Everything New in Calendar and Reminders in iOS 27

[R3k]

Having now seen some more demos of people using it, I am actually excited about trying New Siri for this.

I assume (and hope) the natural language entry will be refined as the betas go on.

But according to what they say and what I've seen, I should finally just be able to open my calendar and tell Siri to add and adjust the things I see there.

I’m doing this just now and it’s miserable. New Siri is still miles behind. Currently having to jump through natural language hoops to get Siri to add an alert to a calendar event and when I finally get it to confirm it did the job, it doesn’t actually do it- just claims it did.

 

[1ppl3]

I stopped using Calendar years ago for two reasons: my government job blocks Apple Calendar (along with all iCloud stuff), and more importantly, with Google calendar I can set the events to nice, BRIGHT colors...with Apple they are all dull and subdued UNLESS SELECTED, which blows. I like bright colors.

Imagine, the government blocks Apple services but for them, it’s okay to use Google 🙂 Nice joke, man.

 

[Ad47uk]

Yeah but the question here is: do we need Apple Intelligence for those features, such as the natural language in calendar and reminders apps?

I don't have a Iphone, , but I presume something like this will come to the Mac. I find it easy enough to stick stuff in the calendar normally and the same with my Android phone.

I tried doing this voice thing of putting items in my calender on Alexa, it doesn't feel natural.

 

[Ad47uk]

BusyCal also handles natural language events very well. IMO it’s a really good, non-subscription competitor to Fantastical, and has a ton more features than Apple’s Calendar app.

Here’s the example text input in BusyCal. If you put “at” and a location it generally parses that quite well too.

View attachment 2639474

Where is the meeting with Eric? Could be anywhere.

 

[cjsuk]

Have they fixed the rapid entry text bug on the scheduled view where you hit enter and type the next reminder out and half of it gets appended to the first one and then sometimes it randomly gets fixed about a second later but usually doesn’t?

Raised bug multiple times. No fix.

 

[chfilm]

Will this be in the EU? 🙁

 

[CLS9]

I tried to use Reminders when it first came out and then again whenever Apple claimed big advances, but I never found it of any redeeming value. Calendar and Notes have always done everything I needed.

 

[nt5672]

Adding user visible AI won't fix the many bugs. Anyone with any software experience at all would know that.

Maybe the new CEO will start funding bug fixes?

 

[Nekronos]

Having now seen some more demos of people using it, I am actually excited about trying New Siri for this.

I assume (and hope) the natural language entry will be refined as the betas go on.

But according to what they say and what I've seen, I should finally just be able to open my calendar and tell Siri to add and adjust the things I see there.

Siri can already do natural language for calendar and reminders - now this might be better than it is now but this isn't new for siri at least.

 

[hybrid_x]

Natural language reminders and calendar events go back to Newton OS. You can already more or less do this via Siri, so it's puzzling why Apple is having a hard time making it work consistently in the app.

Any indication that Apple has integrated Focus modes into Calendar events? How about Calendar events or Reminders as triggers for automations?

I've been asking for Apple to make it possible to automatically activate Do Not Disturb during Calendar events (and de-activate it when they're done) for over a decade, and it still hasn't been done. This is such a simple value-add for anyone who spends a lot of time in meetings, that I cannot understand why Apple has not implemented it yet. I had a SonyEricsson phone that could do this back in 2003.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Siri can already do natural language for calendar and reminders - now this might be better than it is now but this isn't new for siri at least.

I find it interesting that they called this a new feature as well. Technically it's been there, it just never worked. Just like Siri.

 

[prycop]

Not very intelligent in the beta. It does not understand "tomorrow" without having to choose the date. "Dentist Appt 10 tomorrow" lands in the calendar 10am today unless i choose the date.

 

[ignatius345]

Where is the meeting with Eric? Could be anywhere.

Eric is where you least expect it.

 

[McWetty]

How did Fantastical make this work flawlessly 15 years ago (launched in 2011) and Apple is barely getting it to work just now?

 

[jozero]

"get the groceries at 6pm tonight" or "send the photos to John tomorrow at 4pm"

You can do this right now with current reminders, what changed with the new advanced SIRI and new OS one?

 

[CPx]

How about alerts for recurring calendar events that actually work.. and not just for the first occurrence. Or is that just me?

 

[drumcat]

Everyone dunking on this setup, but I find it useful. TBF, I *hate* the calendar APPS, and use BusyCal. But the underlying system is fine.

 

[drumcat]

"get the groceries at 6pm tonight" or "send the photos to John tomorrow at 4pm"

You can do this right now with current reminders, what changed with the new advanced SIRI and new OS one?

Consistently working, I'm guessing.

 

[Atog]

These features in Reminder and calendar are also unavailable in EU?

 

[soundsgoodtome]

I stopped using Calendar years ago for two reasons: my government job blocks Apple Calendar (along with all iCloud stuff), and more importantly, with Google calendar I can set the events to nice, BRIGHT colors...with Apple they are all dull and subdued UNLESS SELECTED, which blows. I like bright colors.

You can change calendar colors to any color you wish.

 

[soundsgoodtome]

Another new feature:

Yesterday I created a calendar event for an appointment, and today I noticed there's a field in the event details, showing me the confirmation number for that appointment.

I did not enter that confirmation number. Presumably, Siri AI proactively found it in the email I received and added it to the calendar event after I created it.

 

[foqus]

If they use Exchange (if it's a locked down corporate / government job they probably do) then you probably use Outlook, and can probably view that in Calendar and have most of the same benefits. Outlook itself will likely be updated to support this soon. Unless they get anticompetitive and force Copilot (which is probably also blocked by your government job.)



Same as above, especially with a regular Google account. Just sign in and add it as viewable in Calendar.

Thx, and yep, I tried that. I'm supposed to be able to add my Apple Calendar to Outlook. I followed the instructions exactly as written and I just could not get it to work. I think the only way I would be able to view Apple Calendar on my government computer would be if Apple separated it from iCloud, which they won't do. I don't blame Apple for that, but I do blame them for not letting me color my events and days in any color that I want.

 

[CarAnalogy]

Thx, and yep, I tried that. I'm supposed to be able to add my Apple Calendar to Outlook. I followed the instructions exactly as written and I just could not get it to work. I think the only way I would be able to view Apple Calendar on my government computer would be if Apple separated it from iCloud, which they won't do. I don't blame Apple for that, but I do blame them for not letting me color my events and days in any color that I want.

I actually had occasion to look at this the other day and ironically you could probably do it on Android, because the syncing seems to go the other way around.

But Apple does indeed seem to insert themselves into the login process on iOS because you have to log in at the system level.