Chao asked me to look at the calendar feature list for .6 to evaluate whether it would be sufficient for day-to-day use.

At-a-glance I would say yes. However, there are so many risk factors that it's hard to say what kind of calendar we'll actually end up with by the end of the release.

In the end, it will mostly depend on who the end-user is and what their use cases are.

I would say that .5 should provide us with enough basic calendaring that someone like me should be able to use it day-to-day. The single thing that would prevent me from switching from Apple iCal to Chandler calendar is that Apple iCal is far more polished and responsive and therefore more pleasant to use. But from a functionality standpoint, .5 calendar will have everything the basic user needs.

.6 addresses a whole bunch of more sophisticated workflows geared towards calendar sharing.

1. Visual and interaction features to manage multiple calendars
2. Free / busy
3. Interoperability

Unfortunately all three of these feature areas are burdened with risks and unknowns.

Prioritization

From the standpoint of day-to-day use, getting basic visual and interaction features working smoothly to spec so that users can easily distinguish between can manage multiple personal and shared calendars is top priority. It is literally a a feature set that users will use every second they are looking at and interacting with their calendar.

(A set of "not-specific-to-calendar-yet-crucial-to-day-to-day-calendar-usage" features is visual and interaction polish in the detail view. In truth, visual and interaction polish for the entire app, but especially in the detail view. Just as visual polish might prevent a basic user from switching to Chandler calendar in .5, the same holds true for .6. A more complete user experience for calendar sharing however might impel someone to use Chandler calendar inspite of some roughness around the edges...Although I'm not sure how sharing is going to feel at the end of .6?)

Free/busy OTOH is an occasional feature, used in very specific scenarios. It also pre-supposes that the user and some larger work group have all decided to 1. migrate to Chandler and 2. publish their free / busy time...something that will be rare in the .6 timeframe.

Similar logic applies to interoperability.

That being said, there are other reasons other than day-to-day calendar use to work on features. This is simply one lens on calendar feature development in .6

Takeaways

• Calendar usability in .6 will depend on:
• Visual and interaction polish to help users manage multiple calendars
• Visual and interaction polish in the detail view
• Overall visual and interaction polish in the UI
• Coherent sharing experience: ACLs? Sharing invitations?

• Getting these basic features right is more important to day-to-day use in the .6 timeframe than free/ busy or interoperability.