7-Day Week View in Google Calendar for Android

The latest update to the Google Calendar app for Android brings a lot of new features. You can see more events with the new 7-day week view and pinch-to-zoom, add Google Drive files to events, hide Google+ birthdays from the settings, show week numbers and import .ics files from other apps. The new version is gradually rolling out over the next few days.

The feature that lets you hide Google+ birthdays will also be added to the web interface next week. All the other features are already available in the desktop site.

Change All-Day Event Notifications in Google Calendar

Google Calendar now lets you change notification time for all-day events. When you create a new all-day event or edit an existing event, you can ask Google to notify you X days before the event at HH:MM.

You can also set a default notification time in the settings. "Event notifications tell you about an all-day event at a specified time some number of days before it begins. For example, if you'd like to be alerted about an all-day event at 9 am the day before it occurs, you'd set a notification," informs Google.

Eric Ward, a reader of this blog, noticed this new feature and he says that he's "glad to see this feature because previously the reminder was by default at 4:50 pm on the day before the event with no ability to set the time." Google Calendar's help center hasn't been updated and it still informs users that "reminders for All Day events are based on 5:00 pm the day before the event (according to your current time zone). So, if you choose to receive your reminder 10 minutes before your All Day event on August 24th, you'll be reminded on August 23rd at 4:50 pm".

{ Thanks, Eric Ward. }

New Google Calendar Favicon

Google Calendar has a new favicon and it looks just like the icon of the new Google Calendar app for Android, except that it changes every day.

The new icon is also added to the landing page that introduces the updated Google Calendar app. Here's a bigger version.

Google Calendar last updated the favicon back in 2011, when it started to change every day.

{ Thanks, Hamish. }

Google Calendar Permalinks

Google Calendar for desktop has recently been updated. The changes may seem minor, but they add some features that were already available in Gmail and make Google Calendar a better app.

Google Calendar now uses permalinks for all views, sections and events. You can quickly bookmark them, as the URL changes in the address bar when you switch to a different view, open an event or use the search feature. An important side effect is that you can now uses the browser's back and forward buttons in Google Calendar.

Another new feature is that Google Calendar updates automatically. You no longer need to click the refresh button to make sure that all the events are updated and you're not missing some new events.

The calendars from the "other calendars" section that are currently enabled are now placed at the top of the list. This is useful if you've added a lot of calendars.

{ via +Gmail }

A Smarter Google Calendar

If you wanted a Google Calendar that works more like Google Inbox, that's what you'll get in the new version of Google Calendar for Android.

The new Google Calendar is designed to be "a helpful assistant", so it creates events automatically using information from your Gmail messages. If you book a flight, buy concert tickets or make a hotel reservation, you'll usually get an email conformation and Google Calendar now creates events by extracting relevant data from your email. The nice thing is that the events are updated if you change your reservations or your flights are delayed and you get email updates.

Google Calendar now offers suggestions when you create events and the suggestions are based on the events you've previously created. "With Assists, Calendar can suggest titles, people and places as you type, as well as adapt to your preferences over time. For example, if you often go running with Peter in Central Park, Calendar can quickly suggest that entire event when you type 'r-u-n.'"

Google uses data from Google Maps and other Google services to make the calendar look better. The new Schedule View "includes photos and maps of the places you're going, cityscapes of travel destinations, and illustrations of everyday events like dinner, drinks and yoga".

The new version of the Google Calendar app for Android requires Android 4.1 or later and it will be available in the coming weeks on Google Play Store. Google also promises to release a Google Calendar app for iOS. Hopefully, Google will also update the desktop version and the mobile web app.

Create Google Calendar Events in Google Search

You can now create events from Google Search. Type create event, add event, new event, add meeting or schedule appointment and Google shows the details for a generic Meeting event that starts in a few minutes. You can add the event to your calendar or click the time to go to Google Calendar.

A better idea is to enter something more specific: create event for Monday at 10am: write the report. This way, you can create the event directly from Google Search and you don't even have to open Google Calendar. It's similar to the "quick add" feature from Google Calendar, except that you need to add some text like "new event" or "create event" and detection doesn't work that well.

You can click "edit event" to open Google Calendar and make some changes.

This also works when you use voice input.

{ via Search Engine Land }

Gmail Will Remove Calendar Invitation Feature

When you use Gmail's "insert invitation" button, you get this message: "Starting July 2014, this feature will no longer be available. You can continue sending email invitations from Google Calendar."

Probably this feature wasn't used very often, but a small percentage of Gmail users will miss it, especially business users. Adding invitations from Gmail is more convenient than opening Google Calendar in a new tab, creating a new event and inviting guests.

"It (truly!) is always tough choosing which features to continue to support. We make these decisions carefully, so please know that! We'll still be supporting creating invitations, just through different steps. The workaround now is to click into calendar and to create an invitation from there," inform Gmail Community Managers.

{ Thanks, James Sacuan. }