Google Calendar vs iCloud Calendar which would you pick and why?

[jagooch]

I'm torn between these 2 calendar apps because of 2 features.
iCloud - Time to leave alert is great.
Google Calendar - calendar sharing, especially free/busy with the public so that realtors, business clients, boss, etc don't see the details but know when I'm busy.

 

[Lunder89]

You can add your Google Calendar to Calendar in Mac and get that feature. I have just tested it on my Mac.

 

[jagooch]

You can add your Google Calendar to Calendar in Mac and get that feature. I have just tested it on my Mac.

I have not been able to get the to work. I tested it early this week by adding an event to my Google calendar in Fantastical 2 , and it did not have a "time to leave" alert option.
I then moved the event to my iCloud calendar, and the "time to leave" alert option appeared.

 

[Lunder89]

I just created a calendar appointment in "Calendar", Apples own calendar app, and by adding a an address of the appointment, I get the option of being notified when I need to leave.

I don't know about Fantastical, I have never used it.

 

[jagooch]

I just created a calendar appointment in "Calendar", Apples own calendar app, and by adding a an address of the appointment, I get the option of being notified when I need to leave.

I don't know about Fantastical, I have never used it.

No worries. My new test results are disappointing. Using Apple Calendar, I created 2 new appointment with the same location but different times and different titles.

At first it looked good because both appointments on my iMac had "time to leave" notifications.



Then I checked my Macbook Pro and iPhone which were right next to me ( on the same network and same icloud account).
Both of them displayed the iCloud appointment , but neither displayed the Google Calendar appointment.

I went to calendar.google.com and checked for the appointment - nothing.
I'd like to troubleshoot this further, by plate if full with a bunch of web development work I need to get done today, so for now I'll stick with iCloud calendars since they work.

I removed the google calendar and re-added it to my Mac and check the calendar refresh settings , settiing them to 1 minute for Google Calendar. That didn't fix the calendar sync issue. Strangely enough, Google email and contacts are working fine. It's just the calendar that doesn't like me.

Feel free to post any ideas you may have.

(purple is Google Calendar, blue is icloud calendar)

 

[Lunder89]

I see your problem. I don't sync my Google Calendar, I only use it on my Mac. So I didn't figure that out. Sorry...

 

[Significant1]

Both of them displayed the iCloud appointment , but neither displayed the Google Calendar appointment.
(purple is Google Calendar, blue is icloud calendar)

I just tested on my iMac and it gets synced to my iphone and macbook with the time to leave warning. If I check the appointment on calendar.google.com or googles calendar app on iPhone it does not have warnings.

So as long as you stick to Apple's calendar apps it should work with a google account.

Maybe you checked to quick. I don't think google calendar get pushed like icloud, at least that is the case with mail

 

[Lunder89]

Correct, Google Calendar doesn't push. For some reason they don't think people need that. It updates every 15 minutes. I think.

 

[jagooch]

I just tested on my iMac and it gets synced to my iphone and macbook with the time to leave warning. If I check the appointment on calendar.google.com or googles calendar app on iPhone it does not have warnings.

So as long as you stick to Apple's calendar apps it should work with a google account.

Maybe you checked to quick. I don't think google calendar get pushed like icloud, at least that is the case with mail

Fantastical 2 seems to be the problem. I repeated the test using the stock Apple Calendar app on my iMac. The Google Calendar appointment had "time to leave" and it appeared almost immediately on my iPhone , which is also now using the stock iOS Calendar app.

I've decided to switch Calendar and Contacts over to G Suite since it has better features plus I'm already paying for it.

My personal email ( @mydomain.com ! ) is already there because of ability to use tags and the advanced filter rules. I did give iCloud.com email another try , and the Web filter tool was too basic for my needs. I also cannot access it from my iOS devices , which is something I discussed ( or disgust! ) in another thread. It also won't let me have a custom domain. Apple just isn't interested in offering that.

I love my Apple products, but their services don't have the features that I want. Hopefully that will change in a the near future after they spend less time building new campuses and more time creating competitive products and services.