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30 Boxes vs. Google CalendarApril 13th, 2006 by Narendra |
Today was the long awaited release of gcal.
First, we are glad to see Google drawing attention to the entire “event/time” arena and we plan to fully support gcal integration where we are able.
Second, we think the app is a bit on the boring side and the UI needlessly cluttered. Different strokes for different folks.
Here at 30boxes, we have set out to do calendaring and social networking in an innovative and superior fashion.
Whatever Google brings to the table, we will do it better. We invite you to join in the forums to help us along the way.
Oh, and we have some sweet email integration coming…
30 Boxes!
April 13th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Well, to be quite frank, I’ll be sold on the first one to support publishing via WebDAV/CalDAV/whatever. I agree about the UI being more cluttered, but that doesn’t bother me too much.
April 13th, 2006 at 10:42 pm
FINE! I’ll stick around you calendar c*** teases!
April 13th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
30Boxes wins right now. And I hope it wins in the end. Gcal’s lack of labels/tags is terrible! If they don’t bring in that feature soon, I’ll stop messing with it. I’m really pretty torn between the two. But since Gcal is new and fancy, I’m going to give it a few days.
So far all of the other calendars that I’ve tried have failed: airset, hipcal, kiko, etc…
L
April 13th, 2006 at 11:49 pm
I’ve been using 30B since launch. Want to capture me back from Google Calendar? Add week and day views like theirs, and a repeating event system that doesn’t suck.
[Narendra: we launched 8 weeks ago with no repeats. We will slowly add the more arcane combos but, we are working on email integration, a couple of partnerships, and some slick contextual (right click) menus to continue to improve usability. I am thinking we might publish our exact todo list so people know exactly what we are doing. Maybe as a calendar ;-) ]
April 14th, 2006 at 12:36 am
oh,this service very good,I’ll invite my friends come here!
Thank your good idea!
April 14th, 2006 at 12:49 am
Agreed, as soon as I can reliably sync up with Outlook that is the program that has won it.
So…any updates on this?
[Narendra: Sorry Dan, we haven’t bit the bullet on allowing people to add/update via APIs. This will probably spur us on.]
April 14th, 2006 at 1:39 am
I really wish you guys the best of luck. In many respects, I could go either way — both products are mighty fine, best of web material. The kiss of death for 30Boxes however (at least for me) is the lack of e-mail integration (which would be impossible for you guys to offer, unless you start an e-mail service that could compete with Gmail, a tall order indeed). Without it, I can’t stick around — it’s simply less hassle to use a calendar that is already integrated with my email. There always needs to be an alternative however, and I imagine that 30B will be a very solid alternative to gCal for a long time to come (when you think about it, that’s pretty special — is there really a solid alternative to Gmail, no).
[Narendra: see response to your second post below]
April 14th, 2006 at 1:43 am
Ohhhhhhhhhh… I didn’t see the last line of your above post: “…we have some sweet email integration on the way.” Now I might be interested.
Also, a quick suggestion: offering a way for me to create events via SMS or via e-mail would definitely be an advantage over Gmail (if this is already possible, sorry, I must have missed the memo). That said, however, Gmail will turn around and copy it in a second (gcal actually looks they borrowed quite a bit from you guys).
[Narendra: yes, event creation via email is coming. Additionally, we may inline gmail for people with gmail addresses, so it will feel like one application. Our todo system is going to rock also.]
April 14th, 2006 at 2:10 am
30Boxes vs Google
De mannen van 30Boxes gaan in de tegenaanval, ik ben eens benieuwd! Ondertussen heb ik wel geen zin om 2 kalenders te gaan onderhouden, tijd om een keuze te maken dus…
…
April 14th, 2006 at 2:29 am
Wee! Since Google say they will support synchronising gcal with Outlook, I hope you’re going to bring that to the table as well, even though “subscribing to remote calendars” is a feature that already exists - in Outlook 2007.
Otherwise: I’ve been digging deep into gcal and I still find 30 Boxes to be better, but that’s just my point of view. The main reasons for this, are:
1. The UI
2. The simplicity in creating syndicated feeds using tags
3. The quick developing of good features that actually do something for my productivity
4. SMS-reminders through my Swedish carrier
On the other hand, gcal seems quicker to navigate through (because of better use of AJAX?), and adding events seems very quick. gcal supports Swedish holidays, but they aren’t correct, mind you; a few holidays are missing, and the resource for iCal-holidays that you guys tip about don’t support Swedish holidays for 2006, either - at least any that are correct.
Keep up the good work!
April 14th, 2006 at 2:31 am
“Oh, and we have some sweet email integration on the way.”
Are you guys doing that, or are you pinning your hopes on the developers out there who have been developing wrapper APIs to do that? If it’s the former, then let us developers know so that we quit wasting our time developing wrapper APIs. If it’s the latter, then give us an update on when the events.Add and events.Update API methods will be available so that we’ll have a complete API to write against. :)
[Narendra: to be perfectly honest we have been a bit timid. I will have Nick email you and let you in ASAP.]
April 14th, 2006 at 3:06 am
guys, what we _need_ is real cell phone integration. i hear kiko is working on syncml…
April 14th, 2006 at 6:40 am
hmm, difficult, as an avid microsoft officeuser I moved from outlook to 30boxes. I was disappointed that it didnt have a visual representation of how long a meeting in the primairy view.. using both 30boxes and gcal now, at the moment im leaning towards gcal but with gcal integration I will keep 30 boxes to see what the changes are.. I especially like the daily view of 30 boxes, its vastly superior.. and in general less cluttering, I would like a smaller font though..
April 14th, 2006 at 7:20 am
Google Calendar rocks the face off of 30b. Just take one look at the event edit screen. This thing supports the repeating of events in any way imaginable.
Plus, I don’t think Google has even released all of the features yet. There have been screenshots of sweet Gmail integration that I still don’t see available.
30b, you guys release features faster than anyone else, I totally have to give you guys that. But man, Gcal takes the cake.
[Narendra: I am sorry but I totally disagree. I have been playing with gcal more this morning and I find a UI morass with very little logic and heirarchy. It is as if Outlook was given ajax and spewed onto the net. Forget about our little things (weather, repeating birthdays, giving maps and directions), how about simple UI items like quick add doesn’t even show you your calendar after you add something! Definitely feels like some strange bolt on.]
April 14th, 2006 at 7:25 am
30b does have a nice look, but as for which I prefer - it’s functionality it comes down to.
I’m sold on the first one to offer the ability to copy events, ideally drag & drop-like
[Narendra: thanks for the feedback, we are working on context menus that will have Edit/Delete/Copy, and at some point we will bite the bullet and let you drag things from one day to the next but our hunch is no one will use it :-) ]
April 14th, 2006 at 7:53 am
Great! I’m happy to hear about this.
BTW, after a 10-minutes introduction to 30boxes, I’ve successfully convinced my wife to use 30boxes and share calendars with me. :-)
Keep up the work, and good luck.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:11 am
I have my own comparison of GCal and 30boxes if you’re interesting in my thoughts.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Google Calendar is not much of competition right now except the name. If I were part of the team, which im kinda am, im a fan you see.. . gggg, I would actually make sure to have super awesome power, I mean feature like sync with iCal.App, Outlook, Sunbird. Then you could actually roll out integration of plugin for wordpress, mt maybe even blogger. Growth of innovation as they say…
need more ideas?
;-)
rock on.
April 14th, 2006 at 8:48 am
By “Gcal integration”, do you mean we will be able to essentially keep just one calendar, and be able to access it both from Gcal and 30boxes?
[Narendra: initially, letting people you invite to events, add that event to their gcal, but down the road, we’d sure as hell hope GOOGLE OPENS UP their calendar aggregation (the calendars from trumba they let your search for), and that they have write methods so 30b and gcal can talk to one another. Right now with ical you could display your 30b calendar in gcal and vice versa.]
April 14th, 2006 at 8:51 am
two comments:
* gcal doesn’t do repeated events. that is very sad, and one of the main reasons I still prefer 30boxes.
* they do have a much nicer interface for handling multiple calendars, like the Mac iCal with the multiple colors. that feature would be handy for me, rather than the small font dimmed mode you currently have for shared calendars.
* their event interface is nice: especially the way you can draw an event duration and move events around.
April 14th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Gcal does do repeat events, when you goto edit event details, click options and then you should see that stuff
April 14th, 2006 at 9:07 am
I alos note that gCal has a real tough time dealing with untimed events. I imported my 30Boxes calendar there as a way to fill it with data, and only my timed events are showing up. I have iCal set to subscribe to both gCal and 30 Boxes, and it shows all events in both calendars, but gCal isn’t displaying them.
Want a killer feature? Allow iCal read/write subscriptions (let iCal publish to 30 Boxes) so those of us who sync with our Palms can use it as an editable passthrough…
April 14th, 2006 at 9:16 am
@ SS VVV: Gcal does do repeated events. Open an event and click the “When” section. Gcal’s repeated events feature can do much more than 30b’s “repeat yearly, monthly, weekly, or every other week.” What about classes that are MWF or TR? Or if you have to work every third Saturday? Gcal can handle all of these and more.
Does 30b have a weekly view or daily view?
April 14th, 2006 at 9:51 am
SS VVV: gcal has repeated events.
In general I’d say that gcal has some things implemented well, and some things that it will likely never implement, which gives 30boxes an edge… gcal will never integrate with flickr (a yahoo site) or livejournal or myspace, or any of those other 3rd party sites. google is in competition with many of them.
Meanwhile, if 30boxes can become fully interoperable with gcal via iCal subscriptions… then it will be the best of both worlds. Inevitably gcal will get a larger user base, through the sheer marketing power of google, but if users can maintain the usability of gcal but use 30boxes as the interface, then convincing people to switch over will be much easier.
Meanwhile, I’d suggest 30boxes adopt some of the nicer features of gcal, and then take them a step further… because while google may have far more manpower, 30boxes is much more nimble and doesn’t have to deal with the bureacracy of a large company.
Features from gcal that would be nice to see:
* day/week/month/arbitrary length of time views
* able to set the duration of an event by resizing a box
* assigning colors to various calendars (or tags, in 30boxes case)
* more repeating events interval options
April 14th, 2006 at 11:23 am
If I may add to the ToDo list, the GCal grid view is very handy. I am now sharing my 30boxes with 3 people (band mates), and figuring if there is a time window on a day to rehearse takes a while… “Wait, I’ll work on 6pm, he’s gone till 2, but she seems to have someting at 1… lasting…?”
Actually, the (3K big :) ) calendar application of my Palm PDA has it all. The mentioned different views, the grid…
Giving people options on how to view stuff shouldn’t be too difficult, I daresay, with templates that I’m sure are in use. Blocks with size representing duration or full text, colors for other users or certain tags, grid or list… Options would be generally cool :)
April 14th, 2006 at 11:49 am
hmm. i think it got added in. thanks for pointing it out though.
btw it’s weird that the gcal ‘export’ feature doesn’t work in 30b, and vice versa. I can’t get 30b to read the gcal exported calendar (public, private, whatever), and can’t get gcal to read the 30b exported calendar.
April 14th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Little league games have been rescheduled because of the rain, and I would love to drag the game to the new time
April 14th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
There is no reason for me to head over to Gcal.
By commenting and reading in the forum, I think here the developers care about new ideas by the users. And I think that is the best way to create a calendar that has all useable features included.
I really love 30Boxes and I am looking forward to upcoming new features and enhancements. And I have no doubt there will be a lot.
April 14th, 2006 at 1:25 pm
Letting colours be set to certain tags would be very nice to finally see… please..!
April 14th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
I was a little disappointed when Google released the calendar. I think the missing Safari support sucks and it doesn’t really provide anything ground breaking new.
To me the most missing function is the possibility to add events directly via iCal.app.
April 14th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
inline mail (gmail) would be sweet. So if half the screen was your calendar and half the screen is your mail - you could have it do a search for all the mail from the date I select in the calendar.
April 14th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Whichever supports syncing with Palm (through whatever method) will get my support. This is a must have for me. Although, in the meantime, 30 Boxes rocks!
April 14th, 2006 at 4:20 pm
What do you mean when you say Gcal’s is morass with very little logic and heirarchy?
Of the little things that you mention (weather, birthdays, maps, directions), the only one Google doesn’t do is weather. The maps and directions are enabled when you give an event a location.
IMHO, quick add shouldn’t show you your calendar when you add something. The calendar is right in staying in whatever state it is in.
[Narendra: I find it mentally taxing. Google has more than 30 link/ui elements on the default page and the most prominent of which is Search. 30B has a little more than 10.
I also find that there are way too many sub windows and box elements, essentially recreating the visual complexity that is what makes outlook so intimidating for the average user. Please remember — we are about the novice to average user and about doing it in a new way.
If I type Joe’s Birthday into the Google Quick Add, it takes me to the detailed add page. If I type Joe’s Birthday into 30B, it asks me if I want to repeat it every year and when Joe was born. I don’t like that from quick add the location has to be part of the actual event name in order to get a map out of it. A bit nitpicky, I admit.
As far as a reaction to a Quick Add. Sorry, if you have a typo or google gets it wrong, you won’t have any idea where that event you just added was stored :-) ]
April 15th, 2006 at 12:32 am
I think one thing everyone is missing, which Narendra alluded to, is that Gcal is a straight up replacement for my business calendar. It’s Outlook on the Web. The catch is that most people don’t use Gmail for business, they use it for fun. Most businesses assign corporate email address and those employees are using Outlook and certainly not Gmail or Yahoo! Mail for their work email or work calendars.
30boxes is far more social. There’s no question about it. I already have a calendar for business and it would be great to have one for fun. Obviously the two should be synchronized, but that’s just a technology issue. I want a calendar that doesn’t assume that all my events are private. I want a calendar that is designed to broadcast what I’m doing and where I’m going. I want to create a social space with my friends that revolves around what we’re up to and where we like to go. The solution for this need is not Outlook and I don’t think it’s Gcal. 30boxes is far closer to striking the right balance.
April 15th, 2006 at 5:20 am
Some suggestions/thoughts/ramblings for the 30boxes guys (because I care)…
1. get GTD-based ToDos working as soon as possible.
2. give the option of sending PLAIN TEXT reminders. This way, anyone who isn’t using a phone supported by your SMS functions can receive reminders via EMAIL (not all phones are limited to SMS - especially outside the US).
3. Google’s option of sending a daily agenda at time X is pretty cool and should be pretty easy to implement.
4. DO NOT take advice on syncing with this or that. Use standards (webcal, ical, whatever) and if the clients don’t support them, oh well. I wish it were easy to sync (I used to scream about it), but judging by how crappy the few options are that are available, it isn’t that easy.
5. I don’t get the whole community calendar thing… to me it is mostly private with some sharing here and there. I don’t see the benefits of a community calendar.
6. Other views may be nice but are not really critical (to me). If you need to schedule appointments at 5min intervals in a day view, I don’t know how you have time to enter that data in the first place. I really like your grid approach.
7. Oh, can you make it so that hitting the escape key will bring me back to the home view (close any pop ups).
8. GCal’s layout is a bit sloppy, but so is GMail’s -and you know how popular GMail is. Don’t count on less-than-optimal layout to really help you (because, honestly, GCal’s layout and option screens really aren’t THAT bad).
10. Ignore people that scream, “if I can’t do X, then I’m leaving!” These people will always be hard to please and will jump ship given any opportunity. The comments above seem to show that you already have this mindset, but this is just a bit of positive reinforcement.
11. I really like 30boxes because it almost disappears. I am only thinking about my data and schedule and not about how a particular view looks to me. I admit, I’m a PIM junkie, and 30boxes is the first tool I’ve used that allowed me to ignore it and just focus on my data. I guess that’s pretty good.
12. Again about syncing, if the web experience is good enough, and connectivty ubiquitous enough, then a fat client really won’t be necessary. Heck, the only reason I keep Outlook around anymore is because I love my ipaq 4150 and want my data on it.
I never intended my post to go this long or become this disjointed, but I hope that you’ll see any criticisms as purely constructive.
April 15th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
I just want to show my support for 30B; Your calendar app rocks.
I know many people are going to use GCal just because it’s Google, there’s nothing we can do about that. I wish Google can just hire you guys and put you guys in control of GCal (and get paid big bucks)
April 15th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
Whichever out of 30boxes and Gcal comes up with working Pocket PC sync first will be the one I use - at the moment I can’t use either because I’m not willing to either dump my PDA or manually retype any changes I make [to events on the PDA] into my computer.
April 15th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
I agree with a lot of people here, and it’s my vote to stick with 30Boxes. I really like what you guys are doing, and I think that there’s some awesome stuff coming down the pipeline, and I’m willing to wait it out to see what’s coming. The big thing for me is Safari support, which you guys offer. So thanks for the awesome work and I’m excited for what’s coming next! (Especially if that happens to be publishing to 30B from iCal through WebDAV) *wink*
April 16th, 2006 at 6:26 am
todo list would be a killer thing! anyway keep up the great work guys
April 16th, 2006 at 11:53 am
I’m staying with 30b for one reason: character. The UI for 30b has this subtle undertone of playfulness, maybe a carryover from the game-y-ness of Flickr (?) but regardless of its source, my wife and I will continue to use 30b, even though we are also avid gmail users.
I’d also suggest that even though gmail features have certainly come, they haven’t come quickly. Gauging by the growth spurt of 30b, I imagine that it won’t be long before 30b is unquestionably the better online cal app.
We’d pay for 30b, even though gcal is free.
April 16th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
What would really be a good niche for 30boxes to fill, would be as a tool developers could use to integrate into their web apps. I know we would use 30 boxes in all our apps, as we often find ourselves in need…
Oh, and I wouldn’t like to see it limit itself to php developers (side note)
April 16th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
I love 30boxes, but one thing that makes gcal tempting is knowing that I will eventually be able to have a nice display for it on my google homepage. An outstanding 30boxes widget for my google home would go a long way towards sealing the deal for me. Maybe showing all of my events for the 7 upcoming days, with the current days events highlighted?
April 17th, 2006 at 7:49 am
Just wanted to mention that as of right now, for me, 30B and GCal each have a handful of features that I would like to see implemented in the other. It’s close but I like 30B better overall.
Adding events via email, however, will instantly make 30B utterly uncontested as my most useful calendar app, because it will mean that I can add an event any time, any place, from my sidekick (which pretty much goes with me everywhere). Glad to hear that you are working on this; it is such a logical extension of the One Box engine.
By the way, the features in GCal that I would love to see in 30B are:
- day/week/x weeks view
- Daily agenda
April 17th, 2006 at 9:27 am
Narendra — we’d be happy to work with you, whether its searching 30 boxes calendars or whatever. We’re committed to open interoperability. You know how to find us…
April 17th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Narendra, thanks for taking the time to respond to my posts! You make several valid points. I agree that Google Calendar seems to be geared towards more advanced users. It does have a business feel to it. And you’re right, Gcal’s interface has TONS of ui links/elements. I’ve never used Outlook’s calendar, but I can easily imagine how many ideas Gcal got from it. All in all, both cals rock, and they both have their place. I say “let the games begin!” This competition will be fierce and enjoyable. Hats off to the victor!
April 18th, 2006 at 12:06 am
30boxes is really well put together, but after exploring gcal I’m making the switch. The big thing for me is the more focused view. For my purposes, I don’t need to see what events are coming several weeks from now, and I like that in the more focused view you can see what time isn’t occupied by events, which may be just as helpful with time management. Also, while neither has a to-do list, I’ve found scheduling all-day events as tasks in gcal works real well for what I want to do, since I like to map out what days I want to do certain tasks. If I were to make a suggestion in response to gcal’s release, it’d be to include a more focused view. Like I’ve said though, that’s what works best for me, there are a ton of different ways people can use both apps, and it happens that gcal does it best for me.
[Narendra: Micah, sorry to see you go, but also remember, 30boxes is a social network and lifestyle aggregator. As such you can easily subscribe to your gcal calendar (people do this with upcoming) and maintain your presence to buddies. Regarding filters/views, I think you will see a lot of cool work on that from both us and 3rd parties in the next 3-6 months.]
April 18th, 2006 at 4:42 am
You must have a feature list as long as your arm by now (both arms probably).. however for my own personal use Gcal has one thing that betters 30boxes.
I can send notifications to email addresses without having them need to signup. I can’t do that with 30boxes (can I?).
[Narendra: absolutely, +joe@gmail.com invites that person to your event and they can accept/decline, see the event, and leave comments without signing up. Works like a charm]
I think Google got this feature right, what better way to capture a market than allow people to fire out notifications of events, and have a little “find out more” link in the email.
People think “hey that’s smart” and head to Gcal. From a 30boxes notification email (invite), they have to go to the site, and sign up to see what the event is and why they are getting an email about it.
Good to see the Gcal team here as well! (And yes Google had designers in on this - Stop Design)
[Narendra: we also build your buddies on the fly (and they will eventually morph into a buddies and contacts list) so we remember the emails you invite people to.]
April 18th, 2006 at 8:27 am
Can you feel the heat turned up now?
Come on Narendra, show ‘em your best. From what I’ve seen so far, you guys can do it ;->
http://pwdmarshall.blogspot.com/2006/04/30b-vs-gcal.html
April 18th, 2006 at 8:57 am
I like the way gcal can handle UK date format (dd/mm/yy). [Narendra: we support UK dates now!] This alone would have been enough for me to have chosen it over 30boxes when I evaluated calendaring sites a few weeks back. Also found the dynamic resizing of the layout in BOTH directions to be neat and maximises the amount of detail that can be shown for any given window size/resoulution without the number of lines preference and vertical scrolling that 30boxes currently requires. The ability to have multiple calendars of your own is also neat. Tagging in 30boxes is neat but for work and home entries I prefer the gcal method. These things will not be enough to draw me away from 30boxes now, but I would have chosen gcal over it a couple of months back.
I have some concerns over the way google develops stuff too. I have been a gmail user for a while now. Whilst I found the initial releases to be excellent, they were lacking in some functinality. It took google a LONG time to add features. Email and calendaring sites have users data that is inherently not very portable, so it makes it difficult to switch once you are a committed user. I think Google took their foot off the pedal a bit with gmail, and fear that the same thing will happen with gcal, once enough people are signed up and using it. There is also also no forum where gmail and its users can exchange dialogue. By contrast 30 boxes has been excellent at quickly implimenting features, and responding to the requests of its users in a transparent way. Its great to find new features appearing every other week.
April 18th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Narendra, you mention that you can subscribe to gcalendar inside 30boxes. I have now tried this a number of times, (using the public gcal feed), and each time 30b complained that it couldn’t read my feed. The feed itself seems fine (I downloaded it and checked it).
April 19th, 2006 at 8:45 am
“we think the app is a bit on the boring side and the UI needlessly cluttered” - they should look at yahoo calendars
I have used 30 boxes, which I liked a lot. Today, I am trying out gCal. But, in the end, iCal was always my favorite of the calendar programs. But now, me being without a mac now, iCal is out of the question.
But I think you both do a lot of cool things, each in your own way.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:56 pm
I’m sticking with 30 Boxes. Gcal doesn’t use feeds. I feed everything through 30 Boxes.
April 20th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
“I have now tried this a number of times, (using the public gcal feed), and each time 30b complained that it couldn’t read my feed.”
I’m having the same problem as SS VVV. I’ve tried Google’s XML and ICAL feeds for both private and public calendars and all receive the 30boxes error that the feed “did not have feed data we could understand”.
If I could use 30boxes and pull in info from Gcal that would be the best of both worlds but I can’t get it to work.
April 20th, 2006 at 4:44 pm
Btw, I’ve also tried changing Google’s “http” to “webcal” which seems to have worked in other situations.
April 21st, 2006 at 9:03 pm
I’d like to see integration with Palm, Outlook, and Thunderbird’s upcoming Lightning project. I know it’s coming, but until it happens 30 Boxes is kind of a fun toy for me. It’s really a little better than that as my fiancee and I can sync up calendars really well, but neither of us can have our work calendars integrated easily which means we have to transcribe everything.
In a perfect world, I’d like to say that I agree with John Catalano, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a standard that supports all the major calendar applications.
I specifically ask for Palm, because there are billion of Palms sold and in circulation, so that’s a large part of the mobile market. Outlook (and Pocket Outlook if it’s any different) would give you a large portion of the rest of the mobile calendar market as well as a great majority of business users. Lightning would probably be the lowest priority, but it would get you in with the early adopter, open source, OS neutral, off-line, people, which would probably parallel the current 30 Boxes user base.
If you make those applications (and maybe one or two more that I forgot) sync as easy as possible, the social, centralized aspect of 30 boxes should make it a winner.
April 23rd, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Brian,
It’s not a question of “a standard that supports all the major calendar applications.” That’s why we have CalDAV.
We just have to wait for the major companies to support it. (Novell’s Evolution already does, but that seems to be the only application with support in a stable release.)
There are some other clients that are planning support too, however none of the major clients are listed; they’ll likely be slow on the uptake.
April 26th, 2006 at 7:18 am
So, about a third of the way through, I stopped reading comments, so forgive me if I repeat someone else’s sentiment.
I started using 30 Boxes the day it launched (my birthday!) and haven’t looked back. I opened up Google’s calendar once, sighed deeply, and closed it. The rich features here have continued to make me happy. This is, in fact, the first calendar (aside from those calendars I am mandated to use - like at work) that I’ve retained an interest in.
I’ve had palm pilots and the like, and never found anything that really related to *my life* in a way that made me want to come back. 30 Boxes has had me coming back again and again, so my hat’s off to you guys. I’m one of your die-hard fans.
May 2nd, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Just a suggestion, but so far the only thing I’ve noticed from Google that you guys don’t seem to have is a good notifications system.
SMS notifications for instance are how I keep on top of everything, as do other people (Tara from horsecowpig.com) for example.
But, that being said Google doesn’t do it well. It does it in a ALL or NOTHING fashion. I can’t have only some tags sent to my phone, and the others sent as emails etc. If you can pull that off, I’m impressed, and I’m in.
Lot of people talking about ‘multiple’ calendars on GCal. Doesn’t help : infact its limiting, since I don’t want to share all my calendars, and I need some events to be double calendered - as in I want them on multiple calendars. I can do it easily in 30B with multiple tags, and then sharing whatever tags I want.
30B really needs better coloring of its tagged events. They are truly terrible looking (sorry!) That being said, what happens when I have an event tagged multiple times? It gets colored once - which is obviously fine since you can’t color it multiple times, but maybe there is a better way of doing it that doesn’t involve anything other than a splash of color which might enjoy for multiple colors.
Just my thoughts.
[Narendra: thanks for the suggestions. We DO offer SMS invitations and reminders!]
May 3rd, 2006 at 7:10 am
Yes, 30B does offer SMS notification - but again in an all or nothing fashion. Somethings are more important than others.. I’d like to be able to dissect & select which ones I want to receive on my phone and which ones in an email etc.
If its possible.
May 9th, 2006 at 9:04 am
30B wins hands down for me. I have 2 gmail accounts, one for work and one for home, and I hate having to sign in and out of my gmail just to access my calendar, wherease 30B is just there. :-) 30B can be a little slow to update, but it’s easy to use and I picked it up from day 1. I guess I should also mention I don’t use the Google start page, I use Netvibes instead which has a rather cool 30B widget ;-)
Just develop PDA sync functionality and 30B will be perfect!
April 5th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
I love 30.
June 30th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Daily Journals and To Do List is definitely in rare supply among the Ajax APIs. You guys at 30b need to know that Google is the only ap that seems to be supported by PageFlakes and NetVibes and the like. My wants seem to be reflected by many other out there in the Blogospehere: A calendar with a Journal that automatically time & date stamps every new entry. Throw a search bar in there and we’ve all but eliminated the need for notebooks.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I can’t seem to pull my gCal in to 30boxes. I’ve pulled my ICS url from gCal, but plugging it in to 30boxes and changing http to webcal gives me an error. My ics URL is basically:
webcal://www.google.com/calendar/ical/emailaddr%40removedbyme.com/public/basic.ics
Any ideas what I’m doing wrong? Is there an easier way to pull my gCal in to 30boxes?