Booted By the Apple Comment Police: Saying “Stupid Design” is Bad
Alan Levine aka CogDog barked this August 22nd, 2008 12:59 pm
http://cogdogblog.com/2684
A post I made to the Apple Discussion forums this morning has been shown the back door, and I guess I have been slapped. They took my post off their site, who gives a rat’s arse when I can publish it here?
I posted something because I have been stumped through other channels (documentation, help, asking on twitter, cussing) on how to delete an un-needed calendar on my iPhone. Unlike almost every other type of thing you put on an iPhone, there is no way to simply remove a calendar. The problem is some sort of weird sync issue. I have a few calendars in iCal that I sync to Google Calendar using Spanning Sync, an din turn, iCal also syncs with iPhone.
The problem has been with the Birthdays calendar, which is generated in iCal automatically when you enter a birthday in the Address Book application. My problem was that in Google, I keep sying entries from this calendar sometimes 2 or 3 times. On my iPhone I had 5 calendars called “Birthdays” while iCal and Google only have one. Naively, I thought on the phone I could just delete the dupes.
Nope, there is no delete capability.
The Apple Support discussion forums are typically good for finding answers and I found a lot of people asking the same questions with nary an answer.
I did find a way around that took several steps, and meant not using the Birthdays calendar, doing a one way resync. Seemed worth sharing along with perhaps some snark about a device not letting you do a typically given right to delete.
But the Apple Discussion Comment Cops did not like my word usage. There was no profanity, but they said:
Apple removed your post on Apple Discussions titled “Not Being Able to Delete Calendars is…. iStupid Design” because it contained the following:
Off-topic or non-technical posts
Rude or inappropriate language
Non-constructive rants or complaints
Oh dear, what exactly did I say? The thing is- Apple can cleanse their shiny-no-one-rants-or-says-stupid forums, but that is the acceptable norm here at CogDogBlog. Here was my message, now fully findable by Google:
Not Being Able to Delete Calendars is…. iStupid Design
Where is the mysterious screen on my iPhone where it lists my calendars with a delete button? Should that be such a big thing to ask for (yes I have combed through all the threads here).
I don;t use Outlook or Mobile Me- just iCal – Spanning Sync – Google Cal
My problematic calendar in iCal is the Birthdays one generated by Address book. I use Spanning Sync to sync iCal and my Google Calendars, and I regularly have 2 or 3 repeated items from this calendar, no matter how many times I delete them. My iPhone lists 5 calendars named “Birthdays”
There is only 1 in my iCal and only 1 in the export file. Yet, in iTunes, when I look at the list of calendars in the Info pane, there are 5 calendars listed named “Birthdays”. Nowhere on my computer can I find a shred of 5 calendars named Birthday, but iTunes sees them or is on crack.
So here is how I got rid of them.
(1) in iTunes, turned off auto sync
(2) For the calendar sync in iTunes Info pane for the phone, I selected only the calendars I wanted (de-selected “Birthdays”
(3) At bottom of the Info pane, under Advance, check box for calendar under “Replace Information”
(4) Run a sync
Now I have no Birthdays calendar on my iPhone.
I’m going to delete this calendar in iCal, and go back to manual inserting birthdays in my regular calendar.
Way too much trouble!
So just for the record, here at CogDogBlog, we specialize in off-topic or non-technical posts, Rude or inappropriate language, and Non-constructive rants or complaints. Heck, unlike some beaches in Sydney, we even allow nude bathing:
Related posts:
- Bad Aftertaste At Apple Store
- Apple Features “I am Smarter Than You” Search Results
- The Secret Lives of Apple Products
- For Such Smart Tools, GoogleApps Have Pretty Stupid Menus
- Apple Keeps Twisting My Melon, Man
Twitter Friendly Link: http://cogdogblog.com/2684
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Feeling concerned over the nude bathing
Meanwhile I will need to consider if I should start using a calender on my iphone – bit of an issue going between PC and Mac. Most things on my PC (I’m not perfect).
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Great post. It has happened to me before, my post often get deleted for those same reasons, even if they misinterpretate my words!
August 24th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Oh well.
In typical fashion, if you’d been using your nano while you scanned the neck-to-knee clad humans, you might have burnt your butt – http://news.smh.com.au/technology/apple-offers-to-replace-faulty-ipod-batteries-20080822-3zr6.html
Best thing is to succumb to the grammar police and write nice things about an otherwise highly over-rated device that does more to stretch pockets and budgets or otherwise conservative Blackberry devotees.
I’m glad that Rude comes capitalized because if it was anything else then I’d skip over it in my reader