Here's the latest reader comments on using iCal.
[Note - I'm too overloaded in mail and work to reply to all the reports - but thanks to all readers that took the time to send them.]

iCal Reader Reports: (most recent first)

(added 9/18/2002)
Hello Mike,
First I would like to say you are doing a great service to the mac users. Don't ever stop.
Now about iCal. I use a G4/DP/500mhz/1gig ram. I find iCal very fast in starting up. Two to three seconds or 2 bounces at most. Very responsive to using. I have not imported anything however. I use iCal for a different purpose than what most will use it for. It is many times faster than iPhoto, however I wish I could change fonts and colors of the text. I give it a 7 of 10 for what I do.
Matt M.

---

(added 9/18/2002)
"PowerBook G4 800Mhz
1GB RAM
40GB HD

Beautiful design and interface, but slower than my grandmother trying to scratch her own ass.

If they improve the speed, then I'll stick with it. At this point, I take anything other than M$.
Jon H. "

---

(reports added 9/16/2002 and earlier follow)

" This is a follow-up to my previous post. Pismo 500 with plenty of RAM. In the System Prefs panel, I opened the Login items and disabled (removed) FAXSTF Browser and all other FAXSTF items and my startup time has improved from 30 to 80 icon bounces to a consistent 8 bounces. Also, changing from day to week to month view is now much faster.
Still all in all, nowhere near NOW Contact NOW Up to date's speed and usability and functionality. Sure the internet subscription is a very cool feature but using a version that is not yet ready for release does not overcome the few cool items that it does do well.
Robert C. "

---

(reports added 9/13/2002 and earlier follow)

" I downloaded iCal today, thought it looked pretty cool. It runs a little slow on my dual USB ibook, but not bad. My only problem is that there is no isync app. And even when iSync is released, so what? An iPod has no way to input data like a Palm (Handspring) device, so my calendar app. is now one way--computer to handheld. Perhaps iSync should be called iDownload? Give us a new iPod with a big color screen Steve!!
Scott A. "

---

" Apple appears to violate their own user guidelines, close the iCal window when you press the "x" gumdrop and the app quits. Try that with iTunes and it keeps running.
-Tony T.
Installation Site Manager "

---

" Running iCal on my PM G4 Sawtooth 400, Radeon 8500, 1GB ram

SLOW. Takes about 8-12 bounces to open. Lots of redraw bugs. First time I opened it, I couldn't get it into month format. It often won't let me drag the window around the screen.

I also have noticed that, unlike most other programs, clicking on the red close button actually quits the program. The icon in the dock also doesn't show the right date all the time (it was still Sep 11 this morning, even though my system prefs are correct.) Does the program have to be open for it to change dates? I liked the idea that I could see the date on my desktop without having to open the clock menu.

Agree with most of the other posts on this page. A good 1.0 effort, but needs a lot of tweaking, speed increase. Looks like that powerlogix G4 upgrade i just ordered is going to make using OS X (and iCal) much more bearable.
Paul M. "

---

" I havenŐt experienced any of the slowness people are talking about with iCal. I am running I on an iBook 600 with 640mb of ram. Interface looks nice but I am sticking with Entourage as I prefer the mail and calendar all in one application.
-brennan "

---

" Hi there -
Not a report, but I can't help noticing that nearly all of the DUAL CPU owners seemed reasonably happy with the responsiveness of iCal - could this be a coincidence?

Rupert Stubbs
(increasingly thinking of replacing his G400 with a Dual 1GHz if the InDesign promo happens in the UK - and I still get to boot into 9.2.2 if I need to). "

---

(reports from 9/12/2002 and earlier follow)

" I'm running a G4/733, Graphite (purchased ~April 2001) upgraded to 512 MB of RAM, with standard GF2MX and Jaguar Final. The final is a lot faster than the beta, though it is still slow, but not unbearably slow. Beta was slower than molasses. Also, I believe the beta claimed to be 1.0 but had a build number like IE5, whereas the final says "v400".
Regards,
Jacob G. "

---

" ibook 700-dual usb-16m radeon-no extras at all
Did I miss something, but is there no way to duplicate events and then drag them around a calendar? How come there's no cut and paste for events?
Thanks.
Michael B. "

---

" Mike, GREAT SITE! I've been a follower for a couple of years (since I bought a my first Voodoo card - a Villagetronic 2 card set that cost almost $1000 - OUCH. Boy, F/18-Korea looked good though!)

OK now, this might make me sound a little sound simple, but I've been around and troubleshot extensively all the way back to system 7. I'm just getting to the point where I'm confident I know where everything is in this wacky UNIX-based system, and then this happens.

As I use the postscript version of any fonts when given the chance, I deleted the copy of HelveticaNeue.dfont. (Didn't think I'd need the damn thing) Now i've been all through both install disks, (files, packages, etc.) even the optional font installs, and can't find it anywhere. Am I gonna have to install the system on another partition just to get that font? It's gotta be easier than that.

You'd figure at least because it's such a well known issue, they'd have the font available to download somewhere.

Is there a place I can download it or can ask anyone to email it to me so that I can evaluate this free piece of software that's cost me several hours worth of frustration and troubleshooting?
Am I missing the simplest of solutions? Come on Apple, how could this little doozy slip by?
Scott S. "

Several readers sent the missing font file which I forwarded to Scott.

---

" Hi Mike,
There clearly must be some performance issues with 10.2 that only impact some user's systems. I certainly don't have a super fast system, PowerBook G4 550 with 512MB (identical to other users who've complained of bad performance), but iCal runs reasonably fast for me and I'd say I'm fairly sensitive to sluggish performance.

First launch took about 3 seconds, subsequent launches take about 2 seconds (3-4 bounces in the dock) with multiple other applications running (iCab, Eudora, etc). Window dragging is very responsive, no lag at all. Window resizing definitely isn't as good as it could be, especially the first time, but after the first resize it seems to keep up with the mouse much better. Resizing still noticeably lags the mouse and there's about a one second delay to resize from smallest window to full screen. Switching between day/week/month views could be faster, but isn't bad either, 1-2 seconds max. Minimizing window to the dock is smooth and similar to other applications. Dragging events around lags behind the mouse slightly, but again it doesn't seem bad. Double clicking a date or command-I causes the event info window to open nearly instantly (less than 1 second).
Brian "

---

" Mike, I don't know if anyone else has tried but the pdf export comes out corrupt, Is this just me or is this a quirk in the app?
Gabe G
G3 B&W running a g4 600, ati radeon 7000, 512mb ram., Mac Os 10.2 "

I've not used iCal - so I can't say if this is typical or not.

---

" Number one bug I notice that if I choose to export ToDos, they do NOT show up on the web.
It certainly is not *fast* on my G4-400/2GB/Radeon8500
Stephane M. "

---

" Hi Mike - thanks for providing an iCal feedback page.

TiBook 400 - 512 MB Ram
Yes it is a bit slow but it is a first release. I think the program is great but lacks one major feature. The calendar should be linked to the .mac account rather that the computer. My wife and I run a small business and would like to be able to edit a single calendar from two different locations. Publishing do not give us this capability.

If Apple were to do this (or something like it) it would give Mac users the same capabilities that Windows users have with calendar portion of Outlook Server. Imagine what that would mean for business users. It is the one function that I keep hearing that keeps business people from switching to Mac.
Cheers Tomas J. "

---

" You can transfer all of you iCal calendar info to your iPod. Simply drag all of your ".ics" calendar files (home>library>Calendars) to the Calendars folder of the iPod. All of your events will be combined into the iPods Calendar app.
Tony E. "

---

" Yes, it is slow, but not as slow as some users seem to indicate. On my system (G4 533 with 640 MB RAM) it takes about two to three bounces to start and about two seconds to switch between week and month view (this needs to be fixed). What I really want is a downloadable database of public holidays (for other countries than the US).
Since I don't use Entourage or other similar programs who may have better or more advanced features, I'm actually satisfied with this app.
Jens T. "

---

" Running on:
Powerbook G4-800
512MB of RAM

Running with just iCal, or my normal complement of applications, iCal is slow. Switching from Week to Month to Day is excruciating; sometimes switching to the month view takes minutes. On the other hand, Entourage X runs much faster (and even better under Jaguar). I want to like iCal, but at this rate, the combination of Mail.app, iCal, and Address Book are not replacing Entourage.

While I am on the topic - why doesn't iCal auto-populate with anniversaries and birthdays from Address Book? Why aren't there more custom fields in Address Book? Only 5 colors for iCal - give us more! As the thread at http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?50@230.FzO8aYCfdhs.1@.3bb9c43a
indicates, there is also a problem with SMTP and some mail hosts - which is my issue with my work SMTP servers.
Patrick S. "

(Apple forum thread links may not be valid in the future.)

---

(reports from 9/11 and earlier follow)

" This is in response to Robert's question about his NOW info and his Entourage email addresses and getting them into Address Book.

I donŐt have any experience with NOW, so I can't help there. To move contacts from Entourage to Address Book (or vice versa), there isn't an import option in Address Book for Entourage. However, I discovered that dragging a contact from Entourage to the Finder results in a vCard for that contact. Then dragging this vCard to Address Book adds without any noticeable hitches. Though, I haven't used Address Book much. I was primarily interested in being able to backup my contacts to iDisk using Backup. This may be common knowledge, but it was new to me recently. To do the whole book, I made a new folder on the desktop, dragged all of the Entourage contacts to the folder, then dragged the vCards from the folder to Address Book.

That doesn't help merge the two contact sources info together, but might be a useful method for moving addresses around.

On iCal, I have not experienced the huge speed problems that others have. The application opens after five Dock bounces and the interface updates reasonably quickly. Not the fastest, but screen redraws are not a problem. Also, I imported my few items from Entourage (mainly reminders for birthdays) and this proceeded quickly. I'm running the following:
PMac G4 Dual/450
768 MB RAM
ATI Rage128 Pro

I am not Quartz Extreme enabled. I thought perhaps there is a bug with iCal and QE, but your later responders are QE enabled and seem to be doing fine. I have a Radeon 8500 due in at any time. I'll see if it makes any major difference in iCal when it arrives.
Thanks for the great site!
Scott "

---

" Hey Mike,
I haven't d/l'd and tried the release of iCal yet, but I DID play with it quite extensively at MWNYC. Before anyone fires that it was "beta", the About box clearly stated 1.0 with no build numbers; so it couldn't have been that far back. And it was very slow, running on a 17" iMac under Jaguar beta. When I talked to one of the engineers on the project about it going faster in Final, he said it "wasn't likely". I left it at that and pretty much figured it wouldn't suit my needs.

I saw the same symptoms as others--glacial window resizing, slow scrolling (and I mean REALLY slow), slow drag and drop behavior, and rather limited feature-set.

After reading the reports you have gotten, I'm not sure what to think. Either Apple has a dramatic slow-down problem that is affecting a LARGE segment of the community in Jag, or some Mac users simply can't accurately define "fast". I have used many kinds of computers, and every Mac OS since 4. Unless this "slowdown bug" exists, I can quite definitively say that iCal is disappointingly slow. And if this weren't the case, I'm sure the Apple engineer would have been more than willing to correct me. I'm leaning towards not trusting some users...when I get behind the keyboard of Jaguar--on ANY Macintosh--it is reminiscent of getting behind granny and pappy on Sunday afternoon. My brain just moves faster than it. (I can NOT compare it to Entourage X however, as I still use Entourage 2001...since the former is "too slow".)
Scott B "

---

" Stats:
400mhz AGP G4
ATI Radeon 8500
Mac OS X 10.2

Downloaded iCal today...Nice import of my Palm exported (vcal) events... , takes about 3.5 seconds to switch between Month/Week/Day, When option-clicking to change from one calendar to another there is a 2 second delay after new calendar is selected, and then another 1 second delay to select the next for re-assignment....Totally frustrating, but very useful feature. It's simply too slow. I already published my school calendar for my wife to check from work...and sent a copy of the link to my principal....chose to open a brand new school with ALL DELL HARDWARE.
I like the software, wwwwaaaaayyyyyy tttttooooooooo sssslllllooowwww.
JT "

---

" G4/700 FP iMac 384 RAM
Imported my Palm Desktop info, and my wife's birthday is now the 11th of November, and not the 10th, like it's been for 39 years. Seems to fudge up a few other dates as well. I like Palm Desktop much better. I was hoping to dump Palm tonight, but I'll wait until version 1.2, .3,.4,.5??
Tom "

---

" Hi Mike:
From the low-end: As I wait for Sonnet to fix their Crescendo G4/WS upgrade card (a story in itself) I have been running Jaguar on a Wallstreet 266, 512mb, Travelstar 40GNX 20gb drive I've resuscitated for the heck of it (I have a company Pismo too). So if you want slow, I've got it.
But, believe or not, I've gotten used to the overall sluggishness (somewhat improved by Jaguar) so that for day-to-day web browsing, email, word processing, and light Dreamweaver and Photoshop work, all feels fine and I take a certain pride in being able to keep the Wallstreet usefully running.

So, when I put iCal on today I wasn't as fazed by its sluggishness as others, but it is indeed similar to the pokiness of iPhoto (one reason I use iView Media Pro). Launch time is irrelevant to me (how often do you launch it?), but window resizing can be painful (solution: set the window to a standard size that suits you and don't touch it!) Lags between views and To Do draws opening? Yes, a couple seconds. Still, I'll continue using it because despite its rough edges, minor display glitches, and some UI oversights, it's pretty slick in what it does. Publishing to the web and inviting people to events has been worked flawlessly for me, and it's free and is sure to be improved.

I've already emailed Apple asking that they make it possible to easily merge multiple calendars into one for publishing (I have need for such a feature right now). Having never systematically and habitually used any calendar app before (Palm Desktop and Entourage, both of which I've tried), it's saying something that I'm attracted by iCal and its promise of all-Apple integration enough to stick with it and use it habitually--despite its 1.0 shortcomings. -Gerald "

---

" System: iBook 500, 320 MB RAM
Experience: Overall a solid 1.0 release. Easy to use, relatively easy to understand. It would be easier to understand except that the app's lack of responsiveness reduces user feedback. One minor bug experienced. Publishing the calendar to .mac is very slick and the application behind it is very nice. However, it isn't obvious at first that only one "calendar" gets published at a time. It would be nice for the web application to be able to combine all of a user's calendars or at least contain links between a user's calendars.

Bug Experienced: An odd redraw error occurred in switching between day and month years. The day view resizes the overall window but in this case failed to do that, leaving a giant metallic border. Switching back to month view kept month small and left the giant border. I restarted the app and have not seen since.
adolph "

---

" My machine:
Power Mac 7300/450Mhz Upgrade
Radeon for Mac 2000 [7000?](Extreme Excellerated)
336 megs

I just downloaded iCal a little while ago and it seems simple, but isn't that the purpose. Apple has written a rough and albeit rather slow program, but it's users should remember that the true power of the programme is to publish and subscribe calendars. That said, iCal is pretty good for a v1.0. I have tested its speed with 5 concurrent calendars which slowed down the program quite a bit, most programmes would slow down with 5 documents open at a time. The usability is somewhat clunky but it is a start, hopfully Apple will show as much attention to iCal as with it's other iApps.

1) It took 11 bounces to open on my machine.
2) I got a pinwheel often when editing or adding appointments or dates.
3) I have experienced no startup problems.
4) There is no Canadian calendar yet on the web page for subscriptions.
5) I like the simple layout, personally, I don't need something like Entourage.

Conclusion: iCal is a good start. It's feature bare right now but I will be using it on a daily basis.
Myrddin E. "

---

(more comments from the reader that sent the first report at bottom of this page)
" I've noticed one iCal problem, and this may or may not really be an issue...
Let's say I set an event for 1pm today, and tell iCal to put up an alert, beep, etc.
Then I decide to turn off my computer. I leave, come back around 2pm (eg after the event's due time) and turn my computer back on.
iCal will not pop up a reminder, because it is now past the time for it to post an alert. iCal doesn't alert me saying an event is OVERdue.
Oops.
Behavior by design, bug, design flaw, my computer only?

(And yes, I did get iCal to speed up. Now it finishes opening in "only" five bounces. I didn't actually expect QE to speed up the resize, but I do expect window minimize and restore to not stutter on a supported QE video card.)
-w "

---

" "Long Live Claris Organizer!"
Anyone else get the feeling like they took and old car and gave it a new coat of paint? I'm not complaining, I'd drive a fine looking '65 Mustang any day.
David G. "

I like an OS X version of Emailer personally...

---

" Hi,
Here is my iCal report:
I downloaded iCal today with high hopes - I was really looking forward to having a decent calendar app to help me manage my life at Uni. My first impression was "wow! this looks pretty!". Using the application was simple enough, as you would expect from an iApp I suppose. But what really struck me about iCal was the glacial speed at which the UI refreshed after resizing the window or the inner panels - and I'm running a G4 800 QuickSilver! It takes literally 2 seconds between a click and drag on the resize control for the window to repaint on the screen - why Apple didn't choose to use outline resizing is a mystery to me. This is with a lightly populated calendar, I imagine it gets worse when you actually have lots of items. iCal also seems to take around a second between switching from day, week and month views. OK this is a 1.0 release, but this is so sluggish it's verging on being a joke. I hate to imagine what it's like on a G3 when a Quartz Extreme accelerated G4 can't run it reasonably.

I took a quick peek in the application bundle and it turns out pretty much every element of the interface is drawn from little TIFF files - could drawing all these images (many with alpha channels) be the source of the slowness? Surely Apple could use all the wizzy vector drawing routines in Quartz to speed this stuff up?

My other main criticism of iCal is Apple's rather poor UI design - yes it looks pretty but once you actually get into it you see it's missing many basic features (contextual menus anyone?) and the placement of many of the buttons is awkward - where is the clever Aqua toolbar, the much hyped drawers etc.?. I think Apple needs to wake up and realise that the iTunes interface simply can't be applied to every problem in the hope that it works.

Aside from all that I think iCal will be useful and hopefully will evolve into a great product. Oh and Steve - since you launched this at MacWorld Paris, you know in Europe, you might be so kind as to provide localised calendar subscriptions because all the ones provided are useless to those outside of America.
Take care,
Rory "

---

" I have a Beige G3 500mhz 512MB and iCal runs fine on mine... only lags during switches between day/week/month mainly. Small delay (1sec) between months and when adding new actions; about 5 bounces to open... not a big deal in my mind.
-Will "

Again it's not just the bounces/launch time that people have commented on... but many people seem to have fixated on the (unimportant in my opinion) number of 'bounces' to load - performance while using the software is far more important to focus on.

---

" iMac G4 800 768M RAM OS 10.2
iCal worked fine first time (well, once I read the instructions), loads no slower than Entourage and does what it says it does. Nice touches publishing the web page and send an email to whoever as well as the invite someone from the address. "iSync" will complete the app. Worried there might be some UK discrepancies, but none spotted so far.
Sorry I couldn't be more controversial.
Hugh "

Honest opinions/experiences are all that's asked for (and system details). Not everyone will agree on any piece of software of course.

---

" Hi Mike,
iCal looks great and works even better for me. I'm still playing around with it, but I have not noticed an issues with speed like the reader whose comments you posted earlier. It opens very quickly, however I do not have many events/appointments entered yet (only US Holidays so far).
I'm running a stock Powerbook G4/800, 512MB ram, etc...
Best regards,
Hunter M "

---

" Mike, Despite your first (reader) comments, iCal is not slow on my B&W G3 upgraded to a G4-600MHz, 384MB RAM, ATI Radeon7000. It opens in about 3 or 4 bounces and is quite responsive. There is only a slight (very slight) delay when switching from Week view to Month view. Overall it is VERY usable and easy to set up.
-Topher "

---

" I'm not sure whats going on with your other readers system, but on my system (Quicksilver Dual 800 ) iCal launches in 3 bounces and seems very snappy.
(I don't think it was just the launch time he was referring to, but some other reports differed from his.-Mike)
My machine:
Dual 800
1.5 GB of Ram
3 internal hard drives
1 external firewire hard drive
Sonnet Tempo 100 ATA card
ATI Radeon 7000 video card
ATI Radeon Mac edition video card in AGP slot
MacAlly USB 2.0 card
3 apps. running (Entourage, Mozilla, and System Preferences)

I suppose your other reader could try fixing permissions to speed up his system. When I did this it seemed to do just that.
jdkoiles "

---

" Hi Mike! I just downloaded iCal as well. However, I can't say I've ever seen "I've seen Photoshop 7 take fewer bounces to open". iCal takes less than 3 seconds to open on my Dual G4/500 which I'd say is snappy.

What ISN'T snappy is the interface within iCal... It suffers the same good-looking-yet-slow-and-sluggish-interface one finds in iTunes and iPhoto. Why Apple insists on using it I understand. It looks great and its built for easy of use... But when will performance be adequate!? Anyways...

It seems like a good, allround calendar I must say. Heck, its a bundled app with the system so I can't say I can ask for a whole lot more! It will be interesting to use it now for a few weeks at home and at work to see how well it makes my life more organised...
Regards,
Erik "

---

" Cannot agree with first report on iCal. Takes 3 to 4 bounces to start, switching between views is very quick, entering data no problems or delays.
Very nice interface.
G4/500 DP, radeon, 512 Mb ram
thanks for your site,
Marc "

---

" First deleting an event is kind of hard, sometimes I just click on one and hit delete and it goes away, sometimes I can't get it to go away at all! If I expand the window the column grids expand but not the title grid, really ugly. The app is slow in general, just like iPhoto. I don't understand WHY EVERYTHING HAS TO BE SO SLOW LATELY.
Justin G.
(Didn't note his system details as requested.) "

---

" The program crashes ("unexpectedly quits") if it can't find the Helvetica Neue font in /System/Library/Fonts. This is a farcically bad QA mistake on Apple's part. Also farcical: on a fresh 10.2 install on my TiBook, HelveticaNeue.dfont /wasn't installed/.
jfb"

---

" PowerBook G4 550 - 768 RAM
17" iMac G4 800 - 786 RAM
Installed iCal on both.

Seems responsive and stable. A little slow to come up from the Dock in Scale, but otherwise it's fine.

I went and downloaded some other packages from Apple (NFL and Fall TV schedule Pacific Time) and it works great.
http://www.apple.com/ical/library/
Mark B. "

---

" iCal is indeed a lovely new program from Apple. The ability to subscribe to Apple web calendars (like DVD, TV schedules and movie release dates) is worth every penny -- that is, if I had to pay for iCal... which I don't! So even more to love.

It is a bit on the pokey side when switching views from daily, weekly and monthly when you have lots of events. I'm running a Quicksilver 800DP, Jaguar (obviously), 1.1GB RAM, with an ATi Radeon 8500.

On a side note, people REALLY need to understand how Quartz Extreme works. A previous reader was bemoaning how slow iCal even though his Mac supported QE. Quartz Extreme won't do a thing to accelerate window resizing or even scrolling. Your CPU has to re-calculate the positions of all the buttons, fields, and text when you adjust a window's geometry. QE only accelerates the *compositing* of windows on top of each other. So moving a window is much faster with QE and takes much less processing by your main CPU.

I think users have an unfair and unrealistic expectation of what Quartz Extreme can do.
Navarro P.
KFMB TV 8
Graphics Department "

---

" Hi Mike,
Here are my comments about iCal :

- Great GUI, very clean and easy to use like most iApps are.
- There are a lot of features, alarms by email and .mac publishing are great, it will easily replace my Palm Desktop when iSync is avaible.
- Import options are not good enough :(
- it's slooooooow as iPhoto is.

On an iMac DV (350 Mhz, 512 MB of RAM) it's really painfully slow (when you open the research or tasks panel for example), on my PowerMac G4 dual 800 (512 MB of RAM, Geforce 2 MX 64MB) it feels OK but resizing the window is quite slow . I don't know why some iApps feel so slow even on a high end mac :(

But for a 1.0 release and a free product, that's really good !!!

I just hope every OS X developer will use the APIs for iCal and Address Book so we will have only one place to keep our addresses and events. I would love for example to have my desktop calendar (Panda Calendar) to use infos from iCal and have some apps to convert notes from other softwares to iCal format.
Lolo "

---

" For starters, it crashes if you don't have Helvetica.dfont. The Postscript version of Helvetica apparently won't do the trick...

Since a lot of graphic design types most likely ripped out their dfonts this seems a bit silly. I may write more if I get around that.
Eric T. "

---

" iCal
Runs pretty fast on my system (Dual 1GHz QS with 1.5 Gb ram) but it should on it.

Seems okay as an app - however did you notice the registration menu item in the Application menu? The other iApps do not have this - wonder what the change means?

Jaguar - an interesting issue.
Since installing Jaguar I have had some pretty spectacular system failures.
One occurred at shutdown, and the other occurred at startup.
The latest one was brutal - my whole record tree on my HD was screwed up. This is the one that happened on shutdown. The 'black screen' of death with the backtrace info said something about a problem with the ethernet adapter and/or driver. Norton could not do a thing about it (Latest version). I was able to bring the drive back to life with DiskWarrior. However I had over 200 lost directories (orphaned folders) which happened to be all my pref files. I am now back up after about 4.5 hours of repair.
All the hardware was check using both Apple diagnostics and Norton disk check - nothing.
This same system has been running since I got the system at the beginning of this year with the various 10.1.x builds. The only difference is I now have Jaguar on it and I work steadily on a project using GoLive 6.0.1. Not sure if GoLive has anthing to do with it mind you.
My head tech is running the 867 QS system and his died this morning as well. It had to be rescued with DW and Norton, but his was not as bad as mine. Again never a problem with it under 10.1.x.
I was wondering if anyone else has had anything major.
Both mine occurred about 3 weeks apart.
Andrew E. "

---

" Mike-
I can't agree iCal is slow, it does take several 'bounces' to open, about 2 seconds for me. Maybe as this is a small app we'd all expect it it be quicker.

Anyway, getting around in iCal is fast enough for me, simple layout and I have little doubt that Mac users will find themselves proficient at using iCal in short order. What I like was the subscription libraries, I subscribed to US holidays and the New England Patriots game schedule. Subscriptions are cool! Now if someone would make an astronomy-based subscription, I'd be all set.

iCal is another well done app from Apple, I am sure there will be issues and improvements, but this is off to a great start, IMO.
Tom "

---

" (first reader commented:
1) It's SLOOOOOOOOW. Disappointingly so in some places. Screen drawing is poky (I have an AGP 4x GeForce 2mx which is fully Quartz Extreme'd). Furthermore, I've seen Photoshop 7 take fewer bounces to open.)

Huh? It takes only 3 bounces to load on PB G4 667 DVI (1GB/30GB)... the 1st time I had it boot up, I said gosh it's fast for v1.0 software... much faster than iPhoto.
Tim "

(I don't think his slow comment was totally related to the app launching - but as noted here in other comments, not everyone thought it was slow.)

---

" Mike,
I had been waiting for iCal to replace Entourage as my main Calendar program, so when it was posted today, I was pretty excited.
But...
iCal is unbearably slow. I tried to import my Entourage calendar into iCal, and it took about an hour. During the import, about 15 swap files at 76.2MB were created, filling up my swap partition. This was the first time I've ever filled up my 1.5GB swap partition.

Once I was finally able to quit iCal, 9 swap files disappeared. I curious to see if others are having a similar experience.
Thanks.
John S
I have a PowerBook G4 550, 20GB HD, 512MB RAM. "

---

" Pismo powerbook with 640 ram. 32gig 5400rpm Travelstar drive. Slow is the word. Also, is someone can tell me an easy way to easily get my Now Contact-Now Up-to-Date contacts and calendar into the Address Book and iCal respectively I would greatly appreciate it. My problem is that Entourage has ALL My Email address, but all other contact info in in NOW. Any thoughts please?
Robert C "

I've not used iCal yet so if anyone has a tip for Robert let me know.

---

" I disagree with iCal being painfully slow. My main reason for moving from Entourage to iCal is because iCal is significantly faster than Entourage, which I found to be barely usable. In fact, I've spent the day moving over all my Entourage data to iCal, Mail.app, and Address Book, and I couldn't be happier. I just would like iSync to be released so I can automatically send my iCalendar to my iPod.

My only gripes are that the time is not listed for an appointment in month mode, and you can't set it to automatically set an alarm. You can set a default alarm, but you still have to click "Set to default". Other than that, I couldn't be happier. I can't wait to get home and set up my other machine to sync.
-David B
I forgot to list my specs:
QuickSilver Dual G4/800
512 megs RAM
Geforce 2MX (1792x1344)
10.2 (obviously) "

---

" - 4 bounces/2.5 seconds to open
- UI is very nice
- slight pause when changing between day/week/month views
- no Canada holiday calendar (I hope they have not assumed that it is the same as the US)
- resizing the iCal window immediately after switching between day/week/month views is very slow. After the first resize attempt is complete, the next resize attempt is much faster (unless you switch views again)
- the .Mac backup utility has an "iCal calendars" listing. I added an entry into iCal - backed it up to my iDisk via Backup - restored the backup to my Mac OS X Server box - iCal on the server shows the new calendar entry - cool!
- published my calendar to my .Mac account - give you an option to send an email with the URL. Calendar looks great once published to .Mac. - iCal performs exactly the same on the server box even though it has a "lesser" video card.

10.2.1 (6D46)
Dual G4 450
Radeon 8500
Memory: 896 MB

Mac OS X Server (10.2)
Dual G4 450
Radeon
Memory: 288 MB
lian "

---

" Hi Mike
As a long time Entourage user, I can say that iCal is a bit disappointing. First as someone already point it out, it takes ages to launch, on my Ti550 512MB RAM system it took 7 bounces, and that the second launch! If you try resizing the window it's just a pain to watch. I like to transfer my schedules to my iPod, in Entourage I could simply drag my events out to the desktop, and it will be saved as a ics file, but this doesn't work in iCal, in iCal you have to select the event you want to export, then select Export from the file menu. I thought Drag and Drop is a Apple thing, not a MS thing?

Another thing i dislike about iCal is it's appearance, there is so few colours on the actual calendar it self, it can be a bit difficult to see things like today's date. Oh let's not forget the brush metal thing, err can't Apple just stick to Aqua.
Thanks
Joe "

---

" First iCal impressions are good. Dual 867 with 1.25g ram. The entourage import worked great but it was a tad slow, no indication of whats going on during import except for the app hanging then working then hanging again. Once the calendar was full of stuff the resizing of the window did slow down a lot (Geforce4mx) I imagine on a lesser machine it would be kinda dreadful. I'll try on my sawtooth PL 550 with 16meg rage later. Cheers
S.Berry "

---

" hi there,
HW: QS 2k2 Dual 1Ghz G4 1.5GB RAM GF4MX (64MB RAM) on two displays, running 10.2.

iCal doesn't seem as "slooow" as i thought it'd be, but it is "slower" -- in the entering of information / screen redraw -- than iTunes, and probably the other iApps. startup time doesn't take long either -- about 3 seconds TOPS. however, i only have about 3 events setup on weekly recurring til the end of December.

i've already setup 2 calendars, subscribed to an NFL calendar, and published my school calendar on .Mac (setup to update automatically), while running Mail, iChat, iTunes, IE, and Omnioutliner in the background.

there are some quirks such as the entering of a new event and iCal's placement of it (depending on which calendars are selected, the new event is placed accordingly, but i had to quickly scan the screen for it in "week" view), but otherwise, i foresee myself using iCal frequently, from now on -- the most important feature being the ability to publish calendars via .Mac -- which was another fairly quick process @ 8AM pacific
peace in the middle east!
gerard "

---

" I've imported my Palm Desktop calendar into iCal. It's pretty slow, even stopping the system clock in the menubar (which I have set to display seconds). The only weird things I have installed are the new versions of WindowshadeX and TinkerTool. One time I double-clicked on an item to edit it, and it took 31 seconds! This was par for the course, I only had the patience to keep an eye on the clock to time it once.
John "

---

" Already using iCal. Outlook can E.S.A.D. (I will not expand that acronym.)
Comments on iCal:

1) It's SLOOOOOOOOW. Disappointingly so in some places. Screen drawing is poky (I have an AGP 4x GeForce 2mx which is fully Quartz Extreme'd). Furthermore, I've seen Photoshop 7 take fewer bounces to open.

2) I realize this is a free, 1.0 product -- but not everyone uses the 7-day, 12-month, 365-day Gregorian calendar. (I also realize this limitation may have been imposed by the export file format)

3) The interface is visually beautiful but the general Mac OS X problem of "14 point type in a 7 point space" is far, far worse in a calendar program.

4) iCal hasn't crashed once yet, despite my having been beating on it pretty violently.

Verdict: like everything else about Mac OS X, iCal is visually beautiful, uncluttered, stable, mostly useful; and ranges from disappointingly to painfully slow.
-- w
(I asked for his system details and he wrote)
QuickSilver 2001 G4. Running 733/133 MHz 7450 and 1.12 gigs of RAM (512 + 512 + 128) on 10.2 retail release.
No apps open except iCal. No FruitMenu, ASM, etc. No menu extras. No kexts. No 3rd party hardware. "

---

I welcome other iCal comments. (Please note your system details also.) Thanks.