Calendar Sync with Spouse?

[gutcheck]

My wife and I would like to be able to sync calendars so we can see each other's schedules combined with our own on our phones. There are stretches of time when we just pass in the night lately, and I'm losing track of who is where, when. Any way to do this?

We both have the 3GS, and both use Windows OS for our desktops. I have a MobileMe account. Neither one of us really uses the calendar from Outlook or anything like that. BUT . . . my wife would like to be able to enter her calendar info mostly on her phone and have it sync with either my MobileMe account / iPhone as well as her phone. Color code each of our schedules, work, home, etc. We are both much more mobile than desktop these days.

Can someone tell me if that is possible? I'm not familiar with iCal and CalDav or what have you, but if there is a solution woven into these somehow, I'll have to learn.

Any help?!?!?? Thanks in advance.

 

[Alli]

You could do this on Google calendars quite easily. I share calendars with any number of people this way.

 

[hotrod#AC]

Yeah, I would sign up for google calendar/gmail with something like gutcheckfamily@gmail.com and then sync both phones with your calendar.....there in that account you could have a husband and a wife calendar that you should be able to see on your iphones.

The tricky part is if you were users of Outlook or desktop calendars. Getting multiple gmail calendars to sync with your desktop is more tricky.

 

[Brickman]

YES!! You can do this through MoMe. MoMe allows you to Sync up to 5 different devices. Your wife's iPhone can be one of them. I believe you just need to sign your wife's iPhone into your MoMe account the same way you did your iPhone. Then just sync it, OTA. I would be sure to only check the Calender sync or your wife will get all of your emails and stuff as well.

As soon as I can steal my wife's iPhone from her I am doing this also.

 

[Brickman]

Just got finished doing this on my wife's iPhone. Works like a charm. I just set up my MoMe account on her iPhone. Settings=> Mail,Contacts, Calenders=> Add Account=> select MoMe => plug in your account info=> then only select Calender syncing. Turn everything else "off". Now she can see when I am to be out of town and she can put in all of the kids Games and both iPhones will be "pushed" to each other through MoMe. Sweet!!

 

[Alli]

Doesn't that mean she is also stuck viewing all your meetings/appointments for work as well?

That's why I prefer a simple shared Google calendar.

 

[gutcheck]

Thanks everyone! I set up my wife's phone for MoMe, and it asked to push her calendar up to the cloud. I said yes. Unfortunately, the events showed up, but the times in the MoMe account changed (literally changed a 2PM event to 7AM, etc.). Then, I got on my phone and entered an event. Several times it disappeared from my phone (poof, gone!), and never showed up in MoMe. Then I entered some events in MoMe, and some of them disappeared, some stayed. But there's no rhyme or reason or pattern to what's happening. I called Apple support and she had me reset the network configs, and try again, saying there were known issues with Calendar and 3.1, that they had been swamped with calls. No go. They told me there was nothing else they can do, try the MoMe tech chat, so I'll head there when I have a block of free time. Chat support for deeper issues can be compared to watching paint dry.

Alli, how would Google be different than MoMe in syncing calendars? Wouldn't you also get the other person's entire calendar if you subscribed? Not sure how Google works. I like MoMe's with the different colors (His Work/Her Work/Household, etc.).

 

[gutcheck]

Figured it out - sort of. It seems my wife's phone calendar and MoMe aren't syncing to Eastern Standard time. Her phone is set to EST, and MoMe is set to EST (as far as I know how to tell). All the calendar events MoMe pulled from her phone changed to GMT. When I change an event time in MoMe, it shifts her phone calendar by so many hours.

I know the time on the phone is set in Settings, and the MoMe settings as well. Is there a seperate Calendar setting on the phone?

 

[Brickman]

Doesn't that mean she is also stuck viewing all your meetings/appointments for work as well?

True but that is part of the beauty of it. See we both are self-employed, so sometimes it is hard to know where work stops and personal begins. We also have three teenagers in HS playing three different sports at the same time.

Allow me a quick example. Say I am to have a presentation or am to be out of town in 2 weeks. Know she now knows not to schedule any Doctor's appointments (or whatever) for the kids at that time. Vice Versa, if I see that the kids all have Games or my wife has an appointment next week, I know not to schedule anything for then. Since we can control our work schedules, this allows us to rearrange our work and personal schedules to be sure that we everything covered.

 

[Alli]

I can see where that would work for you. I can't see it working so well for more "typical" couples.

 

[Leanna Lofte]

@gutcheck Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Time Zone Support

@Alli - With MobileMe you can publish specific calendars as well then someone else can subscribe to it. This is how I handle my birthdays calendar since the iPhone doesn't have one.

 

[Brickman]

I can see where that would work for you. I can't see it working so well for more "typical" couples.

LOL! Yes, our lives are anything BUT "typical" these days!

 

[Casper TFG]

Exactly. My wife and I both work from home and it's crazy for us to have to carry each others apointments in our calendars.

I had an IMAP email and DAVCal system going but putting snow leopard on both of my wifes macs BROKE it! (it needs an update to work and that's not out yet)

so wha I think would work would be the INVITE function. But I can't seem to find any info on it.

Annoyingly, I don't have enough room on my laptop to install snow leopard but will figure that out soon.

So iCal exchange invitations / snow leopard

is that the cure?

In theory you could just send over calendar items you want your Spode to be aware of and keep other Redundant stuff off their system.

 

[acarty]

My gf uses her iCal on her macBook and she has a "Work" calender. She simply mails me that periodically and I add to my iCal.

Bit antequated, and it's never 100% in sync, but it works for us for now!

She knows how to change her sync settings on her iPhone, so she could quite easily change the sync to show mail too... not a good thing!!

btw, Hi guys! I'm new!