I don’t classify myself as an Apple fanboy. I mostly prefer Apple products over competing ones, and I do find life is easier if I allow myself to be assimilated by a single ecosystem, but my opinion pieces are variously critical and supportive of Apple – and I’m certainly not blind to cool tech offered by Apple competitors.
I was particularly impressed by a feature Google released this morning: automatically and intelligently finding time in your calendar to work on your personal goals.
Most of us these days lead busy lives with packed schedules, and sometimes it can feel hard enough just keeping up with the essentials of work, family and those boring but essential chores – from clearing out the gutters to filing tax returns. When we do get some downtime, it’s all too easy to fill it with Facebook, Netflix and other time-snaffling activities.
This means those personal goals we optimistically come up with in the first enthusiastic days of welcoming in the new year – like writing a novel (gratuitous plug), learning a new language, running a marathon, or practicing a musical instrument – all too often get neglected …
The way Google’s new calendar feature works is simple but really well thought-through.
You start by setting a goal. Google prompts you with some categories, like exercise and building a skill. It then offers some suggested activities within those categories, but of course also allows you to specify your own.
Once you’ve chosen your activity, the Calendar app asks you how often you want to engage in it:
- Once a week
- Twice a week
- Three times a week
- Five times a week
- Every day
It then asks you to let it know how long you’d like to devote to the activity each time, from 15 minutes to two hours, and the best time of day: morning, afternoon, evening or no preference.
Once it has all this information, the app intelligently looks for free time in your calendar into which it can slot your chosen activities.
Of course, just because a time slot is free when Google goes looking for it doesn’t mean it will remain free. That 15 minutes you had free on Thursday afternoon could be snagged by a meeting. So the app prioritizes manually-scheduled appointments over the ones it auto-scheduled.
Additionally, when you’re prompted to begin an activity, you have the option to defer it – in which case the app looks for the next suitable slot – or to manually reschedule it. Google being Google, the master of data-driven decision-making, the app also intelligently learns from your deferring or rescheduling of activities to try to suggest more appropriate time-slots in the future.
I absolutely adore this idea. I love technology which genuinely enhances our lives, and I love technology which is smart. This is both.
It’s also completely in line with Apple’s ethos. Apple frequently emphasises the ways in which its technology can help us be more creative and learn new skills, so this is absolutely on-message for the company. I hope this is one Google idea that Apple introduces in its own Calendar apps.
How helpful do you think this feature would be in helping you meet your own personal goals? As ever, please take our poll and share your thoughts – and goals – in the comments.
Check out our other Feature Requests, some of which have materialized, here.
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Here’s another feature request: how about a widget in the Notification Center you can pull down select a contact or enter a #, type a quick text message, and off it goes. All without having to go to the messages app and not leaving the current app you’re on???
It seems to be like something to beef up Reminders with (which IMO needs an overhaul anyway because there’s nothing to it yet it’s confusing) and then Reminders can talk to Calendar, Fitness on the Watch, etc.
I’m totally with you on the Reminders thing (it would be great if reminders would sync with calendar). Heck, very disappointed at this point. I just rolled off Android to the iOS platform a couple of months ago, and wouldn’t you know the google apps harmonize much better now (inbox, keep, now).
This was simply ‘Timeful’, an app which I loved until Google bought it and killed it.
Apple’s calendar app is brilliant, yes it would be better with some upgrades but I’m one of the many people who purchased Fantastical and I don’t see why Fantastical is all that great and why it’s worth 50€ on the Mac App Store.
“Borrow.” Steal. Take your pic. If it were the other way around — Xx “borrowing” from Apple, surely everyone would cry foul.
That said, I like that the Mac calendar works with my Google accounts (and therefore Android phone). I’d be surprised to see the calendar on my Mac incorporate this feature; however, the notifications ought to be pushed to me while I’m working on a Mac.
Well, the Timeful calendar app did appear on first on the iPhone, but now Google owns it and has shut it down. ;-)
Er, make that :( .
Goal-oriented features sound great, but I don’t think they belong in Calendar. There are already so, so many other apps out there that offer goal tracking and more robust planning. Bloating more features onto Calendar just isn’t necessary.
True, there are a ton of options out there for goal setting. Having it integrated into the calendar helps increase the chances of the activity being completed within our ever changing schedules. To Ben’s point, having it adjust to unexpected issues is pretty useful. As is the auto and manual rescheduling. I don’t understand the ‘bloat’ portion of your comment. It’s simply an additional feature (like many others) that you can choose to use or not.
I’ve wanted something like this for absolutely ages! Something that can work around your schedule and slot in things is such a good idea!
What I would like is something like the circles on the Apple Watch for tracking your activity. Those circles that I always see are great at motivating me to work on my move / exercise goals. I wish I could add custom circles to be tracked (like particular exercises I want to add to my routine).
Bottom line. Apple IOS calendar should have split view(top half screen is a month calendar view, bottom half is selected day events view). Each events should be able to color code and if alarm is set or not shows up on right of each event in a day view. Also, small description of each event in a month view is good idea. These basic features are available in many calendar apps on IOS and android for a long time.
The view you are requesting for Apple IOS calendar has been there for as long as I can remember. When looking at the month view, just click on the first icon in the group of three icons on the top right.
You are right. it’s their. But I wanted to say more on slight enhancement. if Apple’s Stock Calendar’ adopts two simple views(month,mini month) from the like “Week Cal” App than that would still keep it simple yet very functional awesome app. For example, Stock calendar takes 3/4 of screen for month view wasting space vs Week-Cal takes half and bottom half for days events with alarm and color codes for events. It’s Mini-month view is excellent which displays month with each event’s partial description.
I expect this is related to Google’s acquisition – and subsequent discontinuation – of Timeful, which was a pretty interesting iPhone app, research project, and startup company. I believe it was started by a computer science professor and one of his graduate students. Kind of a shame – I always wanted to try it out, but the Timeful iOS app is no more.
Ah looks like Mike Lee Thomas pointed this out above, though it was strangely omitted in the original article. Sad though.
Not in Calender. Reminders, maybe. i just don’t see it being that useful to know a 15 minute window in the middle of a work day just opened up so I can work on my personal goals. What am I going to do, yoga at my desk? I don’t know what tech bloggers do all day but I work in between meetings. If a 15 minute window opens up, then I work for another 15 minutes.
Meh… kinda neat, but there’s a lot more stuff I’d like to see in calendar first.