Secrets of the iPod and iTunes (Fifth Edition) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Chapter 8. Make a Date

After Apple sanctioned the iPod for use as a contact keeper, none of us should have slapped our foreheads and bellowed, "Who woulda thunk it?" when the diminutive device was later updated to display calendars. Contact and calendar management go hand in hand, and if the iPod was going to serve as a personal information manager, eventually, it also had to support calendars.

Since the release of version 1.2 of the iPod software, it doesin iPods formatted for either the Mac or Windows. Such support likely wouldn't exist were it not for standards that make it easy to move calendar information from one place to anothercomputer to computer, computer to the Web, and computer to iPod, for example. Fortunately, such standards live in the form of vCalendar and iCalendar: universal formats, similar to the vCard standard, that allow you to transport contact information easily from hither to yon (and beyond).

In this chapter, I'll give you the lowdown on these standards and show you how to best put them to use with your iPod and your computer's calendar application.