Google Calendar is an incredibly useful tool for managing your schedule… but the web version has always been a little more useful than the mobile app that comes pre-loaded on most Android phones.
Not it looks like Google is finally adding two of the features I miss the most.
Last week Google finally added support for moving appointments from one calendar to another using the Android apps. In other words if you have separate calendars for work, home, travel, sharing with the family, etc, then you’ve always been able to view appointments from other calendars on a phone. But if you wanted to move an appointment created in one calendar to another, you had to fire up the web app.
Now you don’t need to do that anymore. You can fire up Google Calendar, edit an event, and then tap the first listing to see a list of available calendars. Just choose the one you want to move the appointment to.
Another feature that’s been web-only until now? Google Tasks integration.
If you wanted to create, view, or check off tasks you had to open a separate app. But a recent version of the Google Calendar app includes much of the code required to bring Google Tasks integration.
It’s not actually visible to users yet, but the folks at xda-developers figured out how to activate Google Tasks integration, suggesting Google could flip the switch for the general public soon.
These are honestly the two exact features that prompted me to look for an alternative to Google Calendar years ago… and I’ve found one. I’ve been happily using Business Calendar 2 for the past few years, and it meets my needs pretty nicely. It syncs with Google Calendar and Google Tasks, has handy day, week, month, and agenda views, and supports multiple calendars.
But if Google keeps improving the official Google Calendar mobile app, I might be tempted to switch one day.