Windows Live Calendar: out of beta, adds features

Yesterday Windows Live Calendar shut down for a bit in order to prepare for their latest incarnation, and today they’re back, having shed the “beta” tag and added some nice new features (we’re talking about the online calendar, at Calendar.live.com – the client calendar in Windows Live Mail doesn’t have these new features, at least not yet).

The Hotmail Team blog has a good writeup on the new features, which include “expandable weeks”, which let you see more (or less) events within a particular week in month view; “Charms”, which at first glance look like a pretty good idea – adding little icons to your events to help them stand out a bit in the calendar:

charms charms2

…Safari web browser support (!!), a convenient “New” button in the header that splits out all ways you can add content (Event, To-do, Social event, Calendar):

newSplit

…also improved calendar sharing options, a promise that Meeting invitations (for inclusion in other calendar services) are coming soon, and word that MSN Calendar users will be moved to the Windows Live Calendar, but that most of the move will be taken care of automatically, preserving appointments, tasks, etc.

Comments

  • http://gregsedwards.spaces.live.com gregsedwards

    But still no integration with the native Windows Mobile calendar?

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/orionll/default.aspx orionll

    Yay!

    Now where’s iPhone support :P.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/sp1der/default.aspx sp1der

    no task sync
    no notes sync
    no mobile sync
    :-(

  • JohnCz

    I guess this means that every Windows Live team is now focused on “Wave 4″. :)

  • someone

    What happened to software+services? Windows Live is more services than software. I would like to dream about these in a desktop version. But they seem to be dropping more and more features in the desktop version to make sure it has its place in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_removed_from_Windows_7

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/yanverm/default.aspx yanverm

    missing the same things as sp1der…
    but glad that they finaly took away the banner in top for hotmail plus members and also resolved several viewing bugs.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/Vasudev/default.aspx Vasudev

    “……..“New” button in the header that splits out all ways you can add content (Event, To-do, Social event, Calendar):……….”

    The ‘New’ button, Was it not there in the Beta also? I think it was there.

  • damaster

    @Vasudev: the beta version had two buttons, one is “New event”, and another “New” button with dropdowns for To-dos, Social event, Calendar…etc.

  • http://liveside.net/members/alexwilks88/default.aspx alexwilks88

    Nice of them to add Safari support, but I use Opera (which has roughly the same market share) primarily here and don’t like having to switch to IE8 just to use Windows Live properly. The Calendar looks nice now though and I can’t wait to get my WinMo phoned fixed to see how well the whole thing really works.

  • http://liveside.net/members/alexwilks88/default.aspx alexwilks88

    On a side note, there doesn’t seem to be much, if any, integration with the other live services (e.g. adding maps, contacts as attendees etc) that the mail service is apparently receiving in the near future. It seems strange that they’d miss such crucial elements out of an update as there’s little opportunity to link or sync information together at this point.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/Tony-T/default.aspx Tony T

    SYNC SYNC SYNC

    Why is it such a chore to sync with Outlook and phones?? I had to give up ’cause too many issues syncing with my Black Berry. Google Sync has them beat in this respect hands down.

  • http://vasudevg.blogspot.com/ Vasudev

    @damaster, right. Actually Beta had “New To-Do” and “New” button with drop down which also had To-Do option. So the “New To-Do” button was removed.

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/CalumJR/default.aspx CalumJR

    Still no support for dynamic themes!? :O

    How ridiulous! All of the other main Windows Live services have this. I bet this means Hotmail won’t which will make it near unusable for me (as I have the tree theme that normally looks nice but the default orange one looks horrible).

    I don ‘t see why they can’t have support for dynamic themes?

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/emiliano84/default.aspx emiliano84

    unfortunately i have to quote sp1der, yanverm and tony T

    i hope that with windows mobile 6.5 and office 2007 sp2 will be a revolution for sync contacts,email,calendar and birthdays between pc,live and mobile…and outlook will work with that without outlook connector (is boring) aslike windows live mail

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/GoodThings2Life/default.aspx GoodThings2Life

    As everyone else is pointing out— they have got to get on the ball with the mobile side of things now that their web and desktop components are in solid order!

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/JSYOUNG571/default.aspx JSYOUNG571

    I want to thank the Windows Live Calendar team for removing the ad off my paid subscription of Hotmail Plus. As far as my review of the Windows Live Calendar out of beta……the results are not good. We have waited over a year for Windows Live Calendar to be set for a full release. As usual we are cut short on a lot of features that are essential in the calendar. I would like to know what happen to the Holidays? It doesn’t make sense that we have to click on help and go through the Windows Live instructions and download the calendar individually which hasn’t worked for me since the last beta change over. We should be able to go to options and just click a link to add Holidays to the calendar..that is it. The MSN Calendar had it as well. The Outlook connector does not work well between the Outlook Calendar and the Windows Live Calendar. With both synching together, my appointments are thrown off with a foreign time zone, no matter how many times I choose United States time zone. The foreign time appears in Windows Live Calendar. Am I the only one noticing that when you go to add a new calendar to the list of other calendars, you have an option at the bottom that says Reminders: Receive a daily e-mail schedule for this calendar with a check box by it? I have been noticing this since the first and second beta of Windows Live Calendar. Matter of fact Google Calendar has the same option. You receive a daily email of a summary letting you know what your activities are for the day on that calendar. No matter how many times I have checked it for Windows Live Calendar, I still to this day have not seen an daily email of my events for each of my calendars. What is up with that? I have to agree with CalumJR about the dynamic themes. Hotmail,Messenger, nor Calendar are adjusting the themes like the main page is. I am hoping that with an update coming to Hotmail, this will change that situation and cause the themes to work properly. Time will tell. Last but not least….it is the same issue..over and over again. What the heck is going on with a calendar release for Windows Mobile? Do you realize that Windows Live is the only service with no calendar sync for mobile? But then again it might be a good thing on Windows Live part because if you can’t create a tool to sync the calendar with outlook correctly, then what does that say for the mobile part? It just seem like while other services such as Google, Yahoo, and AOL are moving forward, Windows Live is moving in slow motion. This calendar is a big example of what me and everyone else have been complaining about. Yes it is out of beta, but we are still cut short of the essential of how it should work.

  • ViperHockey

    @JSYoung571 — Contact me offline, let me see if I can help get some of your issues straightened out…

    judspencer at hotmail.com

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/emiliano84/default.aspx emiliano84

    JSYOUNG571 have reason, but i think only that the theme part is the last of problems, the most important things we need soon as possible are syn and better functions :)

  • http://www.liveside.net/members/derlinzer/default.aspx derlinzer

    I have no clue, why the Live team took the beta tag of Calendar, because the whole thing sucks endlessly. Looking for an alternative to Google Calendar, i find nil in Live Calender that would make me switch. A layout that screams for a Full HD screen, No SMS notifications (Microsoft supports 1 of 5 providers in Austria/Europe, while Google supports all of them) and inconsistent features with the desktop app (hey, don’t the teams talk with each other?). If at least the SMS notifications worked, it could have been an alternative for me, even with the other flaws, but the Live team/Microsoft didn’t even get that right…