Travel Tools - TripIt iCal Feed with Google Calendar

I keep my travel plans in TripIt and subscribe to the iCal feed it provides in both Outlook and Google Calendar. Outlook updates the feed relatively promptly, but Google Calendar doesn't. Does anyone know how often Google refreshes third party iCal feeds?

often enough for me. But there's a lot of complaints about it. I don't think they publish how often they do it.

-David

I keep my travel plans in TripIt and subscribe to the iCal feed it provides in both Outlook and Google Calendar. Outlook updates the feed relatively promptly, but Google Calendar doesn't. Does anyone know how often Google refreshes third party iCal feeds?

They do it when they feel like it. Nobody from Google actually cares enough to fix bugs or problems with their software.

I've had the same frustration for over a year with Google Calendar -- simply no way to force a refresh or sync with ical feeds, and no way to know when the next update will happen.

They do it when they feel like it. Nobody from Google actually cares enough to fix bugs or problems with their software.

You know, I kinda share that sentiment. It seems that Google puts a lot of stuff "out there" and just let it be, leaving everyone to run down fixes, answers to questions, etc. I can't tell you how many times I've typed (into Google, of course) "How do I fix [insert google product problem here]?"

That said, though I think this issue is more important for those who sync devices directly with Google Calendar (e.g. Android device, iPhone?), I pull my TripIt calendars into iCal (as well as a couple of Google Calendars) and then hardwire sync them to my Blackberry. That way, I don't really have to rely on Google pulling my TripIt data.

For tripit, I subscribe directly to the tripit ical feed on the portable devices (ie, iphone, and I'm sure you can do the same thing on android, right?)

It's only when viewing it in google calendar in a web browser that the ical feed updates don't occur immediately, but they occur often enough. It's still getting it via the tripit ical feed, there's just no way to force the update, but again, that's really just one limited place (in a web browser, with google calendar open). Since you are in the web browser, you can just go to tripit, and that's where you should apply updates anyway.

I agree that google is frustrating with stuff like this, but I don't think it matters that much for the tripit ical feed if you are using it properly. Does the android calendar app behave the same way as google calendar? I hope not. I'm assuming it updates on demand, as with the iphone calendar app. I have no idea how blackberry calendar works. Are they still in business? :D

-David

For tripit, I subscribe directly to the tripit ical feed on the portable devices (ie, iphone, and I'm sure you can do the same thing on android, right?)

If you can, I haven't been able to figure out how. Android just shows the list of calendars I've subscribed to in Google Calendar on the desktop. There doesn't seem to be an option to subscribe to a calendar directly from Android.

It's fine; it appears Google updated my TripIt calendar a couple days later. I don't *need* it to work at the moment - and I'm going to be getting an iPhone in a month when my contract is up anyway.

i guess you can't subscribe to an individual ical feed on android's standard calendar app. :(

http://www.tripit.com/uhp/calendarInfo

I wonder what Scott C does? I think he's an android fan.

Though in google calendar, you have just subscribed to the tripit ical feed, right? So if somehow android is importing that, maybe it's the same effect? (I mean subscribe vs the one time import of a single trips calendar entry, which is static and not a good way to do it, IMO.) External calendar subs don't show up on the iphone's calendar when I subscribe to the google calendar feed there. You just get the entries from that specific calendar, which is probably what you want since you can subscribe to whichever ical feeds you want to, separately.

-David

i guess you can't subscribe to an individual ical feed on android's standard calendar app. :(

http://www.tripit.com/uhp/calendarInfo

I wonder what Scott C does? I think he's an android fan.

Though in google calendar, you have just subscribed to the tripit ical feed, right? So if somehow android is importing that, maybe it's the same effect? (I mean subscribe vs the one time import of a single trips calendar entry, which is static and not a good way to do it, IMO.) External calendar subs don't show up on the iphone's calendar when I subscribe to the google calendar feed there. You just get the entries from that specific calendar, which is probably what you want since you can subscribe to whichever ical feeds you want to, separately.

-David

How are you subscribing to the Google feed from iOS? I used to use whatever it set up when picking "Gmail" in the configuration screens, but it turns out using "Exchange" works better (push email), and you can choose what calendars get pushed: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740

How are you subscribing to the Google feed from iOS? I used to use whatever it set up when picking "Gmail" in the configuration screens, but it turns out using "Exchange" works better (push email), and you can choose what calendars get pushed: http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/answer.py?answer=138740

This isn't for me and it isn't about IOS. Yes, I do that for gmail/google calendar/contacts, etc. But not for the tripit ical feed. Thanks. In IOS you can set that up as a separate ical feed, so it pulls directly from tripit and not indirectly via some other service.

-David