What calendar technology is required to make calendar invitations show up correctly? iCloud, Exchang

[tobey74]

My wife has an iPhone 4S and I have the 5. We're both running same iOS versions. If she creates an calendar event and invite me I get a calendar invitation notification on my phone which I can accept or decline.

If I do the exact same thing on my phone inviting my wife, she only receives an an email.

All settings on our phones are the same?!

I have tried using both google as exchange account, Google IMAP and iCloud. Does anybody in here know, what exactly apple is supposed to support, what is required for the invitation system to work??

I managed to find info on support.apple.com/kb that they do not support yahoo with calendar invites - but unfortunately I can't find out what they DO support

 

[phreddyl]

what iOS are you on? We use iOS 8 and created a family calendar that we both use- imore did an article on it How to use Family Sharing for calendars in iOS 8 | iMore

 

[Just_Me_D]

It should work the way it is intended to if both accounts are via iCloud. It does for me. In the past, I've gotten email notifications regarding calendar invites if using a non-iCloud account. I haven't received any of those in a while though. Try making sure that both calendars are selected as the "Default" via the Mail, Contacts, Calendars setting, if it's not already, and then give it a try.

 

[tobey74]

It should work the way it is intended to if both accounts are via iCloud. It does for me. In the past, I've gotten email notifications regarding calendar invites if using a non-iCloud account. I haven't received any of those in a while though. Try making sure that both calendars are selected as the "Default" via the Mail, Contacts, Calendars setting, if it's not already, and then give it a try.

Thanks for suggestions. I have already tried and confirmed this beforehand though.

Currently we are running iOS 7.1.2 but when iOS 8 was released I tested with that too.

I really just want a peak into the internal manual of iOS... with clear specifications/requirements on WHAT is required for "some functionality" like handling calendar invites to work... iCloud, Exchange version ??, Google-something etc. etc.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Thanks for suggestions. I have already tried and confirmed this beforehand though.

Currently we are running iOS 7.1.2 but when iOS 8 was released I tested with that too.

I really just want a peak into the internal manual of iOS... with clear specifications/requirements on WHAT is required for "some functionality" like handling calendar invites to work... iCloud, Exchange version ??, Google-something etc. etc.

You're trying to make it more difficult than it is. Here's another link that may be of help.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6555172


Sent from my ancient but trustworthy iPhone 5

 

[tobey74]

I do not have a problem with syncing calendars on the two devices.

I have problem with calendar invites behaving differently on two iOS devices running same OS, settings, account set ups etc.

 

[Ledsteplin]

I do not have a problem with syncing calendars on the two devices.

I have problem with calendar invites behaving differently on two iOS devices running same OS, settings, account set ups etc.

Could you be more specific? I'm not following you. How are the invites different? What do they say?


Sent from my ancient but trustworthy iPhone 5

 

[tobey74]

On my device, when I get invited to an event, a iOS notification message alerts me of the invite and I can also see the invite under the Inbox of the built in calendar app.
To this invite I can reply Accept or Decline inside the calendar app.

On my wife's device she only gets an email with event details and a link in the mail to Accept or Decline.
As we are currently using google via exchange active sync, clicking on these links takes her to google calendar page inside safari where she has to click accept or decline again.

Event shows just fine on both devices calendars afterwards.

When using iCloud:
My device - works every time
Wife's device - works some of the time

So, seems it works better with iCloud, right? so just use iCloud then... Well, I won't. We want on our devices to see our own calendar and a read only view of the other persons calendar. You can do this easily with both google and iCloud. But with iCloud, it always uses the viewers devices notification scheme - meaning my wife can create an event in her calendar like "haircut at 3pm" with no alarm set. When this event in her calendar is synced to my device over iCloud, it "magically" inherits my default alarm settings.
My default alarm settings are set to 1 hour before, meaning I get an alarm on my device 1 hour before every event my wife is going to.

Apparently everyone else using iCloud is fine with this alarm system as I have learned this is iCloud shared calendars by design.

To me and my wife this is useless. We are not sharing each other calendars to spy on each other or die drowning in calendar alarms. We share calendars so that we each easily can make arrangements with having first consult your spouse at home later.

Consider the new shared calendar Family in iOS 8 and a family if 4. The boy has soccer practice at 4pm and the daughter has music lessons at 7pm.
With iCloud, every family member defaults get an alert at both 4pm and 7pm about everything. Why would the daughter want to be alerted of her brothers soccer practice? And vice versa!