The sparse, ultra-simplified Calendar app for iOS is so
simple, you may find yourself scratching your head when it comes to
performing the most basic of tasks—like, you know, checking which
appointments you have on a given day.
Indeed, sharing a calendar with a friend can be something
of a puzzle until you know which tiny, nondescript button to tap—same
goes for seeing the entire week at a glance, viewing a list of all your
upcoming events, or changing the color of a specific calendar.
Read on for ten tips that’ll help you get your bearings
with Calendar, as well as a few advanced pointers on setting default
alert times, dealing with time-zone changes, syncing a non-iCloud
calendar, and more.
1. Switch between daily and “list” view
If you tap on a date in Calendar on your iPhone, you’ll get
an expanded view of your daily appointments—just scroll up and down to
see which hours are free and which are booked, with each event
color-coded depending on the calendar to which it’s assigned. Swipe back
and forth to see the next day or the last, or tap the Back button to
see your entire month.
All well and good, but iPhone users familiar with older
versions of Calendar often ask what happened to the handy “list”
view—the one that let you see all your upcoming events in a compact,
at-a-glance list. A flick of your fingertip used to let you scroll days,
weeks, even months ahead.
Well, good news: Apple didn’t jettison this “list” view from Calendar. Instead, it’s hiding in plain sight.
Meet the List button. In the “day” view, you’ll find the
button (which looks like a tiny bulleted list) in the top-right corner
of the screen, to the left of the Search button. Tap it, and your
upcoming events will be arranged in one big, scrollable list.
Note: There’s no “list” button in the iPad version
Calendar—instead, you’ll have to settle for the monthly view, which
boasts details for each day’s events.
2. See event details from the month view
The standard month view in Calendars for iPhone offers a
blank, rather unhelpful grid of dates—tap one, and you’ll jump to the
expanded daily view. Want to see the whole month again? You’ll have to
tap the Back button.
That’s the routine, unless you’re hip to the Details
button, which—much like the List button—sits unobtrusively next to the
Search button in the top corner of the screen.
Tap the Details button, and a list of events for the
selected date will slide into view, with the rest of the month still
visible. Tap another day of the month, and you’ll see the events for
that day. You can even switch months by swiping up and down.
3. See your entire week on your iPhone
The iPad version of the Calendar app has four clearly
marked views to choose from: Day, Week, Month, and Year. On an iPhone,
the Day, Month and Year views are (relatively) easy to find, but what
about the Week view?
Easy—just tilt your iPhone into landscape orientation. When
you do, your week will twirl into view, no matter which calendar view
you were checking.
4. Drag and drop calendar events
The most obvious way to change the time of an event in
Calendar is to tap it and edit its “start” and “end” times, but there’s
actually a much easier way.
Just tap and hold an event until it pulses, then drag it
anywhere you like in your calendar. You can also grab one of the little
handles above or below an event to pad it out or cut it short.
5. Ask Siri to add or change an event
If you want to add or edit a calendar appointment without any tapping at all, just ask Siri.
For example, you can say “Add a meeting to my calendar” or
“move my 12:00 p.m. meeting,” and Siri will take care of the rest,
asking you to fill in any blanks.
6. Share a calendar with a pal
In just a few taps, you can let any fellow iCloud user view and/or edit any of your calendars. Where do you tap, though?
Try this...
- First, tap the Calendars button at the bottom of the screen to see a list of all your iCloud calendars.
- Now, see the little “info” button next to each calendar? Tap one, then tap the “Add Person” link in the “Shared with” section.
- Go ahead and add anyone you like—well, anyone with an iCloud account, that is.
Bonus tip: You’ll only see the “Shared with”
option for iCloud calendars, not Google or other third-party calendars
that you’ve added. That said, you can always share, say, a Google
calendar with someone using Google’s own sharing options.
7. Turn off shared calendar alerts
If you share a calendar with someone and give them editing
privileges, you’re going to start getting alerts whenever that person
adds, edits, or deletes events from your shared calendar. That can be
handy if you need reminders of new and nixed appointments, but all those
alerts can get pretty annoying—particularly given that they’ll pop up
on all your connected iCloud devices.
To turn off alerts for shared events, go back to the
Calendars button at the bottom of the screen, tap the “info” button next
to the calendar you’ve shared, then flip off the “Show Changes” switch.
8. Change the color of a calendar
Each of your events in Calendar is color-coded depending on
which of your various calendars the events were created on. If you’re
not happy with the color of a given calendar, there’s an easy fix.
You can change the color of a given calendar in just a few taps.
Tap the Calendars link at the bottom of the screen (again),
tap the “info” button next to a calendar, then pick a new hue under the
Color section.
Note: Nope, you can’t change the color of a Google calendar—don’t ask me why.
9. Set a default alert time
There’s no need to waste precious seconds setting up an
alert each and every time you add a Calendar event on your iPhone and
iPad. Instead, just set up a default alert time that will apply to each
new event going forward.
You can set up a default alert time that’ll apply to each new event going forward.
From the iOS home screen, go to Settings > Mail, Calendars, Contacts,
scroll down to the Calendars section, tap “Default Alerts Times,” then
pick an option: Anything from five minutes before an event to a full
week beforehand.
You can also set up separate default alerts for regular events, birthdays, and all-day events.
10. Start the week whenever you want
According to most Western calendars, Sunday marks the
beginning of each week. If for you, though, Monday (or Tuesday, or even
Wednesday) feels like the start of your week, no problem.
