A Muse's GuideFood, technology, yoga and music. . . is there anything else?

I am excited to say that I have in my possession, a brand spanking new iPad.

Now I could describe the various reasons that I think that it is a beautiful piece of machinery, though instead I figured I would tell you all about the most important part – the Calendar application called iCal.

Traditionally on the computer, be a Macbook Pro, MacMini or iMac, I have found that iCal’s functionalities are limited by the interface.  While I can enter my calendar entries with relative ease, viewing the weekly or daily events and notes lacks a relative fluidity.  The desktop iCal application functions very much like a calendar on my wall, where I enter information only to glance at it and the view does not change based on what time of day it is – I simply am able to see where in my day I should be by the little line with red-dot that is placed horizontally on my screen to indicate the time of day. Due to this basic wall calendar function, I tend to rely on the month-view more often.

On my iPhone and iTouch on the other hand, don’t even get me started on the limitations of the iCal application.  Viewing the Month-view is a pain, since due to the small screen size, the only indication I have that a date has a pending item or scheduled event is by a tiny little grey dot placed under the date.  Upon tapping onto the date, I am only able to view 2 events at a time, being forced to scroll up and down my typically lengthy list of daily events. Yes, I could just use the list-view option, yet frankly that does not accommodate my list of events well enough – as when you have more than 6 events in a day, you have to continue scrolling down to view more. What has also limited my iCal use on the iPhone and iTouch has been the fact that you cannot control the calendars that you view, you are stuck with EVERY calendar on your iCal showing up as a long list to torment you.

I have long awaited the day that iCal would get revised, and with the iPad that day finally came. Not only is the iCal application on the iPad much more intuitive, it gives me exactly what I have always wanted – a fluid user experience.

Opening the iCal application brings me to the month-view, and it looks relatively similar to the month-view on my Macbook Pro – But wait! there is a pretty transparency to the events and all-day events, cleaner lines, and a executive office appearance to the border.  In month-view there isn’t that much different at first glance, until selecting an event – it pops up with speed and efficiency, stating all the information including my notes and locations within a little pop-up box.

Selecting “edit” on an event brings up the familiar window of editing events, almost identical to iCal on the desktop –  Thank goodness for that.  Another welcome component of this process is that unlike the iPhone/iTouch, the rest of my calendar is not blocked by entering this edit or new event.  I can still clearly see the other things going on within my calendar.

Week-view: How fabulous, similar to regular desktop iCal, yet wait – what is so different, where is the rest of my appointments and meetings from this morning? Why does it seem like I have  so much more room to enter information? A quick scroll, and I realize that this version of iCal automatically took me to the current time and applicable events.  It is currently showing from 2pm through 11pm for the entire 7-day week, no having to view what already happened this morning, since realistically I likely am going to this view to look at where I am suppose to be right now.

Day-View: In my opinion, the very best part of this application! It looks nothing like the regular Day-view – which basically was a unnecessary full page of the day’s events expanded the event box horizontally.  What is so different about this Day-view you are thinking? Well if you haven’t seen it, it not only shows the regular Day-view calendar on the right hand side, it has a simple month calendar at the top left, and the best part is the list on the left-side of the events of the day! Take a peek below, it really changes the way I work with my calendar, making it appear to be a desktop journal that can have pages flipped back and forth.

Now the best part of the entire application is not only the fact that it seems to accommodate my ever calendar need, it also allows me to select which calendars I want to view.  A simple drop down menu at the top left corner lets me select which calendar I want to see – just like in the desktop version. How fantastic is that! Not only does it look more stream-lined, Apple really delivered on their revamping of the iCal for iPad.

Gone are the days of scrolling on my iPhone, squinting my eyes to find out what time or date the next hockey game is at. Opening up my iPad and opening iCal have refined the hectic mess of trying to organize the day. How did I ever use my iPhone as my primary input device for my calendar events before?

Now all I require is for Apple to provide this version of iCal for my laptop and desktop Macs. I am itching to get back to my iPad calendar whenever I am forced to use the “traditional” iCal on my Macbook Pro.  I like the change, but it needs to be continuous across all my computers.

So there you go, my opinion and first uses of iCal for the iPad.

Cheers,

Deanna