Android Calendar serious shortcomings

[sebaz]

I got a Droid Eris about a week ago and I love the thing. It's in most things a huge step up from my old piece of junk LG Scoop. But there are a couple of things that seem to make absolutely no sense to me in the bundled Calendar app.

1. For calendar events, the reminder vibrates and sounds only once, not continuously like any cell phone that I've ever had since 2004, including the cheapest pieces of junk. Unless you're so lucky to live a very laid back and also very silent life, one vibrate and one one second long reminder are useless.
2. Also in every cell phone that I've had before, when the reminder came up, I could set the snooze time anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour. With the Eris calendar app, I can only hit snooze and the reminder comes up again five minutes later. Normally five minutes is a good amount of time for a snooze, but many times I prefer to snooze for longer times.
3. Most of the apps that come with the phone, as well as most downloadable from the Market use the auto sense rotation feature. This would make a lot of sense in the calendar app as much as in any other app where you have to enter text, because the narrow keys in the vertical view cause the user to waste a lot of time correcting. So far the only app I can remember that doesn't have the auto sense is this calendar.

Now, point 3 may be a little more tolerable to deal with, but 1 and 2 are unbelievable for a cell phone launched in late 2009. Any piece of junk phone I've ever had had these two basic features, how can they be missing from a state of the art piece of technology like the Droid Eris? On one hand you have all these amazing features such as automatic sync with Google Calendar and address book, showing me exactly where I am in the map, music, videos, and tons of other features. But for a device that's supposed to help you organize your life, these shortcomings are absurd.

Now, is there any other calendar app that has these 3 features, if possible that syncs with Google Calendar? If it doesn't sync I'd use it anyway, I'd rather sacrifice that feature for customizable snooze time and longer reminders.

 

[KlaymenDK]

1) I fully agree. However, you can set multiple reminders for an event. It'd be a royal pain to do this for all events (per default there's only one reminder), but it is "possible". You are not the only one pining for way way better PIM apps!
2) I don't think there's any way to adjust the snooze period. Sorry.
3) That's odd. The Calendar certainly does support orientation sensing, so I don't know why you are having that experience. Give it a shake?

Also, welcome to the forum!

 

[flu13]

I'd suggest using Astrid. You can add a "task" to Astrid, which could really just be a calendar event, and it will give you nag reminders as you snooze. It also has the option to add the event to your Google Calendar. So you get the nag reminders from Astrid, but you have the event showing in your Calendar.

 

[Tim K]

1. I think a workaround is to create your own custom notification. The defaullt notification sound goes off once....if its a 1 second beep that's it. If you created a 1 minute song/sound it would play once giving you a 1 minute alarm sound.

2. You can change the default snooze length for ALL messages but not individually for each alarm. I know this isn't your solution but I thought I would point it out in case anyone wasn't aware (access through menu > settings also)

3. Calendar on my droid rotates...

 

[Chappie]

Hmm I thought the alarm clock was for wakeing people up?

You can set the reminder to go off again at variable times 5,10 mins etc.. The length of the notification sound I would think depends on the length of the MP3 being used, us a longer playing file and it will go on longer.

 

[Drazil]

Has anyone figured a way to create a recurring event that happens once every 2 weeks, like a payday? so far I only see daily and weekly and same day each month.

 

[sebaz]

1. I think a workaround is to create your own custom notification. The defaullt notification sound goes off once....if its a 1 second beep that's it. If you created a 1 minute song/sound it would play once giving you a 1 minute alarm sound.

2. You can change the default snooze length for ALL messages but not individually for each alarm. I know this isn't your solution but I thought I would point it out in case anyone wasn't aware (access through menu > settings also)

3. Calendar on my droid rotates...

1. Yes, you can do that but the vibrate is still a very short one. If you're driving and listening to music really loud, the long reminder you created will not help at all.

2. You can't. You're talking about the reminder before the event. Now, I don't know if setting that reminder to a longer value also changes the snooze value, but I don't want to have to set all my events to times different than what they are just as a workaround for a lousy calendar design.

3. That's interesting. Do you have the Motorola Droid, or the Eris? I have the Eris, and it doesn't rotate.

 

[redscann]

Has anyone figured a way to create a recurring event that happens once every 2 weeks, like a payday? so far I only see daily and weekly and same day each month.

Set it up in google calendar and sync it to the phone.

 

[arnoldl]

Try my 'Calendar snooze' app from the market..
gives you snoozing options (even more in next release) and repeating alerts.

grtx , arnold

 

[AmitMoran]

Hey I have published a app for that exactly. An application that sets repeating alarms for our Calendar events. You can personalize the alarm as you like +Snooze functionality.

Check it out and let me know what you think: Nudnik repeating alarm

or:http://www.androidzoom.com/android_applications/nudnik/by_matching

 

[mrqs]

1. the way it works is the way it should work - i wouldn't want the phone to shout continuously until it battery ran out when i'm not standing next to it
imagine being in a swimming hall or something while your phone is making noises in the locker, annoying everyone out of their minds
if you're having trouble noticing your notification, up the volume and change the sound

what i hate about the calendar app is that i can't specify the reminder time more accurately - the options are severely limited