Unfortunately, you cannot add events directly to the iPod Touch calendar. You must have a calendar application on your host PC/Mac computer. Plus, the synchronization process requires the use of iTunes. It’s a drawn-out process and could be considered laborious in the terms of typical iPod easiness; however, having a working calendar is well worth the extra effort.
The first thing you need to do is to establish a calendar with your native calendar application on your PC/Mac computer. In this tip, I will be using the iCal application that comes with Apple’s OS X Leopard operating system. The Windows calendar application should work similarly in the synchronization process. However, if it doesn’t work for Windows, please let me know in the comment section below. (In case you are wondering, from my previous writings, I no longer have a Windows installation.) Once you have your calendar filled out with your events, connect your iPod Touch to your computer and open iTunes, if it doesn’t automatically open.
Once iTunes opens, you should click your iPod Touch’s icon on the left side of the iTunes window. Next, click on the Info tab at the top of the window. This window gives you a few other options to sync; but notice the second one down is called Calendars. Check the option to sync your calendars, choose the calendars you want to sync (unless you choose to sync all of your calendars), and then choose whether or not you want to sync older items in the calendar and how far back on the calendar you wish to sync. Keep in mind, that calendar items do take up storage space, so you may only want to sync current and future events. Calendar items typically do not take up a lot of space; however a full calendar, like the one I synchronized with my iPod Touch, takes up about 15-20 Megabytes. That is still a very small amount of space, but a lot of calendars can equal a lot of songs in size. Finally, when you have your options set, click the Sync button in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window to sync your calendar.
Now, go to your iPod Touch and enjoy your newly synchronized calendar.
Another really handy calendar ability is being able to sync a Google Calendar with your iPod Touch. Sure, you could just go to the Google Calendar using the Safari web browser. But what if you are not connected to a wi-fi access point? Then, you cannot look at your Google Calendar. So, what you need to do is subscribe to your Google Calendar using its iCal Calendar Address (not to be confused with Apple’s iCal application). In the settings of your Google Calendars, you have the option to see your calendar address in either XML, ICAL, or HTML. Of course, you want to view the ICAL address. Copy the link that appears in the pop-up window. Open your calendar application and locate the option to subscribe to a calendar. Typically, you will be asked for an iCal link. There is where you paste your iCal address from your Google Calendar. A few moments later, your calendar will be filled with your Google Calendar events. Now, all you need to do is to follow the steps at the beginning of this tip and sync your Google Calendar to your iPod Touch.
Get fed!
I follow all the steps:
click on IPOD touch device
then click INFO
but it says no supported calendars -I use windows calendar in Vista home premium. Can you help:
thanks
Lainey
Lainey,
I did a little digging around and apparently, iTunes will only sync with Outlook 2003 (or later) on a Windows-based PC. As I mentioned in this post, I do not have a Windows installation, so I was just assuming iTunes would be able to utilize the Windows Calendar. My apologies for that. Thank you very much for the comment and informing me of this issue. Have a great day.
Hey –
I’m trying to Sync my new iPod touch to my Google calendar, and I can’t find the button on my iPod that allows me to sync with my Google iCal address. Can you help?
Jessica,
The iPod Touch itself doesn’t actually have a button or option to sync with a Google Calendar. You have to go about it in a different way. The process is different depending on which operating system you are using. Are you using Windows or Mac OS X?
I just wanted to thank you for this assistance in syncing my ipod touch with outlook 2003. All other articles failed to mention the info tab! Thanks!
I use the route Google Calendar -> iCal -> iTunes -> iPod and it works fine. Except for the fact that the “location” field does not display on my iPod. Is there some setting I need to tweak?
In the meantime, I make sure that the location of events is indicated in the “notes” field, as this does show up on the my iPod.
–Gary
Gary,
I have not had any problems with the location field. I created a test event on my Google Calendar just to test this. Then, I refreshed my calendar in Apple’s iCal application on my iMac. The location for the event was still there. Then, I opened iTunes and told it to sync with my iPod Touch. When I brought up the test event on my iPod, the location was still there. It showed up in gray text under the event title. So, I’m not really sure why you are having trouble with your location field. I haven’t done anything special with my calendar setup.
April,
You are most welcome. Thank you for the feedback!
I wrote an article about how to sync you Google Calendar w/ your iPod Touch over the air (and free). Check it out:
http://digitalfrontier.wordpress.com/2008/10/09/how-to-sync-google-calendars-to-your-ipod-touchiphone/
Best part is you don’t need to use outlook.
Steve S,
Nice tip. However, it does require you to sign up for a 3rd party service. So, if someone were fine with that, it looks like it would do the job. For Windows users, it is certainly cheaper than buying Outlook.
Actually, you can add events directly into an iPod touch calendar (2nd generation). Still trying to figure out how to sync it with Google Calendar, however.
Maura W.,
Good point. I do believe syncing iPod Touch created events with a Google Calendar would be the reverse process of this blog post. Sync the iPod Touch calendar with your calendar on your PC/Mac, and then sync that calendar with Google Calendar. Of Course, it’s initially easier said than done. For help on this go to:
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/topic.py?topic=15305
If you want to exclusively use Google Calendar with your iPod Touch, just use the web interface of Google Calendar built for the iPod Touch and iPhone.
There is a working solution for over-the-air-sync for new (?) ipod touchs with a new firmware from Google via the Exchange Active Sync protocol: See http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?hl=de&answer=138740 for details.
Arne Kunstmann,
Great article! Thank you for sharing!
Thank you for sharing!
That really helped