CalDAV unites Google Calendar and iCal

Even with all the recent MobileMe goodness, I’m still dependent on Google Calendar, even if just to maintain backup access to my calendar in the cloud. I use Spanning Sync to keep my current calendar updated on both GCal and iCal, and Spanning Sync works with few problems. It’s an excellent program. And there are other good syncing programs like Calgoo, Goosync, etc.

Now, there’s a more direct way to sync your calendar. Google Calendar has added CalDAV support – which is the web protocol that iCal uses for calendar data. The current flavor of CalDAV works only with iCal, although other calendar programs support the protocol and will presumably be able to sync at some point.

Google’s instructions for setting up CalDAV on iCal.

I set up the syncing for my principle calendar earlier today, and in a couple minutes (it can take up to 15 minutes) my Google calendar appeared as a separate calendar in iCal. It’s easy, this is a two-way sync, and it updates about eveyr 15 minutes.

It’s not as full-featured as Spanning Sync, however. With SS, you can sync multiple calendars, and designate existing iCal calendars to sync to GCal – the CalDAV creates a new calendar. You can sync multiple calendars with CalDAV but it’s not as straightfoward; that said, it ain’t rocket science.

So, if you use Calgoo or SS or another syncing program, you might want to investigate CalDAV – you don’t have to abandon your chosen program to do so. Or if you’d rather not… carry on!