The S60 Calendar and categories

I switched from Palm OS and Agendus to Symbian a few weeks ago. As I rely heavily on my GTD like self management, catetorzing all my todo's and dates is a must. To my big surprise, the S60 calendar does not support categories! Already my Palm Vx from 1999 did! I did some research on this. Because of the modular architecture of Nokias Symbian phones, it was not clear who would be responsible for that. Is it a limitation of Symbian OS, of the S60 frontend or is it Nokia, who build my E51? Starting at the ground, I first took a look at the S60 programmer documentation. Using the search on http://developer.symbian.com, I found'Using the new Symbian OS v9 Calendar API'. There you will find the following: "The Calendar API replaces the Agenda API that was present in versions of Symbian OS prior to v9.1, and provides functionality according to the standard RFC 2445, which defines the iCalendar standard, a common format for openly exchanging calendar and scheduling information across the internet. "... "3.3.5.6 Categories One or more category types, defined in TCalCategoryType, can be associated with calendar entries. The predefined types include: ECalAppointment, ECalBusiness, ECalHoliday, ECalMeeting, ECalMiscellaneous, ECalPersonal, ECalPhoneCall, ECalSickDay, ECalSpecialOccasion, ECalTravel and ECalVacation. The type is specified when the category object is created. Categories are used similarly to attendee lists, with a CCalCategory object and AddCategoryL() and CategoryListL() methods. The CCalCategoryManager object can be used to add or delete user-defined categories and to filter calendar entries by category asynchronously." So it looks like that Symbian OS is not the problem.

I just have been in contact with Pockettorch, the makers of AquaCalendar and AquaSync. They confirmed me, that the Symbian OS calendar database already supports calendar categories. They now it, because their AquaCalendar already use these. Because the Nokia sync tool also does not support categories, they made their own AquaSync, which does it.

Nokia, this is a shame. This is absolute basic functionality, if you want to be taken serious in the smartphone market. Sure, on all smartphone platforms, you would better replace the built in calendar with a more functional 3rd party product, if you are a heavy calendar user. But for basic functionality, users should not have to go for 3rd party products. Looking on the S60 website, I found a page where users can vote for their most wanted apps. There is already a wish for Outlook categories sync with S60 calendar, but it has only 25 votes. So if you want categories in the calendar app, here is your chance to make your vote count.

http://www.s60.com/life/wishlist/displayWishDetails.do?wishId=731&activeCat=7

I don't know if it is anything good for, but maybe it is worth trying...

UPDATE: As we now have Symbian.org, use the following link instead:

http://ideas.symbian.org/Idea/View?ideaid=4478

This is a BLOG about all these toys I love to play, and sometimes work, with. These are gadgets like Smartphones and PDA's, GPS navigation, computers (mostly Mac's), video consoles and what else I found for digital home entertainment. Working in the enterprise software industry, in my freetime I figure out what the funny aspects of tech are. But as I heavily rely on some of these techniques for my work, eg. Smartphones for self management and GPS navigation for business trips, these aspects sometimes get mixed up. Also I do my own way of GTD or ZTD like self management, so I will sometimes drop an article about that.

Language disclaimer: This is my first BLOG in English, trying to reach a broader audience then with the predecessor 'Arnes Tüddelkram'. So please be kind if you will find some wierd English here, just drop me a note.