Google Calendar To Stop Sending SMS Reminders June 27
Google Calendar users who rely on text messages from their calendar as reminders are going to have to transition to relying solely on smartphone notifications.
The change will take effect on June 27, according to an announcement on the Google Calendar help page.
“Starting on June 27th, 2015, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be sent. SMS notifications launched before smartphones were available. Now, in a world with smartphones and notifications, you can get richer, more reliable experiences on your mobile device, even offline.”
By talking about the experience, Google was likely referring to the fact that notifications are easier to follow and can provide more information than standard text messages.
The statement said that the change in Google Calendar alerts will not affect Google applications for work, education, and government customers.
There are two solutions that Google suggested on the page. First, users can utilize the calendar application already installed on their smartphone. If there is no calendar application, there is a Google Calendar app available for download for Android and iOS devices.
Anyone needing additional help switching from SMS to notifications can find resources on the Google Calendar help page.
Google has been stepping up features on Google Calendar since February, when they launched the ability to see more events at a glance with a seven-day week view, turn e-mails into calendar events without input from the user, add files from Google Drive to events, control if birthdays from Google+ are synced into the calendar, show numbers for weeks, and more.
In March, the Calendar app was released to make Google Calendar more user-friendly for iOS users. The Google Calendar app came with the same capabilities as the newly-released changes on the Android application, and can be run on iOS 7 or above for users looking to test it.
Those without a smartphone who previously relied entirely on reminders and notifications from Google Calendar through SMS will no longer be able to receive updates at all.
Other programs that Google has pulled the plug on include Google Reader, Google Wave, and Knol.
Google Calendar is still up and running, and is simply being brought up to date for smartphone users by getting rid of SMS alerts.
Just days later, Google Calendar was integrated into the to-do list application Todoist, along with Evernote and GitHub. Google Calendar will allow for meetings, tasks, and events to stay updated on all platforms.
[Photo by Google]
