Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apple Acquisition Hints at Upgraded Calendar App on iOS 19 or Beyond

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
67,645
38,074


Apple acquired Canadian startup Mayday Labs in April 2024, according to a European Commission listing, spotted by French blog MacGeneration. The acquisition had not received widespread attention from tech publications until now.

Mayday-Calendar.jpg

Apple is legally required to report certain acquisitions to the European Commission, under the terms of the EU's Digital Markets Act.

Mayday Labs founder Jeremy Bell confirmed that his company had been acquired in a since-deleted April 2024 blog post, but he did not mention Apple at that time. Apple acquired the startup's intellectual property, and the rights to make employment offers to certain employees, according to the European Commission.

Mayday Labs had developed an AI-powered calendar, task manager, and scheduling assistant for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The all-in-one app used AI to automatically schedule your events and tasks at ideal times, and it could learn your scheduling preferences and daily patterns over time to further optimize your calendar.

Mayday's website says its app worked best when you used it with others. For example, it could automatically schedule a meeting at a time where both you and a co-worker were available. It also offered automatic rescheduling for flexibility.

The app was shut down shortly after the acquisition.

It would be reasonable to assume that some of Mayday's features and technologies could be added to Apple's Calendar app across the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, under the Apple Intelligence umbrella. More than a year has passed since the acquisition, so perhaps some of these changes will debut as early as iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and macOS 16, which will be unveiled at Apple's annual developers conference WWDC next month.

Apple already integrated its Calendar and Reminders apps on iOS 18, as a stepping stone.

The European Commission's website lists six other companies that Apple has acquired since September 2023, including Pointable, Betteromics, Drishti, DarwinAI, Datakalab, and Blueye. Many of these companies were working on AI technologies, for the enterprise, manufacturing, life sciences, and more. Some of the acquisitions were well publicized, but Mayday Labs and a few others went somewhat under the radar on a relative basis.

Article Link: Apple Acquisition Hints at Upgraded Calendar App on iOS 19 or Beyond
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/05/09/apple-acquired-mayday-labs/
  • Like
Reactions: ipedro and adrianlondon
Johnstrass2 said:
This should be the lowest hanging fruit for any Apple Intelligence product. I would love to be able to say hey Siri, please change my appointment with Dr. Smith from this coming Friday to next week on Tuesday at 9 o'clock in the morning.
I don't understand how that can be so hard. But then again I'm not a software person.
Click to expand...
I’m pretty sure that Siri can already do this.
Granted, at this point, you can’t use natural language, which is what people really want. You have to say the exact appointment name and the exact date you would like to change it to, but appointment rescheduling has always been a built-in functionality for Siri.
 
  • Like
Reactions: insomniac86, hagar, Rradcircless and 2 others
cjsuk said:
Please don’t screw up the calendar in iOS trying to improve it like you did with photos app.
Click to expand...
They’ve already screwed it up. Half the time I’m not getting any notifications for all-day events. I had to install Google Calendar and sync it to my Apple calendar for redundancy… ridiculous.
 
pnoozi said:
They’ve already screwed it up. Half the time I’m not getting any notifications for all-day events. I had to install Google Calendar and sync it to my Apple calendar for redundancy… ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Probably didn't notice that here as I have all notifications turned off. Not good though!
 
Another competitor crushed.
Calendar app as most Apple apps is archaic.
Dial app is a demo.
Calendar UI is a school project at best.
Mail is basic, but ok.
Safari is updated once a year basically!.
Messages is only used in USA.
Volume setting way is also archaic and inefficient.
Alarm is soooooo prehistoric and horrible that a horror movie is more pretty.
AI is, well you know, a bad taste joke at best.
Etc. lack of competitors a poor product and worse price the make… digging its own grave…
 
  • Disagree
  • Wow
  • Like
Reactions: xnu, Blava, platinumaqua and 3 others
Lounge vibes 05 said:
I’m pretty sure that Siri can already do this.
Granted, at this point, you can’t use natural language, which is what people really want. You have to say the exact appointment name and the exact date you would like to change it to, but appointment rescheduling has always been a built-in functionality for Siri.
Click to expand...
You very well might be right, but the fact that you can't use natural languge, nor have any reasonable idea what sources Siri will look at unless you specifically state where to look basically means it is worthless unless you just love wasting time in 20 second increments.

For example, I have a concert on my calendar, titled as "Architects Concert". If I ask "When is the Architects concert?" I get three.... and only 3 web search results. If I ask "When am I going to the Architects concert?" I get the same three search results. I have to specifically say "When is the Architects concert ON MY CALENDAR?" Technically it works if you do it just so, but no one, including Apple, thinks that's good enough.
 
Jay Tee said:
Plus, why can't Apple Maps take traffic into account, just like Waze, when it's time to leave your for your next scheduled Calendar event ?

Make it happen !
Click to expand...
It doesn’t already do that? I set up travel times in each event and set one of the alerts to “time to leave.” Just an hour ago, it told me “traffic is light, it will take you 26 minutes.” It also gave a heads up maybe 10 minutes before that, and the drive time was pretty accurate… I arrived right on time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sos47, Jay Tee, 01cowherd and 1 other person
AgeOfSpiracles said:
You very well might be right, but the fact that you can't use natural languge, nor have any reasonable idea what sources Siri will look at unless you specifically state where to look basically means it is worthless unless you just love wasting time in 20 second increments.
Click to expand...
The problem is English is such an imprecise language. There are too many assumptions that comes naturally to us, but a machine lack human intuition. It's the old man goes shopping joke.
b61faac5ded4b190ca1551376141b1383a4f824fc8ec6620b6f41043542daaff_1.jpg

AgeOfSpiracles said:
For example, I have a concert on my calendar, titled as "Architects Concert". If I ask "When is the Architects concert?" I get three.... and only 3 web search results. If I ask "When am I going to the Architects concert?" I get the same three search results. I have to specifically say "When is the Architects concert ON MY CALENDAR?" Technically it works if you do it just so, but no one, including Apple, thinks that's good enough.
Click to expand...
So it's going to another You're holding it wrong fiasco.😓😓😓 "You're asking Siri wrong."
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: Shamgar, sos47, Big Bad D and 5 others
AgeOfSpiracles said:
You very well might be right, but the fact that you can't use natural languge, nor have any reasonable idea what sources Siri will look at unless you specifically state where to look basically means it is worthless unless you just love wasting time in 20 second increments.

For example, I have a concert on my calendar, titled as "Architects Concert". If I ask "When is the Architects concert?" I get three.... and only 3 web search results. If I ask "When am I going to the Architects concert?" I get the same three search results. I have to specifically say "When is the Architects concert ON MY CALENDAR?" Technically it works if you do it just so, but no one, including Apple, thinks that's good enough.
Click to expand...
You’re absolutely correct, natural language is obviously the goal.
However, I will say that the current system isn’t too bad… If you’re a person who could memorize exactly what to say.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back