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Comment by alooPotato | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know why Calendar is getting a ton of new features on mobile but the web app gets no love?

Yes.

Google has been trying to dumb down their services and products for years, to the point where the UI is something even a baby or old person with dementia can use it. For the most recent example of this see the latest update to the YouTube app for iPhone - they managed to make an already austere interface completely bare-bones, to the point where the main "home page" is entirely useless.

They do this to product after product, all the while claiming things like "power users are not our target user group" or "only 5% of users used this feature, so we removed it", and for random millenials using their phone to figure out what bar they want to go to tonight, that approach works (ish).

But Calendar is actually used by lots of working people/professionals/power users every day, and those people aren't interested in a super stripped-down "beautiful, magical" (also inscrutable) interface that rips out every feature that's not used by at least 90% of the userbase for the sake of whitespace. We need a tool that is predictable, works, and doesn't require retraining for everyone to use it.

So Calendar stays frozen in amber, caught between one pole (being actually useful) that Google desperately does not want to migrate towards, and another pole (beautiful, magic, useless) that Google desperately wants to move to but knows would alienate their userbase if they did. And while normally they give 0 fucks about that, because of GAFYD they can't just wave away the consequences of such a change - that business unit would be in serious danger if they managed the apps & services within it as capriciously as they do everything else.

As a power user I find the mobile version more useful. Creating a new event on mobile is actually easier than on desktop. I want that same power on desktop too

How?

For the simple case, on web: Click the time I want to put in an event for, type in a name, click "Create Event". Even if somehow you managed to simplify further "I want to do something at this time - I want it to be named this - I am done" I'm not sure the world benefits from that being easier.

For the more complicated case... Really? I admit I haven't played with it on Android in some time, but is it really easier to, say, create a new event, invite 4 people, add a conference room, select a time that works for everyone, make it repeat Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with a reminder 10m before and 20m before? Because if so I'm honestly surprised - that they even offer all that functionality at all, let alone that it's easier on mobile.

You should be pleasantly surprised, then! All of the functionality you included in your complicated case exists directly on the event creation page. "Select a time that works for everyone" was the last one missing, and this update is of course just that.

> Google has been trying to dumb down their services and products for years, to the point where the UI is something even a baby or old person with dementia can use it.

In the process they're making it that technical people cannot (or, have great difficulty) using them, such as gmail. (I very often don't notice attachments, or can't find them, I have great difficulty following threads, I have to hit a button to cc: or to change the subject, etc etc etc)

I find them annoying. Not long ago, I would tap the + icon on the calendar to add a new entry. Then a few weeks ago, they added an intermediate step: Do I want to create an Event or a Reminder. What's the difference? Who knows, but it was a stutter step in my expected workflow. Now this week I have a third choice: Goal.

My needs in a calendar are very simple: I want to be able to enter a description of something happening at a date and time, and get an alert when that date/time is approaching. That's it. I don't seem to be able to do that as simply anymore.

Try aCalendar: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.withouthat...

It sticks to the basics and integrates well with Google Calendar

The web app already has this feature, and also got the reminders feature. I kinda don't want a refresh - I like the current high information density.

The single necessary feature that the web calendar lacks is the option to enable infinite scrolling (much like the osx Calendar app). I constantly find myself toggling back and fourth between months, like at the end of this current month, where I see Saturday but Sunday (May 1).

And the ability to forward an event. And the ability to propose a new time for a meeting. And the ability to accept a new proposed time for a meeting from a client that does have that ability.

The ability for event colours to actually be labels (that can be filtered for visibility) would be appreciated, currently you have to setup multiple calendars to achieve this, and that's not too useful if people are trying to track when you're free/busy.

Thats a good point. It does have find times, but a lot of the other recent feature launches aren't there like goals and the event creation auto complete.

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