Rant: Apple iCal fail
For all of its design ethtetics at Apple, they care more about the form rather than the function. Take iCal. Ive been trying hard to use this in my last job (previous startup was all based on Google Apps). Did anyone in Apple UI do a usability study and watch people use this product? For all the criticisms that Google is an engineering driven company (vs Apple design) Google Calendar takes down iCal with ease. Here are some examples:
iCal doesnt know what time it is…
When I shortcut to create a new calendar event, iCal chooses some random time – 9am, 3am… how about looking at what time is is today, and rounding up to the next hour or half hour? Google does.
iCal doesn’t have a date picker
Man, what year is it? If I schedule an event for the first tuesday of next month… well your SOL. And how about supporting the notion of entering “3d” for three days from now?
Only 28 tabs until your done
Im a keyboard fanatic – and I counted that you would have to hit tab 27 times to fill out this dialog box. Google? 10, plus a shortcut to save whenever you want.
Shared Calendars?
Hah – try it. Just try it. Let me know how it works
Overlapping Events
Hope you dont have more than one appt at the same time… can you read this?
Well, I made my point. Hey, its not only me, go check it on Google search results.
PS – Ok, I should just keep this blog post open… here is another one. I have an appt that starts at 12, and goes for 12 hours… now lets say you want to add another appt at 2pm. Sorry – no can do. Only open is to create an appt at 11am, then change it to 2pm. Fail!





