / reset your Apple iCloud Calendar (iCal) calendar with your Microsoft Exchange/Outlook calendar.

Comments

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Constant syncing issues with Microsoft Exchange/Outlook