Ben Lovejoy
There are times when something drives you nuts, and a long time later you
learn that there was a simple solution all along. So in case anyone else has
suffered from Apple Calendar timezone confusion, let me share it.
The confusion arises because of what I personally think is a rather odd
default by Apple, which probably reflects the life of senior Cupertino execs
more than the average iPhone or Mac user .
When you enter a new calendar event, it will of course default to your
current timezone. That's perfectly sensible.
If the event is for a planned trip, in which you will be in a different
timezone, then you can select that timezone from a dropdown. Once you're
actually in that timezone, then all is good: the event is shown at the
correct time.
The problem comes before that, when you are still in your own timezone. All
the events are shown in adjusted time.
Here's a real-life example. I'm currently in London, but added an event in
Las Vegas at 5 p.m. on January 4. When I select the Pacific timezone, the
event jumps, and is now shown as 1 a.m. on January 6.
I mean, technically that's correct: When I sit down for the dinner at 5 p.m.
in Vegas, it will indeed be 1 a.m. the following day in London. But there's
no need for me to either know or care about that, and it makes it really
hard to make sense of my schedule when looking at it ahead of time.
I think I understand the thinking. It always struck me as weird that, when
I look ahead at my schedule, it shows completely the wrong times (and
sometimes days), just because I'm in my home timezone when I'm looking. It
seemed to me to make far more sense to always show them at the correct time.
However, my theory is that these decisions are made by Apple execs, who (a)
travel a lot and (b) probably spend half their lives on conference calls.
That's the one situation where the default makes sense. If you have a call
at 2 p.m. Cupertino time, and then fly to Hangzhou in China, then you need
to know the local time for that call. Apple Calendar handles that situation
perfectly.
But for most of us, that default doesn't make sense.
Fortunately, there's a simple solution. When you select the timezone,
there's an option called Floating. That means the event will always be shown
at the time you picked, no matter which timezone you're in at the time.
So, when I put that 5 p.m. dinner in for Vegas, it will always be shown as 5
p.m. whether I look at my calendar ahead of time from London, or while I'm
actually there.
It's a little hidden in the dropdown, and only gets a single bullet at the
bottom of Apple's support document, so I'm guessing it's not just me who
never realized the option was there.
9to5Mac.
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