Replacing Google Calendar with KashCal

There is one thing I miss terribly about the iPhone, and that is the seamless iCal integration. I’m on Android (Nokia X5), and subscribing to a remote iCal involves a few hoops, shuffles and dances. I have always made use of ICSx and it has worked flawlessly, enabling me to subscribe to remote iCals because Google Calendar cannot. But Google Calendar…there is a major issue with it somewhere.

I have recently started noticed a lag in my event notifications. My phone is set up to play a sound and show a pop-up at the event’s notification time. Of late, the notifications are sometimes delayed by around 5 to 10 minutes. On other occasions, I swear that no notifications have been sent, because I end up having to scramble to get to where I’m supposed to be.

Google Calendar has always been allowed to be outside of the battery optimisations, it never power-saves; it should, to quote their rival, “just work”. But it doesn’t, or rather, it chooses its moments and sometimes delays pinging the notification through. That simply will not do.

Coincidentally, I opened F-droid today and right at the top was KashCal. The blurb read: “Modern Android calendar. iCloud & CalDAV finally done right. Private. Open.”

Oh! Well, alright then! It is capable of directly subscribing to remote iCals, so ICSx can go as well.

I know, I probably shouldn’t be boasting this early about replacing Google Calendar with something else, as I might eventually end up in the same boat as before with my delayed notifications. I think I’m just excited at how I have managed to (i) hide one useless app (because Google Calendar cannot be removed); (ii) get rid of another app (ICSx) which was originally installed as an iCal subscription workaround, and (iii) find an all-in-one app which seems to be working well so far.

Touch wood!

And, there goes a reminder from KashCal. ON TIME! It’s 6PM…time to do something or other.