Google Calendar and iCal can sync for free, with caveats

By David Chartier

Is having calendar information online, on the desktop, and on a mobile phone too much to ask? Google apparently doesn't think so anymore, as the company has quietly enabled sync for Google Calendar, complete with instructions on how to plug into Apple's iCal.

Thanks to the flexible wonders of WebDAV, or more specifically, CalDAV, Leopard users can now plug their Google Calendar account (including those run on Google Apps) into iCal via this simple set of instructions straight from the Big G's Help Center. Setup involves plugging a few settings into iCal's Accounts preference pane, after which the initial sync should happen in a matter of minutes. After that, any changes made on either end should sync almost instantly, though this ubiquitous calendaring doesn't come without some drawbacks.

First, as MacUser notes, Google's instructions only cover a single calendar. If you need to sync more than one calendar with a Google Calendar account, you'll need to perform a similar process for each individual calendar you want to sync. Also, a number of known issues exist with this setup, such as event reminders not syncing, iCal errors when changing a calendar name or color, and of course, the fact that Google Calendar still amazingly doesn't support to-dos.

For those who need basic syncing between iCal and Google Calendar, this is an appreciated gesture from Google. Others who need more robust syncing of multiple calendars, reminders, and more, solutions like Spanning Sync and Busy Sync will probably still be a necessity.

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