Apple is launching a new version of the online MobileMe calendar web app, and much like they did with the new version of online mail, the design influence of the iPad app is unmistakable. Want in on the beta? Here's what you have to do:
To sign up, go to me.com/calendar and click "Request an invitation." You will receive an email notification when you have been added to the beta (we will add members in the order of their request over the coming weeks).
New features include:
- The aforementioned new, iPad-like UI.
- Shared calendars (for family and friends).
- Published calendars (for groups and teams).
- Event invitations with RSVPs (yes!).
- Based on CalDAV standard.
It's good to go on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Mac, with Outlook support for the PC coming soon.
So, how does it sound? Enough of an upgrade? Anything major still missing? Anyone get in on the beta yet?
Full feature descriptions after the break.
Beautiful new web application
The Calendar beta includes a new web application at me.com with great-looking calendar views. You'll find redesigned day, week, and month views, as well as a new list view to make scanning your events easier. Your calendars will also load faster, thanks to improved performance. The new web application works best with Safari 5, Firefox 3.6, and Internet Explorer 8.Share calendars with family and friends
You can easily share your calendars with one or more MobileMe members to keep everyone on the same page. For example, create a shared calendar called "Kids" for school and weekend activities. You can allow the person you're sharing a calendar with to edit events, and set up email notifications to tell you when they make a change.Publish a calendar for a group or team
The Calendar beta lets you share a read-only public calendar that can be viewed by anyone, perfect for publishing an events calendar such as a soccer team schedule. After setting it up you can send the team members a link to view the calendar on their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, or PC.Event invitations with RSVPs
Inviting any guest to an event is easy from the MobileMe Calendar beta. Just add their email address to the event (they don't have to be a MobileMe member) and your guests will get an invitation email they can respond to directly by clicking a link. Your event then automatically updates, making it easy to track RSVPs right in your calendar.Works on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac
The MobileMe Calendar beta uses the CalDAV standard so you can view and edit your calendars using the built-in calendar applications on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac. Please note that support for PCs with Microsoft Outlook is coming soon.
Reader comments
New MobileMe calendar web app goes into beta
I mean... this is COOL and all...
I have Mobile ME.. but i also have Gmail...
and pretty much nothing is easier then just hitting the calender button when you're already logged into Gmail.. and my contacts are right there as well.. etc etc. and that syncs with my iPhone to.
My mobile ME account is basically just sitting there, paid for, and i'm not using it.
Maybe if Apple magically improves the speed of the PICTURES part of Mobile ME, i might consider using it as my main cloud from now on.
But it's still very slow (pictures that is)
+1 to the commenter above - aren't these all existing features in Google calendar, available for free, and functional across multiple platforms?
I just signed up, apple is doing good with the updates. Makes the 20 bucks I spent for mobile me really worth it.
What do you mean: "It’s good to go on iPhone..."? There is no new updated app for iPhone yet, is there?
So, its finally going to sport most of the features of Google Calendar, still slower, still more expensive, and still can't share the collaborative calendars with anyone who isn't also a MobileMe subscriber. That last one is my hangup.
I have both a paid Google Account (work) and MobileMe (personal). I still pay for MobileMe because -- and I get the irony here -- it works. Haven't had a single issue since it launched, nor since it was .Mac. Google on the other hand is a mess for me. Not a week goes by that it doesn't fail. Last week half of us just didn't get mail for hours and hours on end. Before that I setup a new laptop and got a bandwidth exceeded error and was locked out for days (really, Google?). Before that the SMTP server was rejecting emails between those of us on the same domain for "bulk mail" reasons. Before that it was constant simultaneous connection errors (really, Google?).
I now forward copies of all my important mail to MobileMe just to make sure I get it. How humiliating is that?
So, yeah, the more competition for Google in the web app and personal data space, the better. Just annoying it's taking Apple so long.
How are you getting if for $20 Dionte? It should be free.
Love MobileMe on the iPhone. Hate the web apps. Sloooooooooow. Make it as quick as googles web calendar and I'm all over it. I'll stick with google calendar otherwise.
Wonderfull!
Looking forward to the beta :-)
All that´s missing now is
-to do app on the iphone and the web
-note app on the web
I was very pleased to see this in beta now! The calendar is the largest fail of MobileMe, considering I use Google Calendar so extensively. I share my calendar with my girlfriend, and it's reliable, seamless, and just works across all platforms. I'm also pleased to see Apple doing what they should have done in summer 2008; release the products one at a time, test them with the public, and then when issues are worked out, go for it. Well done guys. I really really really want to get off Google Calendar and put my life in MobileMe, but I depend on my calendar way too much to rely on it at this time.
Am I missing something?
I would love to know how to set a reminder/ alarm on the desktop mobileme calander.
I am able to set an alarm using google calanders on my pc and these alarms will sync with my Iphone.
Until I can set an alarm on mobileme calander forget it.
@Woodman500 Bought a family pack off ebay for 90 bucks and sold the 4 family accounts for 20 bucks each
I love MobileMe for syncing my computers and devices, but I almost never visit Me.com, so these web apps aren't as important to me as what syncs (iPhone ToDos already, Apple! :x ).
As Rene said, I've also never had a MobileMe issue since it was .Mac, and I've had it every year since. It was a tiny bit sluggish when I was on OS Tiger, but since Leopard launched it's been well worth the hundred bucks a year.
Personally, I just can't look at anything Google... it always hurts my eyes.
I just deleted my trial version... Am I the only one who keeps getting repeating entries in my calendar ? That drives me nuts. I'm nor going to pay for something that takes me more time to keep deleting these mysteriously appearing entries!!
Far more important than a web interface is to actually have reliable syncing. I was just hours away from paying my $AU119 at the end of the trial period when I realised my iPhone was no longer syncing properly with MobileMe. I'm tired of trying to sort out syncing issues on the iPhone. I had Palm PDAs for 12 years and the PIM info always synced reliably. On the iphone I've had doubled appointments when I edited an appointment. I've had appointments created on the iPhone never get synced and vice versa. I should pay for this why?
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The people! Explain me a difference between simple Where can i purchase an iphone, 3g, 4g I think now to order in American what at present is better?
Last week I got an email from Apple inviting me to try MobileMe Calendar Beta. Like a schmuck, I tried it. It screwed up everything. Then a support advisor told me, during a support chat, to downgrade back to the original, and sent me instructions for how to do it.
That completely messed up all of my data, which disappeared from all my devices. I spent more than 6 hours on chats and phone calls with support yesterday, and another 7 hours today until the problem was resolved. That's 13 hours out of my life. An entire Friday evening - from 4:30 PM till 10:30 PM, and all of a beautiful, sunny Saturday - from 10:30 AM till 5:00 PM.
I WANT MY 13 HOURS BACK. THIS TOTALLY SUCKS. I AM FURIOUS. WHY SHOULD I HAVE THE BETTER PART OF TWO DAYS OF MY LIFE TAKEN AWAY JUST SO I CAN BE A GUNNIE PIG FOR APPLE'S DAMN BETA TEST OF SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T FRIGGING WORK????????????????????
I never had such a terrible experience with Microsoft in all the years I used PCs.
How do I revert back to the original version & not the beta? When I store a cal event on my iphone, it doesn't store on my other calendars & mobileme/calendar is turned on.
The new beta broke AND Deleted every calender event on all my devices, when I restored from backups on my mac the sync never took place. My iMac had the freshly restored info and all my mobile devices stayed blank. Why am I paying for this again?