iPhone OS should provide Calendar and Clock APIs

Originator:neven.mrgan
Number:rdar://6784926 Date Originated:4-13-2009
Status:Duplicate/5789160 Resolved:
Product:iPhone Product Version:
Classification:Feature (New) Reproducible:Not Applicable
 
Many existing iPhone applications would benefit from access to the built-in Calendar and Clock apps. APIs for these should be provided to allow richer apps and integration.

Examples:

- A medication-tracking application could create a schedule of dosing and alert the user via the built-in Clock alarms or Calendar alerts.
- An event finder app (for music, political events, showtimes) could offer the ability to add the event to the user's calendar right from the app.

In both of these cases, using the Push Notification service would be overkill, it would require Internet access, and it would fail to clearly disclose to the user that a notification is scheduled. By using the standard Clock and Calendar apps, this would allow the user to see and manage the scheduled events right in those apps.

The API could work one-way (allow adding of events and alarms only) or both ways (allow user-initiated reading of the user's calendar). For maximum security, the user could just be presented with the standard alarm/event-adding sheets. This would make it clear where the events are going to be added.

The alarm/event should also store an event ID or other identifier that could be passed to the app when the user is alerted. Example: the medication alert would provide a "View in MedicalApp" button which would open the originating app and let it load the specific event.

Comments

Timed reminders as a first step?

While a complete calendar API would be very useful and I truly hope Apple will add it in a future release, I think that a way to post timed reminders locally into the APN mechanism would be very simple to add for Apple and would nicely fit into their current (restrictive) policy regarding background activity.

I posted this as rdar://problems/6715863 on 24-Mar-2009 18:23 and it was closed by Apple as being a duplicate of rdar://problems/5761795 (I also posted a general request to disclose the calendar API in March 2008 as rdar://problems/5789813 which was closed as being a duplicate of the same rdar://problems/5789160 as the original poster's entry).

I duplicated the two rdars above into OpenRadar now (http://openradar.appspot.com/radar?id=61406 and http://openradar.appspot.com/radar?id=61407)

By syncluz at July 26, 2009, 3:57 p.m. (reply...)

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