Google Offers Mobile Access to Calendar Service

Users of Google Calendar can now access their schedules from their mobile phones.

Since more people have mobile phones than computers, it makes since to let them view appointments registered in their Google Calendar from handsets with Internet capability, Google software engineer Devesh Parekh [cq] wrote in a blog posting Thursday.

When users log on to Google Calendar from their Web-capable mobile phone, they see appoints complete with date, time, location and description -- all formatted in a way for easy reading on small screens. Users can scroll through the day's events, and also previous and forthcoming events.

In addition, the new service provides a link to Google Maps to find directions, as well as an option to add new appointments.

Missing, however, is a useful option for changing or deleting existing appointments.

Mobile-phone access to Google Calendar complements another from the company that allows users in the U.S. to be reminded of events via SMS (Short Message Service).

The new mobile service should come in handy for users of Google Calendar who use the online service as their primary scheduling tool, but could prove clumsy and restricted for smart phone owners who can more quickly and easily synchronize their complete Outlook or Lotus Notes calendars with their computers.

Another issue is cost: Although the new service itself costs nothing, users must be online to use it and, depending on their mobile data tariff, data connection fees can soon add up.