Chapter 16
Keeping On Schedule with Calendar
Get ready to . . .
Subscribe to and Share Calendars
Whether you’re retired or still working, you have a busy life full of activities (even busier if you’re retired, for some unfathomable reason). You may need a way to keep on top of all those activities and appointments. The Calendar app on your iPad is a simple, elegant, electronic daybook that helps you do just that.
In addition to being able to enter events and view them by the day, week, month, or year, you can set up Calendar to send alerts to remind you of your obligations and search for events by keywords. You can even set up repeating events, such as weekly poker games, monthly get-togethers with the girls or guys, or weekly babysitting appointments with your grandchild. To help you coordinate calendars on multiple devices, you can also sync events with other calendar accounts.
In this chapter, you master the simple procedures for getting around your calendar, entering and editing events, setting up alerts, syncing, and searching.
View Your Calendar
1. Calendar offers several ways to view your schedule. Start by tapping the Calendar app icon on the Home screen to open it.
2. Tap the Day button at the top of the screen to display Day view (if it’s not already displayed). This view, shown in Figure 16-1, displays your daily appointments with times listed on the left page, along with a calendar for the month, and an hourly breakdown of the day on the right page. Tap a day on the monthly calendar displayed in the top-right corner of the left page to change days in this view.
Figure 16-1
3. Tap the Week button to view all events for the current week, as shown in Figure 16-2. In this view, appointments appear with times listed along the left side of the screen.
Figure 16-2
4. Tap the Month button to get an overview of your busy month (see Figure 16-3). In this view, you don’t see the timing of each event, but you can spot your busiest days and see which ones have room to squeeze in one more event.
Figure 16-3
5. Tap the Year button to see your entire year of commitments, as shown in Figure 16-4.
Figure 16-4
6. Tap the List button to see List view, which displays your daily calendar with a list of all commitments for the month to the left of it, as shown in Figure 16-5.
7. To move from one day or week or month or year to another, use the Timeline displayed along the bottom of every view. Tap a day to move to it, or press the Forward or Backward button to move forward or backward one increment at a time: a day at a time in Day view, a week at a time in Week view, and so on.
Figure 16-5
8. To jump back to today, tap the Today button in the bottom-left corner of Calendar.
For the feel of a paper calendar book, rotate your screen to landscape orientation when in the Calendar app. This orientation provides a nice book-like experience, especially in Day view.
Add Calendar Events
1. With any view displayed, tap the Add button (refer to Figure 16-5) to add an event. The Add Event dialog, shown in Figure 16-6, appears.
Figure 16-6
2. Enter a title for the event and, if you want, a location.
3. Tap the Starts/Ends field; the Start & End dialog, shown in Figure 16-7, is displayed.
Figure 16-7
4. Place your fingertip on the date, hour, minute, or AM/PM column and move your finger to scroll up or down. If you want to change the Time Zone tap that field, begin to enter a new location, and then tap on the location in the suggestions that appear. When each item is set correctly, tap Done. (Note that, if the event will last all day, you can simply tap the All-Day On/Off button and forget about setting start and end times.)
5. If you want to add notes, use your finger to scroll down in the Add Event dialog and tap in the Notes field. Type your note, and then tap the Done button to save the event.
You can edit any event at any time by simply tapping it in any view of your calendar. The Edit Event dialog appears, offering the same settings as the Add Event dialog (shown earlier, in Figure 16-6). Tap the Done button to save your changes after you’ve made them.
Create Repeating Events
1. If you want an event to repeat, such as a weekly or monthly appointment, you can set a repeating event. With any view displayed, tap the Add button to add an event. The Add Event dialog (refer to Figure 16-6) appears.
2. Enter a title and location for the event and set the start and end dates and times, as shown in the earlier task “Add Calendar Events.”
3. Tap the Repeat field; the Repeat Event dialog, shown in Figure 16-8, is displayed.
4. Tap on a preset time interval: Every Day, Week, 2 Weeks, Month, Or Year.
5. Tap Done. You return to the Add Event dialog.
Figure 16-8
6. Tap Done again to save your repeating event.
Other calendar programs may seem to give you more control over repeating events; for example, you might be able to make a setting to repeat an event every Tuesday. If you want a more robust calendar feature you might consider setting up your appointments in iCal or Outlook and syncing them to iPad. But, if you want to create a repeating event in iPad’s Calendar app, simply add the first event on a Tuesday and make it repeat every week. Easy, huh?
Add Alerts
1. If you want your iPad to alert you when an event is coming up, you can use the Alert feature. First tap the Settings icon on the Home screen and choose General, and then choose Sounds.
2. Tap on Calendar Alerts and then tap on any Alert Tone, which plays the tone for you. When you’ve chosen the alert tone you want, tap Sounds to return to Sounds settings.
3. Tap the Home button and then tap Calendar and create an event in your calendar or open an existing one for editing, as covered in earlier tasks in this chapter.
4. In the Add Event or Edit dialog (refer to Figure 16-6), tap the Alert field. The Event Alert dialog appears, as shown in Figure 16-9. Note that if you want two alerts — say, one a day before and one an hour before — you can repeat this procedure using Second Alert instead.
Figure 16-9
5. Tap any preset interval, from 5 Minutes to 2 Days Before or at the time of the event. (Remember that you can scroll down in the dialog to see more options.)
6. Tap Done to save the alert, and then tap Done in the Add Event dialog to save all settings.
7. Tap the Day button to display Day view of the date of your event; note that the alert and timeframe are listed under the event in that view, as shown in Figure 16-10.
Figure 16-10
If you work for an organization that uses a Microsoft Exchange account, you can set up your iPad to receive and respond to invitations from colleagues in your company. When somebody sends an invitation that you accept, it appears on your calendar. Check with your company network administrator (who will jump at the chance to get her hands on your iPad) or the iPad User Guide to set up this feature if it sounds useful to you. Or you can check into the MobileMe subscription service — which pretty much does the same thing minus the IT person.
Search Calendars
1. With Calendar open in any view, tap the Search field in the top-right corner (refer to Figure 16-5). The onscreen keyboard appears.
2. Type a word or words to search by and then tap the Search key on the onscreen keyboard. As you type, the Results dialog appears, as shown in Figure 16-11.
Figure 16-11
3. Tap on any result to display it in the view you were in when you started the search. The Edit dialog appears; there you can edit the event if you want.
Subscribe to and Share Calendars
1. If you use a calendar available from an online service such as Yahoo! or Google, you can subscribe to that calendar to read events saved there on your iPad. Note that you can only read, not edit, these events. Tap the Settings icon on the Home screen to get started.
2. Tap the Mail, Contacts, Calendars option on the left.
3. Tap Add Account. The Add Account options, shown in Figure 16-12, appear.
4. Tap an e-mail choice, such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail.
Figure 16-12
5. In the dialog that appears (see Figure 16-13), enter your name, e-mail address, and e-mail account password.
6. Tap Save. iPad verifies your address.
7. Your iPad retrieves data from your calendar at the interval you have set to fetch data. To review these settings, tap the Fetch New Data option in the Mail, Contacts, Calendars dialog.
8. In the Fetch New Data dialog that appears (see Figure 16-14), be sure that the Push option’s On/Off button reads On and then choose the option you prefer for how frequently data is pushed to your iPad.
Figure 16-13
Figure 16-14
If you use Microsoft Outlook’s calendar or iCal on your main computer, you can sync it to your iPad calendar to avoid having to re-enter event information. To do this, use iCloud settings to sync automatically (see Chapter 3) or connect your iPad to your computer with the Dock Connector to USB Cable and use settings in your iTunes account to sync with calendars. Click the Sync button and your calendar settings will be shared between your computer and iPad (in both directions). Read more in Chapter 3 about working with iTunes to manage your iPad content.
If you store birthdays for people in the Contacts app the Calendar app then displays these when the day comes around so you won’t forget to pass on your congratulations!
You can also have calendar events sent if you subscribe to a push service such as MobileMe. It can sync calendars from multiple e-mail accounts with your iPad calendar. If you choose to have data pushed to your iPad, your battery may drain faster.
Delete an Event
1. When an upcoming luncheon or meeting is canceled, you should delete the appointment. With Calendar open, tap an event. Then tap the Edit button on the information bar that appears (see Figure 16-15). The Edit dialog opens.
Figure 16-15
2. In the Edit Event dialog, tap the Delete Event button (see Figure 16-16).
Figure 16-16
3. Confirming options appear; if this is a repeating event, you have the option to delete this instance of the event or this and all future instances of the event (see Figure 16-17). Tap the button for the option you prefer. The event is deleted and you return to Calendar view.
Figure 16-17
If an event is moved but not canceled, you don’t have to delete the old one and create a new one: Simply edit the event to change the day and time in the Event dialog.