IPad : Your Calendar - Manage Your Busy Life on Your iPad

The Calendar app is a powerful and easy to use application that helps you manage your appointments, keep track of what you have to do, set reminder alarms, and even create and respong to meeting invitations (for Exchange users).

1. Today's Day and Date Shown on Calendar Icon

The Calendar icon is usually right on your iPad Home screen. You will quickly notice that your Calendar icon changes to show today's date and day of the week. The icon to the right shows that it is a Monday and the 19^th of the month.

2. Syncing or Sharing Your Calendar(s) with Your iPad

If you maintain a calendar on your computer or on a web site such as Google Calendar, you can synchronize or share that calendar with your iPad either using iTunes and your sync cable or by setting up a wireless synchronization .

After you set up the calendar sync, all of your computer calendar appointments will be synced with your iPad calendar automatically, based on your sync settings (see Figure 1).

If you use iTunes to sync with your calendar (e.g., Microsoft Outlook, Entourage, or Apple's iCal), your appointments will be transferred or synced every time you connect your iPad to your computer.

If you use another method to sync (e.g., Mobile Me, Exchange, or similar), this sync is wireless and automatic, and it will most likely happen without you having to do anything after the initial setup process.

Figure 1. Syncing PC or Mac Calendar to iPad

3. Viewing Your Schedule and Getting Around

The default view for the Calendar is your Day view. It will show you at a glance any upcoming appointments for your day. Appointments are shown in your calendar (see Figure 2). If you happen to have several different calendars that you have set up on your computer, such as Work and Home, then you will see these as separate colors on your iPad's calendar.

Figure 2. The Calendar Day View Layout

You can manipulate the calendar in various ways:

Move a day at a time – If you tap the triangles next to the Slider at the bottom, you move forward or backward a day.

Change views – Use the Day, Week, Month, and List buttons at the top to change the view.

Jump to today – Use the Today button at the bottom left-hand corner.

4. The Calendar's Four Views

Your iPad's Calendar app comes with four views: Day, Week, Month, and List. You can switch views by tapping the name of the view at the bottom of the screen. Here's a quick overview of the four views.

Day view – When you start the Calendar app, the default view is usually the Day view. This allows you to quickly see everything you have scheduled for the day. At the top of the Calendar app are buttons to change the view.

List view or Agenda view – Touch the List view button at the top, and you can see a list of your appointments along the left-hand side.

Depending on how much you have scheduled, you could see the next day or even the next week's worth of scheduled events.

Week view – Touch the Week view button at the top, and you can see all your appointments for the week.

Similarly, tap any appointment to see details about that appointment.

Once you see the details, you can tap the Edit button to change them.

Month view – Touch the Month view and you can see a layout of the full month. Days with appointments have a small dot in them. The current day will show up highlighted in blue.

Go to the next month – Tap the triangle to the right of the Month slider at the bottom.

Go to the previous month – Tap the triangle to the left of the Month slider.

To advance days in Day view, just touch the arrows to either side of the Date slider at the bottom.

5. Working with Several Calendars

Your iPad's Calendar app can track various calendars. The number of calendars you see depends on how you set up your synchronization using iTunes or other sync methods. In the example that follows, we have categorized personal appointments in our Home calendar and categorized work appointments in a separate Work calendar.

In the appointments in our Calendar app, we have our Home calendar appointments showing up in red and our Work appointments in orange or green.

When you set up your Sync settings, you were able to specify which calendars you wanted to sync with your iPad. You can customize your calendar further by following these instructions.

Changing the colors – You will need to change the color of the calendar in the program on your computer that is synced to your iPad; this will change the colors on your iPad.

Adding a new calendar – It's a two-step process to add a new calendar to sync with your iPad.

Viewing only one calendar – To view just one calendar at a time, tap the Calendars button at the top and select only the calendar you wish to see.