Q: Is it possible for me share a calendar with my husband? He has an iPhone 5, I have an iPhone 4S. I just loaded the recent update to iOS.
– Kathryn
A: Yes, you can share calendars between two iOS devices in a few different ways, with the easiest being to simply enable iCloud and share them wirelessly directly from your device.
If you’re not already using iCloud on your iPhone, you’ll each need to setup an iCloud account and ensure that you’re signed into iCloud on your device. iOS normally prompts you to do this during the initial setup process, but if you skipped that you can still do it directly from the Settings app in the iCloud section.
Simply ensure that you’re signed into each of your iCloud accounts and that your iCloud Calendar setting is toggled ON. If you haven’t been using iCloud for calendars or any other calendar service such as Exchange or Google Calendar, then the data in your local on-device iPhone calendar will simply be transferred up to your iCloud account when you first enabled Calendars in the iCloud section.
Once iCloud Calendars are enabled, you can go into the Calendars app and tap on the “Calendars” button in the top-left corner to see a list of iCloud calendars on your device.
To share an existing iCloud calendar, simply tap on the blue arrow to the right of the calendar name and then tap “Add Person.” You can then enter a contact name from your address book or any e-mail address to invite them to share that specific iCloud calendar. The person will be sent an invitation either via e-mail or as a notification directly on their device and their name will appear in the sharing list with a “Pending” status until they’ve accepted your invitation.
New invitees are added with “View & Edit” privileges by default, but you can easily change this by tapping on the person’s name in the sharing list and toggling the “Allow Editing” option OFF.
You can also create additional calendars by tapping the “Edit” button in the top-left corner and then tapping “Add New Calendar” from the bottom of your iCloud Calendar listing.
Note that to create a shared calendar, you must first create it and save it as a normal calendar, and then access the sharing options in the same manner as for an existing calendar.
iCloud Calendars can also be accessed directly from any modern web browser by logging into your iCloud account at www.icloud.com, and you can also manage and share your calendars from there as well. If you’re a Mac user, the same sharing and calendar management options are also available in the Calendars application on OS X Mountain Lion.
