Brad Feld

Tag: calendar

Before I get into my rant of the morning, if you have a gluten intolerance, or just want less gluten in your life, we just invested in a company called Nima that can help you.

Today, as I was going through my daily reading, I read Fred Wilson’s Feature Friday: GBoard about Google’s new third-party keyboard app for iOS. I clicked on the link to download and try it and, as it was doing its thing, though to myself “why does Apple iOS Mail suck?” And then I thought “why does Apple iOS Calendar suck?”

When I’m using my iPhone, I spend a lot of time in Mail and Calendar. I’ve always been unhappy with Apple’s Mail and Calendar. I’ve gone through using lots of other ones, but in most cases, once the Mail or Calendar app is acquired by another, bigger company, it eventually stales out and vanishes. About a year about I started using Outlook on My iPhone and used it for a long time. I can’t remember what happened, but at some point I abandoned it and switched back to Apple Mail and Calendar.

As Gboard was downloading, I decided to try Gmail and Google Calendar on iOS for a while. I used them when they first came out and they were inferior to Apple’s Mail and Calendar. I tried them again about a year ago and they were good, but for some reason I didn’t stay with them.

I know that if I don’t use something for at least some extended period of time it won’t stick. Some I’m going to try having Google World on my iPhone until at least June 1st. At that point I’ll re-evaluate.

If you have any hints or suggestions, I’m all ears.


Put this in the protip category. When you create a calendar event and invite someone to it, make it useful.

For example “Board Meeting” is not helpful. But “BigDoor Board Meeting” is very helpful.

Don’t invite me to a meeting that says “Meeting with Brad Feld.” Make it something like “Smith / Feld – UX for BigDoor” meeting.

For bonus points, use the “Where” field. Put the full address in it. If it says “Foundry Group – 1050 Walnut Street, Suite 210, Boulder, CO 80302” your iPhone or Android phone can automatically map the directions. If it just says “Foundry” well – that’s not really very helpful. Or put your phone number instead of “Phone”. Or your Skype handle instead of “Skype”.

At some point in the future, our calendars will be really smart. Right now they still generally suck, but a few simple things can make them a lot better.