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Ah! The good old days of pre-Mountain Lion when they were combined!

It's been 11 years and I've moved on, like others, to using 3rd party apps/program that are better imo than Apple's programs (Fantastical for Mac, Calendar 366 for iOS) that have the combined view.

As others have mentioned, Apple could make things worse trying to combine them back together. Can't even get the apps to have similar functions across platforms: been waiting since iOS 1 to get more than two alerts for Calendar entries created in iOS Calendar (most 3rd party apps do this) vs more than two on MacOS. Had to wait until iOS 8 to get support for per event timezone setting and custom recurrences in Calendar/Reminders.
 
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I’m another Calendar + Notes guy but mostly Notes. Reminders is too lightweight for my tasks, and since Notes added checkboxes I’ve been a happy camper.

I do use Reminders as a shared grocery list with my wife but that’s about it.
 
No, keep separate things separate and let them communicate if they need to. Apple went through a period where they started creating mixed purpose tools and I'm not keen on that at all. Weren't ToDos integrated into email for a while because Jobs thought it was good to put everything he needed to focus on in one place?

Maybe I'm still getting over the cluster**** that iTunes became when it tried to do everything under one UI, but I say leave each tool to itself.
 
Sorry for having been unclear. What I did:
1. Create a task in Reminders
2. Drag-and-drop it into a timeslot of Calendar
All that in latest Sonoma.
this is correct.
It works with some reminders, with others it doesn't.
Now I have to figure out why it doesn't work with some.
 
I feel very similarly about Notes and Reminders, in fact using Notes as todo lists/task management far more than setting up similar tasks and such in Reminders.

IMO: Reminders is odd man out here. Fold it into Calendar or Notes. However, me feeling like that doesn't mean everyone does and there is likely people who think Reminders is perhaps the greatest thing Apple has ever made and notes or note + cal features are not even close. So for them, keep it.

There surely are people who use only Reminders. That's why the solution should be to allow cross-app integration. One idea could be e.g. the option to display reminders with a date automatically in your calendar.

I also use Notes a lot and could imagine some level of integration here as well.

I would love that. Reminders has for me the most illogical GUI of any Apple app. I just don't get it, and understand how they could make it so convoluted.

If it wasn't for Siri creating reminders in that App, I would never use it.

Ok, that's interesting, I don't mind the GUI tbh. What do you don't like about it?

i do find myself wanting to set an alarm for somethng and wasting 5 mins trying ti decide whether im putting it into reminders or calendar.

You just described my problem 😂.

Been thinking about that myself.
Here's a few of my personal ideas on the matter, somewhat an attempt to differentiate.
YMMV

  • Calendar = events
    • occur on a specific date and time
    • sometimes other people are being invited
    • automatic reminder to attend
  • Reminders = tasks
    • have a deadline
    • sometimes assigned to other people
    • automatic notification on due date

That is my approach as well, but the problem is that even here, the lines are blurred. Sometimes an event can be a task. In Calendar, I expect to see the timeline of my day. Maybe I'll have to do some gardening. That can be a task ("cut the roses", "mow the lawn"), but I could also add an event of an hour or two names "gardening".

I'd prefer adding a reminder because I like the idea of the checklist (alright, it's done, let's check it), but gardening is going to take a while and I want to see the time of that day that it will take me and set a start and end time.

So it remains difficult, but like you say, having Reminders automatically display in calendar is the most useful feature that comes to my mind. Especially because Reminders ironically has its own (useless) calendar.

BusyCal (which is generally excellent) does this. It read/writes your Calendars and Reminders and unifies them into one app. I don't really get much use out of it, myself, because I use Things more than Reminders. But yeah, those two things can be unified in one app.

I prefer looking at the structured lists of Reminders.

But I have the luxury of having the awesome Fantastical app, albeit grandfathered into the non-subscription model since I paid for it years ago, which effectively merges Calendar with Reminders - you may wish to have that app, @Silly John Fatty.

If they ever kick us off the non-subscription version, then I'll just go back to separate Calendar and Reminder apps.

Merging a couple of basic resources isn't something I would pay a subscription for.

These sound good. Personally though, I don't really want to have any third party apps installed on my Mac. I only have a few from big companies like Microsoft, but other than that, I'm trying to keep it as minimal and as clean as possible.

Now, consider Outlook, it actually does combine all three (and email and contacts on top of that). But I don’t use its task tracking features nearly as often as I should because of it.

I never realised that. I just looked into it, and it looks interesting. It also exists as an app for Mac and of course for mobile. That could be a serious replacement …

When you compare Word and Excel to Pages and Numbers, it's obvious Microsoft's apps are made for real, actual work, whereas Apple's apps can be considered more lifestyle apps not used for serious matters.

The same could be the case with Outlook vs. Mail, Calendar, Reminders and Contacts (and maybe Notes).

Actually dragging a reminder into your calendar is relatively easy, at least on a Mac.

Never realised you could do this! I don't have a use for it right now, but it's good to know.

It took me a while to figure out what you did.

1. create an appointment in calendar
2. drag & drop appointment over to reminders
3. delete appointment in calendar (it will remain in reminders)
4. drag & drop appointment from reminders back to calendar

It will NOT work with a reminder that was 'regularly' created in the reminders app.
At least not in my environment with Sonoma 14.0.

It does work for me in Ventura. Created a reminder in Reminders, dragged it in Calendar and it appeared there. It doesn't automatically take over time, date or location, though.
 
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I prefer looking at the structured lists of Reminders.

But I have the luxury of having the awesome Fantastical app, albeit grandfathered into the non-subscription model since I paid for it years ago, which effectively merges Calendar with Reminders - you may wish to have that app, @Silly John Fatty.

If they ever kick us off the non-subscription version, then I'll just go back to separate Calendar and Reminder apps.

Merging a couple of basic resources isn't something I would pay a subscription for.
I've played around with Fantastical a bit. It's definitely more polished than BusyCal -- but I found myself going back to BusyCal because of that awful subscription software rental pricing, and the fact that Fantastical is actually missing some of the more advanced options BusyCal offers.

I haven't found another calendar app besides BusyCal that will let you look at basically a full month in week view, or or like 10+ weeks in month view (if you have a big enough screen). Since I manage multiple calendars for work, I also appreciate the fact that BusyCal lets me save shortcuts to views of specific calendar combos. Fantastical wins on aesthetics but BusyCal wins on everything else as far as I'm concerned.
 
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I was used to Calendar before Reminders existed, and never understood the need for the latter.

Similarly, I used Stickies before there were Notes, and have only used Notes for one thing. I could probably put that in Stickies as well.
 
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Never realised you could do this! I don't have a use for it right now, but it's good to know.

This can be a nice MO to manage a "Someday/Maybe" list (from the GTD method).

Here's another trick that I use: from within a note in Apple notes, go to the Share options to create a link.
You can copy this and paste it inside the url field of a reminder.

NoteLink.jpg
 
That is my approach as well, but the problem is that even here, the lines are blurred. Sometimes an event can be a task. In Calendar, I expect to see the timeline of my day. Maybe I'll have to do some gardening. That can be a task ("cut the roses", "mow the lawn"), but I could also add an event of an hour or two names "gardening".
I look at the calendar more as for things that must happen at a certain time, or which I probably have to let someone else know if I can't do it (a social thing, an appointment somewhere, a meeting). And in a shared household calendar situation, my wife and I also use it to signal availability. So if I put "errands" onto the calendar, everyone knows I'm out for a while. I'll then use that time to pick off to-dos that involve being out and about.
 
100%! Absolutely!

The reason why I still don't use Apple's stock calendar on the Mac is exactly that: no reminders integration/display.
It is so obvious. What does one do, when planning a day? Looking at appointments and todos. Having both in 2 different locations makes me nervous.
I use a 3rd party app instead - but miss some features of the stock app. I have no idea why Apple can't get this done.

Different story, same result: in iOS, I also use a 3rd party app instead of Apple's. Not only does it also lack reminders, but there is no reasonable week nor month display. I find the stock calendar on iOS totally insufficient for planning purposes, as it is not providing a decent overview of the appointments for the next days or weeks.

Many others can do that - and Apple can't???

P.S. I sent them MANY feature requests on both issues via their feedback system, over the last years (!) - of course no reaction and no app enhancements.
I am quite surprised that Apple Calender doesn't have the abilty to integrate reminders. I don't use Apple on my phone or laptop. I use PocketInformant instead and have for 10+ years. That was one of the thing I really liked about Outlook before I switched to a MacBook.

There are some things I like about Apple Calendar, but not being able to have my Reminders/Tasks in the Calendar is downer.

 
Reminders is good at notifying you about things at particular times and dates, but the app was originally created for lists. (It might be less of a confusing competitor with Calendar if it were called "Lists.")

So I generally use Reminders that way – having my shopping list on my Watch has proven useful, and Calendar wouldn't work half as well for that – and for occasional alerts about when a subscription service will renew, or something. For everything else date-related, I use Calendar. To me, it feels pretty cut and dried.
 
While there is some similarity, merging them would just make both things more complicated. Best to keep them as separate application.

Having said that, some integrations would be helpful. Being able to designate that some or all task deadlines appear in the calendar would be useful.
 
Sad that Apple's mail is a bit behind the curve. Outlook 20 years ago was more useful. I agree that reminders and calendar should at least intersect. Siri too should coordinate better with both.
 
Sad that Apple's mail is a bit behind the curve. Outlook 20 years ago was more useful. I agree that reminders and calendar should at least intersect. Siri too should coordinate better with both.
Google and Yahoo (and even Microsoft to some extent) have trained people to think that email is an application in the browser, to use webmail over a dedicated email app, and I’m sure that this has at least a little to do with Apple’s relative neglect of Mail.app.
 
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Does it only work for reminders with a time and date attached?

Not here, I can drag-and-drop any type of reminder into my Calendar.

However, there are a few things to note, p.e. :

1- if the reminder has a due time inside Reminders, this won't prohibit you from dragging it into another timeslot of the calendar. Evidently, you can change it once inside the Calendar - but whatever time you set will not sync back to Reminders.

2- if the reminder is set to repeat inside Reminders, this will not reflect in the Calendar. In fact, once inside the Calendar app, it will become a one time reminder.
 
Google and Yahoo (and even Microsoft to some extent) have trained people to think that email is an application in the browser, to use webmail over a dedicated email app, and I’m sure that this has at least a little to do with Apple’s relative neglect of Mail.app.
I get my gmail in the native Mimestream app. Nicer to work with than the gmail website that has gotten too slow over the years.
 
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Actually, I need to thank this thread for something. I was at work today in the office, so I couldn’t use Siri to set up a reminder for an email that came into my personal account. Thanks to this thread, I remembered that the iPhone supports drag-n-drop (roughly) the same as the iPad does. So I dropped the email into Reminders, and it worked! I don’t think I would have thought to use drag-n-drop between apps (particularly from Mail to Reminders) if it weren’t for this thread.
 
Actually, I need to thank this thread for something. I was at work today in the office, so I couldn’t use Siri to set up a reminder for an email that came into my personal account. Thanks to this thread, I remembered that the iPhone supports drag-n-drop (roughly) the same as the iPad does. So I dropped the email into Reminders, and it worked! I don’t think I would have thought to use drag-n-drop between apps (particularly from Mail to Reminders) if it weren’t for this thread.

Yeah I hadn't realised this feature either, just tested it and it's great, it even links you to the mail and the mail icon reminds you it's about an email. Now let's just hope for that integration in calendar. We can submit it here: https://www.apple.com/feedback/ Feel free to submit it peeps.
 
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