BusyCal and the new MobileMe Calendar beta

Apple recently announced a new MobileMe Calendar beta that offers an improved interface and enables calendar sharing with other MobileMe users.

The MobileMe Calendar beta functions as a cloud-based CalDAV server, similar to the iCal Server included in Snow Leopard Server. Calendars on your Mac are now synced with MobileMe via CalDAV. Previously, calendars on your Mac were synced with MobileMe through Sync Services.

We think this is a good move on Apple's part. Sync Services is very fragile, and the sooner Apple can move away from it the better. Syncing with MobileMe via CalDAV is a step in the right direction and should make MobileMe syncing more reliable and extensible. That's the good news.

The bad news is that BusyCal does not currently support CalDAV and the MobileMe CalDAV calendars will appear read-only in BusyCal. Therefore, BusyCal users should NOT use the MobileMe Calendar beta at this time.

We are working on CalDAV support in BusyCal and expect to release a public beta that is compatible with the MobileMe calendar beta later this summer. If you are a BusyCal user, please wait until the BusyCal public beta is available before using the MobileMe Calendar beta. You can be notified of its availability by signing up here:

http://www.busymac.com/beta.html

If you are already using the MobileMe calendar beta, you have two options:

1) Use the new MobileMe Calendar beta with iCal. Your MobileMe calendars will be read-only in BusyCal.

If you want to continue using the MobileMe Calendar beta, you'll have to use iCal for editing events on your MobileMe calendars. The MobileMe calendars will appear read-only in BusyCal. You can continuing using BusyCal to edit shared calendars on the LAN and on Google.

or

2) Switch back to the old MobileMe Calendar and continue using BusyCal.

If you want to switch back to the old MobileMe Calendar, which is compatible with BusyCal, you can do so by clicking the following link:

http://www.me.com/calendar/downgrade/

Comments

[Scott Rose]

Thank you so much for this heads-up!

[Andrew Rodney]

>Switch back to the old MobileMe Calendar and continue using BusyCal.

Your product is so great, I’ll happily wait until you have this support and can live without the Apple beta (which I singed up for but will likely not use) in lieu of your product.

[scott s]

so what about calendars on ical? if i have 6 calendars on ical, can I continue to edit them using busycal, and just use the mobileme beta to view the calendars (and sync the data to my mobile devices)

[John]

scott s -- No, that won't work. You should wait until the BusyCal public beta is available before using the MobileMe Calendar beta.

[Chanson]

Oops, read that too late and now it won't downgrade to the old MobileMe Calendar: "Couldn't complete downgarde [...] CalendarDowngrade.ServerErrorWarning.error_26". Being able to use BusySync is definitely more important than using this beta. Any ideas?

[Caleb]

Can you provide a comparison between BusySync (SyncServices) and the new MobileMe Calendar beta (CalDAV)?

[YJ]

Will BusySync continue to work?

[Paul Guinnessy]

Is this the reason why mingler, busycal, and syncservices have been grabbing 1.5Gb of my memory in the last few days, and slowing my machine down to be unusable?

[Justin Mrkva]

Just noticed this when I started the beta... unfortunate, but I'll be switching back to the old MobileMe Calendar for now. Don't rush the CalDAV support... just make sure it works well. I'll be looking forward to the public beta!

[Andrew]

Excuse my ignorance but did I have to physically do anything to start using the new MobileMe caladar beta or did it come as part of an update? I have been using busy cal today it it SEEMS to working...... Might be a stupid question but there you are.

Cheers

AP

[Bryan Hoffman]

I upgraded MobileMe before reading this and awoke this morning to a blank BusyCal. No calendars at all, not even read only.

Downgraded MobileMe and everything seems to be coming back on line now. Whew!

[GSmith]

I just downgraded from MobileMe Calendar Beta to the old version, but Busycal is still blank. Installed the latest Busycal update, but it's still blank. Any thoughts?

[Markito]

Me too. Had regrets about the MobileMe beta, downgraded and now have a totally BLANK busyCal and iCal. H-E-L-P!!!!

[Matt Gallagher]

Same problem as GSmith. Upgraded to the MobileMe beta, then downgraded. Calendars appear in iCal but not in Busycal, which is all blank

[Bill]

I had the same issue of downgrading from MobileMe calendar and getting a blank BusyCal calendar, but then I went back to the most recent BusyCal backup and reloaded that. All the claendars came back ... had to re-enter a few appointments, but nothing bad since the backup was recent.

~/Library/Application Support/BusyCal

Hope that helps.

[Egil Helland]

Any news as to when BusyCal will be up-to-par with the new MobileMe updates? I would hate to go back to iCal now, but if Apple decides the Beta is complete and BusyCal is not updated, we have to the way things are now.

Communicating your plans for BusyCal support of this next version would be most welcome!

[Rich]

I have downgraded and now BusyCal works, but I have nothing in my calendar on my iPhone. any suggestions? I turned iPhone calendar sync off and on, but still nothing on the phone.

Thanks,

Rich

[Greg]

Yep! I quickly downgraded when I realized it fundamentally changed the way iCal works and the problems with BusyCal. I was also disappointed that the new MobileMe iCal beta do not compatible with Leopard!?! That is just ridiculous.

[inf]

Any news on the beta version?

[John]

The BusyCal pubic beta with CalDAV support is coming along nicely but is not ready for public beta testing yet. It should be available sometime in September. You can sign up here to be notified when it's available:

http://www.busymac.com/beta.html