The latest version of the Google Maps app for Android adds more integration with Google Calendar. There's a new upcoming tab in "Your places", which shows a list of upcoming events, including your bookings and reservations from Gmail. Click an event to quickly see the location on the map.


There's also a new "personal content" section in the settings, which lets you disable the integration with Google Contacts, Google Photos, disable location, location history and search history.

Google Calendar's apps for Android and iOS now let you add reminders, just like you can do using Google Keep, Google Search or Google Inbox. This feature is rolling out this week if you have the latest version of the Google Calendar's mobile app. Until now, you could only see your reminders in Google Calendar.


"You might already create calendar entries to remind you to call the doctor or pick up groceries on the way home. But while those entries come and go, Reminders stick with you over time so you can track them until they are actually done. If a Reminder isn't completed, it will appear at the top of your Calendar the next day. And the next. When you do finally call the doctor or pick up those necessities, just swipe the Reminder away ... and you're onto the next to-do," informs Google.

Calendar events are different from reminders, but you can now manage them from the same app. Google promises to bring this feature to the Google Calendar web app in the near future.

Daniel Fletcher, a reader of this blog, noticed that Google Calendar's URL changed from www.google.com/calendar to calendar.google.com. This seems to be a recent change, even though the Google Apps Blog announced it back in September.

"In an effort to further increase security, in the coming weeks we'll be changing the main Google Calendar URL from 'www.google.com/calendar' to 'calendar.google.com.' Following the launch, the old Calendar url will simply redirect to the new one, so the overall impact of this change on Google Apps customers should be minimal," informed Google.


Browsers like Chrome and Safari will ask you for permission again to show notifications. Greasemonkey scripts and extensions that use the old URLs will probably stop working, so developers will need to update them.

Daniel Fletcher wonders why "Maps is now google.com/maps, when it used to be maps.google.com and Calendar seems to have gone the other way". Maybe Google Maps will go back to the old URL.

The latest version of the Google Calendar app for iOS brings a few useful features, catching up with the Android app.

You can now add Google Drive files to calendar events in the iOS app, as well as the desktop Google Calendar site. This feature was already available in the Android app since February and in Google Calendar Labs since 2009. "Event attachments" graduated from Labs and it's now available for everyone (including developers).

If a Drive file isn't shared with all the guests, you'll see a prompt and you can change how the file is shared.


Here's a screenshot from the desktop site (the feature may not seem new if you've used the Event Attachments feature from Google Calendar Labs):


Another feature already available in the Android app is the 7-day view, which lets you see more events at a glance. You can now switch to the 7-day view in the iOS app and customize your calendar with week numbers in the settings.


Google takes advantages of the improved notification features from iOS8 and adds interactive notifications for events, so you can email guests or view the map without having to open Google Calendar first.

SMS notifications were a very useful Google Calendar feature back when smartphones weren't popular and most people used feature phones. Now that the sales of feature phones decline and they're replaced by low-cost smartphones, Google decided to discontinue SMS notifications.

"Starting on June 27th, 2015, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be sent. SMS notifications launched before smartphones were available. Now, in a world with smartphones and notifications, you can get richer, more reliable experiences on your mobile device, even offline. This change will not affect Google Apps for Work, Education and Government customers," informs Google.


{ Thanks, Manuelvh. }

Back in 2012, Gmail enhanced the search feature by showing relevant emails, Google Calendar events, Google Drive files as you type your query. A similar feature is now available in Google Calendar and Google Drive.

For example, you can type a query in Google Calendar and find emails and Google Drive files, in addition to Google Calendar events. Click one of the results and it opens in a new tab.


Google Drive shows Google Calendar events and results from Gmail. If there are no Google Drive results, you'll see this message: "there are no recent records that match your search".


Similar results are included in the standalone web apps for Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.


{ Thanks, Angelo Giuffrida. }

The latest update to the Google Calendar app for Android brings a lot of new features. You can see more events with the new 7-day week view and pinch-to-zoom, add Google Drive files to events, hide Google+ birthdays from the settings, show week numbers and import .ics files from other apps. The new version is gradually rolling out over the next few days.


The feature that lets you hide Google+ birthdays will also be added to the web interface next week. All the other features are already available in the desktop site.

Google Calendar now lets you change notification time for all-day events. When you create a new all-day event or edit an existing event, you can ask Google to notify you X days before the event at HH:MM.


You can also set a default notification time in the settings. "Event notifications tell you about an all-day event at a specified time some number of days before it begins. For example, if you'd like to be alerted about an all-day event at 9 am the day before it occurs, you'd set a notification," informs Google.


Eric Ward, a reader of this blog, noticed this new feature and he says that he's "glad to see this feature because previously the reminder was by default at 4:50 pm on the day before the event with no ability to set the time." Google Calendar's help center hasn't been updated and it still informs users that "reminders for All Day events are based on 5:00 pm the day before the event (according to your current time zone). So, if you choose to receive your reminder 10 minutes before your All Day event on August 24th, you'll be reminded on August 23rd at 4:50 pm".

{ Thanks, Eric Ward. }

Google Calendar has a new favicon and it looks just like the icon of the new Google Calendar app for Android, except that it changes every day.


The new icon is also added to the landing page that introduces the updated Google Calendar app. Here's a bigger version.


Google Calendar last updated the favicon back in 2011, when it started to change every day.


{ Thanks, Hamish. }

Google Calendar for desktop has recently been updated. The changes may seem minor, but they add some features that were already available in Gmail and make Google Calendar a better app.

Google Calendar now uses permalinks for all views, sections and events. You can quickly bookmark them, as the URL changes in the address bar when you switch to a different view, open an event or use the search feature. An important side effect is that you can now uses the browser's back and forward buttons in Google Calendar.


Another new feature is that Google Calendar updates automatically. You no longer need to click the refresh button to make sure that all the events are updated and you're not missing some new events.

The calendars from the "other calendars" section that are currently enabled are now placed at the top of the list. This is useful if you've added a lot of calendars.


{ via +Gmail }

If you wanted a Google Calendar that works more like Google Inbox, that's what you'll get in the new version of Google Calendar for Android.

The new Google Calendar is designed to be "a helpful assistant", so it creates events automatically using information from your Gmail messages. If you book a flight, buy concert tickets or make a hotel reservation, you'll usually get an email conformation and Google Calendar now creates events by extracting relevant data from your email. The nice thing is that the events are updated if you change your reservations or your flights are delayed and you get email updates.


Google Calendar now offers suggestions when you create events and the suggestions are based on the events you've previously created. "With Assists, Calendar can suggest titles, people and places as you type, as well as adapt to your preferences over time. For example, if you often go running with Peter in Central Park, Calendar can quickly suggest that entire event when you type 'r-u-n.'"



Google uses data from Google Maps and other Google services to make the calendar look better. The new Schedule View "includes photos and maps of the places you're going, cityscapes of travel destinations, and illustrations of everyday events like dinner, drinks and yoga".



The new version of the Google Calendar app for Android requires Android 4.1 or later and it will be available in the coming weeks on Google Play Store. Google also promises to release a Google Calendar app for iOS. Hopefully, Google will also update the desktop version and the mobile web app.

You can now create events from Google Search. Type create event, add event, new event, add meeting or schedule appointment and Google shows the details for a generic Meeting event that starts in a few minutes. You can add the event to your calendar or click the time to go to Google Calendar.


A better idea is to enter something more specific: create event for Monday at 10am: write the report. This way, you can create the event directly from Google Search and you don't even have to open Google Calendar. It's similar to the "quick add" feature from Google Calendar, except that you need to add some text like "new event" or "create event" and detection doesn't work that well.


You can click "edit event" to open Google Calendar and make some changes.


This also works when you use voice input.

{ via Search Engine Land }

When you use Gmail's "insert invitation" button, you get this message: "Starting July 2014, this feature will no longer be available. You can continue sending email invitations from Google Calendar."


Probably this feature wasn't used very often, but a small percentage of Gmail users will miss it, especially business users. Adding invitations from Gmail is more convenient than opening Google Calendar in a new tab, creating a new event and inviting guests.


"It (truly!) is always tough choosing which features to continue to support. We make these decisions carefully, so please know that! We'll still be supporting creating invitations, just through different steps. The workaround now is to click into calendar and to create an invitation from there," inform Gmail Community Managers.

{ Thanks, James Sacuan. }

Gmail Notifier and Google Notifier will no longer be available. They were two apps for Windows and Mac that displayed notifications for Gmail and Google Calendar (Mac-only) in the system tray, while also allowing you to set Gmail as the default mail client for your computer.

From the description of the Windows app (last updated in 2006): "The Gmail Notifier is an application that alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. It displays an icon in your system tray to let you know if you have unread Gmail messages, and shows you their subjects, senders and snippets, all without your having to open a web browser."

From the description of the Mac app (last updated in 2010): "The Google Notifier is an application that shows you alerts in your menu bar, so you can see when you have new Gmail messages or upcoming Google Calendar events without having to open a web browser."


Google sent this message, which suggests some alternatives:

We're writing to let you know about an important change to Google Notifier Beta. Starting on 31 January, Google Notifier Beta will no longer be supported, meaning that the app will no longer show recent emails and calendar events.

Since Google Notifier Beta was launched in 2005, a lot has changed. Smartphones can now notify us of new messages wherever we are, and improvements to web technology enable similar features to be built right into the browser.

If you want to continue to receive notifications, you can use any of the following alternatives to Google Notifier Beta, using the Chrome browser. To see the number of unread messages in your inbox at a glance, install the Gmail Checker Chrome app. To preview new messages on your desktop, go to Gmail's settings and enable Desktop Notifications. You can uninstall Google Notifier Beta by following these instructions.

It's funny to see that the apps were still in beta.

{ Thanks, Koen. }

Google Takeout now lets you export your calendars and it will soon add a similar feature for Gmail. The calendar exporting feature is not new - you could find it in the Google Calendar settings, but it's nice to see that Google Takeout gets more comprehensive and adds support for new services.

The Gmail exporting feature is completely new and it will be gradually released next month. It will let you download a big MBOX file you can import in mail clients like Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail. You can also use this feature to backup your Gmail messages and read them offline.


"You can download all of your mail and calendars or choose a subset of labels and calendars. You can also download a single archive file for multiple products with a copy of your Gmail, Calendar, Google+, YouTube, Drive, and other Google data," informs Google.

When you enter a location for a Google Calendar event, Google now shows a list of suggestions. For example, if you type "Google H", one of the suggestions is "Google Headquarters". The nice thing is that Google also adds the address.


It's not clear how suggestions are ranked, but they're different from the Google Maps search suggestions. Nearby places are placed at the top of the list even if they're not that important.

{ Thanks, John Wilke. }

Google Calendar's app for Android has been updated with new controls for selecting time, date, timezones, colors and editing repeating events. I wonder if the next Android version will use these controls instead of the existing pickers.

Selecting the time is a 2-part process: you first select the hour and then the number of minutes. The time picker is based on a real 24-hour clock.



Selecting the date is straightforward: Google uses a scrolling calendar that's great for picking a date from the current month or next month. If you want to pick a date from a different year, tap the year and you can quickly switch to 2014, 2015 or any other year.


Here are the standard time/date Android pickers that were previously used by the Google Calendar app. "Each picker provides controls for selecting each part of the time (hour, minute, AM/PM) or date (month, day, year). Using these pickers helps ensure that users can pick a time or date that is valid, formatted correctly, and adjusted to the user's locale."


And here are the original pre-Honeycomb pickers:


The control for repeating events looks much better. "You can now set events to repeat every Tuesday and Thursday, every month, or every 7 weeks, it's completely up to you," informs the Android blog.


Now you can pick different colors for events and calendars:


There's also a different way to select time zones: instead of showing a long list of time zones, countries and regions, Google Calendar lets you enter the country name and it displays the relevant time zones.


I've found it easy to compare the old and new controls because my phone has both the stock Calendar app and the Google Calendar app from Google Play. It's a good idea to disable the notifications for one of the apps if you don't want to get multiple notifications for the same event.

Last year Google added a new color palette for Google Calendar and many users complained. Some of them thought that the new calendar colors make it difficult to tell events apart, while other people wrote that they're too muted.

Now you can customize calendar colors. Just click the arrow icon next to a calendar in the left sidebar, click "choose custom color" and pick your favorite background color. Select "light text" if the text is hard to read.




"Google Calendar users have had the ability to change the colors of specific events or calendars from a default color palette. Users can now choose a custom color if the default palette does not meet their needs," informs Google. This feature is also available for Google Apps.

Google+ has a new feature: support for creating and managing events. Instead of copying Facebook's similar feature, Google decided to release a cutting-edge feature that's miles ahead everything else.

Google+ Events integrates with Google Calendar, has support for beautiful themes and it's not just about creating events. The most interesting feature is called "party mode" and it automatically brings together all the photos taken by the guests. "Once you've enabled Party Mode on your mobile device, all of your new photos get added to the event in real-time. And as more guests turn on Party Mode, more pictures will instantly appear to fellow invitees. In this way Google+ Events gives your party a visual pulse; we've even added a 'live slideshow' you can proudly project during the event," explains Google.


When the event ends, you can see everyone's photos in one place and filter them by popularity, the photographer or the tag. It's a great way to manage your photos, but the guests need to have Android phones and install the Google+ app.

Speaking of the Google+ app, it's now available for tablets. Right now, you can only install it if you have an Android 3.0+ tablet, but the app will also be available for the iPad soon.


Google says that more than 250 million people have upgraded to Google+ and the number of active users is 150 million. The active users spend about an hour per day at google.com and 12 minutes in the Google+ stream. Launched one year ago, Google+ seems to be pretty successful.

Google Calendar updated the color palette and you can now choose from 24 colors that match the new interface. "The color of each of your calendars has been updated to use the closest possible color from the new palette. The new colors will only be available in the web interface (for example, you won't see these colors if you're accessing Calendar via your mobile phone)," informs Google.




It's worth mentioning that the new colors are only available if you use Google Calendar's new UI. To switch to the new interface, click the Options menu in the navigation bar and select "Try the new look". You can always go back to the old UI from the same menu.


{ Thanks, Cougar, Ralph and Herin. }