How Google Calendar Can Screw Up Appointments When Changing Timezones

Posted by Michael Gray in Featured Articles on 09 1st, 2009 | no responses

While I don’t make my use of  Google products like Google Apps and Google Reader secret it still continues to amuse some people when I do.  However a few weeks ago when I went to SES San Jose, I encountered a new “feature” that occurs when you change time zones, and it didn’t do me any favors.

Before SES San Jose I got emails from Vanessa Zamora of  WebmasterWorld and Abby Prince of  Web Pro News to schedule some interviews, and I set them up for local time on the west coast. When I got to the west coast Google Calendar recognized this and asked me if I wanted to adjust my calendar, I said yes and it went and adjusted all my appointments. Since I wasn’t prepared for this I didn’t screen shot the behavior, however now that I’m back I did. Here’s a screen shot asking me if I want to change the time zones (note the time’s of the appointments)

Here’s the screen shot after the change to east coast time, notice the appointments moved

I only had a few appointments scheduled so it was easy to move stuff back to where it should be, but I don’t think this behavior is what any users want.