Surface Outlook vs. iPad iCal...

[b52hbuff]

My kids have been taking a Microsoft YouthSpark class. During the class, parents must stay in the store. Sometimes we get a presentation from Microsoft staff, and sometimes we play on the machines by ourselves...

The result is that I got to spend a lot of quality time with the Surface and Win8.

For a brief history, I am currently enjoying an HP TM2T TouchSmart Windows Tablet PC running Win7. OneNote has been an important tool in organizing my "job" as a stay at home dad. I have also been torn between the Surface and the iPad.

When Surface first came out, I spent a lot of time and Apple and Microsoft stores trying to weigh pros and cons for what I wanted to do. Despite many wonderful features, I ended up getting the iPad. Pros for the iPad include, being able to integrate into our existing iPhone/iCloud "ecosystem", and a better battery life.
But I dearly miss the pen and the ability to run a more full featured OneNote program.

After several months experience with the iPad and now several weeks playing with the in-store demos, I have some questions...

1. Has anyone been able to connect Microsoft Outlook 2013 into iCloud for the purposes of updating / sharing calendaring information?

I have learned via my in-store experience that the advertised / displayed "Calendar live tile" only operates on the built in calendaring program. I would be maintaining my calendar via Outlook. One benefit to the Apple is the speed / simplicity of being able to press the "iCal" app icon and immediately get into your calendar. The "outlook" live tile simply starts the desktop and runs outlook

2. Is there anyway to get the live tile to display outlook calendaring information?

3. Is there a quick way to get get Surface / Outlook / Win8 to quickly display a "Today view"?

4. Is there a consolidated notification center to see what apps / appointment have issued an alert / notification?

Thanks!

 

[scadarick]

My kids have been taking a Microsoft YouthSpark class. During the class, parents must stay in the store. Sometimes we get a presentation from Microsoft staff, and sometimes we play on the machines by ourselves...

The result is that I got to spend a lot of quality time with the Surface and Win8.

For a brief history, I am currently enjoying an HP TM2T TouchSmart Windows Tablet PC running Win7. OneNote has been an important tool in organizing my "job" as a stay at home dad. I have also been torn between the Surface and the iPad.

When Surface first came out, I spent a lot of time and Apple and Microsoft stores trying to weigh pros and cons for what I wanted to do. Despite many wonderful features, I ended up getting the iPad. Pros for the iPad include, being able to integrate into our existing iPhone/iCloud "ecosystem", and a better battery life.
But I dearly miss the pen and the ability to run a more full featured OneNote program.

After several months experience with the iPad and now several weeks playing with the in-store demos, I have some questions...

1. Has anyone been able to connect Microsoft Outlook 2013 into iCloud for the purposes of updating / sharing calendaring information?

I have learned via my in-store experience that the advertised / displayed "Calendar live tile" only operates on the built in calendaring program. I would be maintaining my calendar via Outlook. One benefit to the Apple is the speed / simplicity of being able to press the "iCal" app icon and immediately get into your calendar. The "outlook" live tile simply starts the desktop and runs outlook

2. Is there anyway to get the live tile to display outlook calendaring information?

3. Is there a quick way to get get Surface / Outlook / Win8 to quickly display a "Today view"?

4. Is there a consolidated notification center to see what apps / appointment have issued an alert / notification?

Thanks!

Not ready to answer these questions just yet, I too am having this same issue, been using 3 diff apps on my iPad for calendar usage, works great and I can get them into outlook 2011, on my win 8 pro, but since I upgraded to 2013...ical is what I am trying too. The one thing I did back in win 7 was to use the ms exchange server to get all my mail and balancers. Now not sure I can use those settings on 2013...Yet! Give me a few days and I will see what I can do, my calendars are very important to me.
Just give me some time and I will figure something out....or die trying!

 

[scadarick]

Well guys I do have my calendars all syncing with gmail and my outlook 2013 on my surface pro 2. The only way I could get my ipad to match my surface pro was to export gmail calendar to and ics file and it showed up on my sp2. I don't have it perfect yet, got a lot of dups, but I can fix it, just need to drop a lot of them a go from there. I got 3 calendars , it was the only way I could get it to work, now I am trying to get things cleaned up. I use my ipad when I leave the house because it has verizon, unlimited data, I would not upgrade my droid bionic yet, so still on month to month. I would like to get the iPhone 6 and the ipad 5 or air. As soon as I can get things clean, I will post all of the information I get. Trust me, it's hard to get outlook to blend in with ipad calendars , but not impossible, because when I get home, my appointments show up on my android and sp2, so yes it's possible. Promise I will be back soon with what I get...ok