Foreword
This document incorporates by reference the CalConnect Intellectual Property Rights, Appropriate Usage, Trademarks and Disclaimer of Warranty for External (Public) Documents as located at
Introduction
The Mobile Technical Committee of the Calendaring Scheduling Consortium ( http://www.calconnect.org) developed a questionnaire about mobile devices currently being used, their capabilities, and the extent of their support for calendaring applications.
The goal of this questionnaire was to determine how and to what extent Calendaring is being used on mobile devices, with a view to using those results to aid in the development of recommendations on how to address any problem areas.
A number of responses were received to the online questionnaire, and a summary and brief conclusion of these results is presented, along with the raw results themselves.
Respondents to the questionnaire answered based on the capabilities of their device. The results show an aggregate of these results.
Report on Mobile Calendaring Questionnaire V2 Results
1. Questionnaire Background
The questionnaire was answered by 60 respondents, which covered 14 different device manufacturers and 40 different devices. Most of the devices were high-end mobile devices released in the last few years. The respondents come from a spread of localities, with 40% of respondents from America and 38% from the UK.
The questionnaire consists of 53 questions. The bulk of the questions required a “yes”, “no” or “don’t know” response. 15 of the questions were text based. Some questions allowed the user to respond with more than one response (e.g. from a pick list). The percentage totals for most questions were calculated from the number of answers compared to the total of all possible answers (typically “yes”, “no” or “don’t know”).
Where the answers are mutually exclusive the total answer percentages add up to 100% (with +/- 1% for rounding errors). For questions where multiple responses are possible the percentages still show the answer compared to the total of all possible answers, but the total percentage will not be 100%.
2. Summary of Results
2.1. Section 1 — General Information
There is a good spread of respondent’s geographic location (though lacking input from Japanese and South Korean users).
Good spread of devices — reasonably representative of (smart) phones for the sample though generally Palm is much over-represented and Samsung especially is much underrepresented.
30% of respondents intend to replace their device soon. This is similar to the yearly replacement average for US/Europe.
Balance in usage business / personal use of devices is 50/50
A quarter of respondents do not travel. Northern hemisphere continents (Europe, Asia, N America) are all travelled to by a large majority of respondents.
18% of respondents travelling to Asia (given only 3% are in Asia) is high
Of the 28% who do not know if their devices would work out of their primary location, not all are the 27% who do not travel with their device. 8% of these do travel with their device
A large range of primary desktop Calendar applications is used. Slightly surprising there are not more respondents using Outlook (17%).
2.2. Section 2 — General Device Capabilities
High percentage of “high end” devices in survey, which is supported by a large percentage of devices having QWERTY keyboards (37%).
Large amount of perception involved in respondents ranking their devices as low, mid or high range. The same device is often ranked differently by different respondents
Large amount of perception involved in respondents describing the screen size. The same device is often ranked differently by different respondents
Only 12% of respondents thought their screen “small”.
32% have run out of space or memory. This is obviously dependent on phone usage. The results seem to show this is more prevalent on the lower spec phones. However, this is encountered on the higher end devices too.
2.3. Section 3 — Access to Calendar Information
95% of respondents normally use their device’s Calendar application
Large number (83%) of devices can run third party apps but 37% don’t know if there are third party calendar apps or not
10% use a third party application of their phone
43% don’t know if they can use a web based calendar. 47% know they can on their device
But no respondents normally use web based calendaring on their device
Respondent / questionnaire confusion over: How to respond to whether they use the Calendar to View, Edit or View and Edit their data
87% of respondents use their device’s Calendar application at least once a day
Almost half of respondents say the experience of using the device’s calendar application is worse than their desktop application. There is some very negative feedback in this area.
However 20% said it was better than their desktop application
2.4. Section 4 — Calendar Application
The sophistication of repeat rules seems to be subjective, however some devices don’t support any repeat rules and some devices don’t support “second Tuesday in month” type repeats typically simple (MS Outlook type) functionality seems to be supported
No-one said alarms can’t be created on their entries
67% can’t invite other people to events — only 18% can. Implies almost all phones don’t support Group Scheduling. Indeed, some of the devices that claim to support this only support it in a limited way (e.g. Nokia 9500, 9300)
ToDos widely supported (83%)
67% use Data Sync out of the 87% of phones that support Sync
Numerous different suggestions for Sync improvement
Most affecting current behaviour — duplicating entries, slow, poor (or no) interoperability with desktop apps, poor support for recurrence and no support for syncing multiple calendars.
Automatic sync also requested (e.g. over BT)
Much comment on Data Sync being a limitation for the device:
30% saying it was the main thing they wanted to do that they currently couldn’t do
93% of respondents only have one Calendar on their device
58% would like to overlay different calendars on top of the existing one
Respondents wish to be notified of events with functionality (sounds, alerts, vibrate) that are currently available on their devices.
2.5. Section 5 — Calendar Date and Timezone Support
Only 42% of respondents say their device knows what the timezone is automatically. Though some of the replies (compared with the devices in question) are not correct
Only 7% of respondents say their device allows timezones to be set on events other than the current timezone
Despite the fact that only 28% of respondents don’t visit other timezones (*) 32% don’t know if their device adjusts the events for the local timezone. 47% of respondents say their device does do this
2.6. Section 6 — Security
53% of respondents are concerned about security
77% say their calendar content is confidential (business or personal) — surprisingly high, but the only other choice was “non-confidential public data”
However, 55% did not respond on what security features they would like.
13% wanted SSL and/or encrypted data
12% wanted Password protection at phone or application level
7% wanted biometric security
2.7. Section 7 — What would you like to do with your mobile calendar?
On aggregate, Free / Busy time viewing is rated as the most important use case (of five)
On aggregate, Adding events downloaded from mobile browser second most important — this is more important to respondents than basic Group Scheduling. However, in a straight listing respondents also ranked this the joint least most important use case
2.8. Areas of ignorance for the respondents
The existence of third party calendars for the device (37% don’t know)
If web calendars can be used on the device (43% don’t know)
If timezones can be set on events other than the current timezone (47% don’t know)
How good the documentation/manual is (27% don’t know)
3. Results
3.1. Section 1 — General Information
3.1.1. Q1.1. Who is your device manufacturer?
Nokia
35%
Palm
23%
Sony Ericsson
13%
HTC
7%
Motorola
3%
Panasonic
3%
Siemens
3%
HP
2%
Kyocera
2%
Samsung
2%
RIM
2%
Apple
2%
Audiovox
2%
Dell
2%
3.1.2. Q1.2. What model is your device?
Results not summarised
3.1.3. Q1.3. Who is your service provider?
Vodafone
30%
Cingular
17%
T-Mobile
7%
Fido
7%
O2
7%
Verizon
5%
Sprint
5%
Orange
3%
Hutch
3%
AT&T
2%
Telus
2%
Virgin Mobile
2%
Elisa
2%
Other
10%
3.1.4. Q1.4. How long have you had this device? (years)
The average was 1.5 years. 25% of responses were under 1 year.
3.1.5. Q1.5. Do you intend to replace it soon?
Yes
30%
No
43%
Don’t know
27%
3.1.6. Q1.6. How would you rate the documentation/manual that came with the device?
Good
22%
Average
47%
Poor
5%
Don’t know
27%
3.1.7. Q1.7. What is the primary use of this device?
Business
51%
Personal
47%
Other
2%
3.1.8. Q1.8. What is the primary desktop calendar application that you use?
Lotus Notes
27%
Oracle Calendar
20%
Microsoft Outlook
17%
Mac iCal
12%
Meeting Maker
7%
Mozilla Sunbird
5%
Other
13%
3.1.9. Q1.9. What type of organization do you work in?
Business
30%
Mobile software vendor
30%
Education
28%
Other
7%
Government
3%
Mobile device manufacturer
2%
3.1.10. Q1.10. What is your primary geographic location?
USA
40%
UK
38%
Canada
10%
India
3%
Other
3%
UAE
2%
Finland
2%
Anguilla
2%
3.1.11. Q1.11. Which other geographic locations do you travel to?
Europe
43%
N America
28%
None
27%
Asia
18%
Australasia
5%
S America
2%
3.1.12. Q1.12. Does your service provider provide support outside your primary geographic location?
Yes
63%
No
8%
Don’t know
28%
3.2. Section 2 — General Device Capabilities
3.2.1. Q2.1. How would you describe the capabilities of this device as a whole?
High-end
60%
Mid-range
37%
Low-end
3%
3.2.2. Q2.2. What size screen does it have?
Large
28%
Medium
57%
Small
12%
Unspecified
3%
3.2.3. Q2.3. What type of keypad does it have?
Phone
48%
Qwerty
37%
Other
15%
3.2.4. Q2.4. Have you found that you run out of storage space or memory for your data and applications?
Yes
32%
No
68%
3.2.5. Q2.5. Does it allow third-party applications to be used?
Yes
83%
No
10%
Don’t know
7%
3.2.6. Q2.6. What are the standard set of applications on the device?
Results not summarised
3.2.7. Q2.7. What are its multimedia capabilities?
Camera
87%
Audio Player
65%
NOTE Summary of main responses.
3.2.8. Q2.8. Which multimedia capabilities do you actually use?
Camera
67%
Play Audio
38%
NOTE Summary of main responses.
3.2.9. Q2.9. Which multimedia capabilities would you like to have?
Better Music Player
35%
Better Video
33%
Better Camera
33%
VOIP
5%
3.3. Section 3 — Access to Calendar Information
3.3.1. Q3.1. Does the device have a built-in calendar application?
Yes
98%
No
0%
Don’t know
2%
3.3.2. Q3.2. Are there third-party calendar applications for the device?
Yes
53%
No
10%
Don’t know
37%
3.3.3. Q3.3. Can you use a web-based calendar with this device?
Yes
47%
No
10%
Don’t know
43%
3.3.4. Q3.4. Do you normally use any calendaring applications on this device?
Yes
95%
No
3%
Don’t know
2%
3.3.5. Q3.5. Do you normally use a web-based calendar on this device?
Yes
0%
No
93%
Don’t know
7%
3.3.6. Q3.6. Do you use the calendar feature to just view a calendar or to also edit it (e.g. create new events)?
View & Edit
43%
Edit
33%
View
23%
3.3.7. Q3.7. How often do you use the calendar feature on this device?
Several times a day
62%
Once a day
25%
Once a week
5%
Not very often
5%
Only when travelling
3%
3.3.8. Q3.8. Do you use the built-in or a third-party application?
Built-in
90%
Third party
10%
3.3.9. Q3.9. How would you compare the experience of using the calendar application on this device with using one on a desktop computer?
Worse
48%
Similar
13%
Better
20%
Other
19%
3.4. Section 4 — Calendar Application
3.4.1. Q4.1. Does it support creation of recurring events?
Yes
68%
No
18%
Don’t know
13%
3.4.2. Q4.2. How sophisticated is the recurrence capability?
Result not summarised
3.4.3. Q4.3. Does it support creation of alarms on events?
Yes
92%
No
0%
Don’t know
8%
3.4.4. Q4.4. Would you like to receive notification of your desktop calendar alarms on your mobile device?
Yes
75%
No
22%
Don’t know
3%
3.4.5. Q4.5. How would you like your mobile device to notify you about events?
Sound
70%
Vibrate
32%
Pop-up
21%
SMS/Email
8%
3.4.6. Q4.6. Can you invite other people to events?
Yes
18%
No
67%
Don’t know
15%
3.4.7. Q4.7. Does it support tasks/to-dos?
Yes
83%
No
8%
Don’t know
8%
3.4.8. Q4.8. Does the device support synchronization of your phone and desktop calendar?
Yes
87%
No
5%
Don’t know
8%
3.4.9. Q4.9. Do you use the synchronization support?
Yes
67%
No
32%
Don’t know
2%
3.4.10. Q4.10. How would you improve the synchronization support with your desktop calendar?
Interop with desktop apps
12%
Recurrence issues
10%
Automatic Sync (BT)
8%
Speed
5%
Multiple Calendars
5%
Duplicates
5%
No Response
30%
3.4.11. Q4.11. How many different calendars do you have on your mobile device?
1 calendar
93%
2 calendars
3%
3 calendars
2%
3.4.12. Q4.12. Would you like the ability to overlay other calendars on top of your existing events?
Yes
58%
No
22%
Don’t know
20%
3.5. Section 5 — Calendar Date and Timezone Support
3.5.1. Q5.1. Does the device itself know what the correct time is automatically?
Result not available
3.5.2. Q5.2. Does the device itself know what timezone it is in automatically?
Yes
42%
No
48%
Don’t know
10%
3.5.3. Q5.3. Can you configure the device timezone manually?
Yes
77%
No
10%
Don’t know
12%
3.6. Section 6 — Security
3.6.1. Q6.1. Are you concerned about the security of the calendar data stored on the device?
Yes
53%
No
47%
3.6.2. Q6.2. How sensitive is the calendar data stored on the device?
Confidential — personal
45%
Non-confidential
33%
Confidential — business
22%
3.6.3. Q6.3. Are there any security features you would like to have on your mobile device?
No Response
55%
SSL/Encryption
13%
Password control
12%
No
8%
Biometric lock
7%
3.7. Section 7 — What would you like to do with your mobile calendar?
3.7.1. Q7.1 What would you like to be able to do with your device that you cannot do right now?
Improve Sync
30% (of which use Web Sync) 12%
Group Scheduling
12%
GUI issues
10%
Timezone support
7%
View Others Calendars
7%
No Response
37%
3.7.2. Q7.2 Please rank these mobile calendaring use cases in order of importance to you
Overall result — most to least important:
Sharing a calendar with colleague or spouse to identify free and busy time
Adding calendar events to your calendar that have been downloaded from a mobile web browser
Book appointments with other people using your mobile device
Automatically arranging a meeting at a time convenient for meeting participants after they have agreed they want to meet
Accessing a public transport timetable on your mobile device that is relevant to your current location
3.8. Section 8 — About this Questionnaire
3.8.1. Q8. What do you think of this questionnaire?
Ok to Good
38%
No Response
33%
Too Long/Detailed
8%
Unclear
5%
Other
15%
3.9. Selected Answers to Text Questions
3.9.1. Q3.9. How would you compare the experience of using the calendar application on this device with using one on a desktop computer?
Substantially less useful. Due to synchronization problems with my calendar server, the inability to edit/schedule events is a major issue. Also, the web-based calendar provided by our calendar server uses frames, which makes browsing from the # device very cumbersome.
Lots of comments on data entry and screen size
awkward to view some information, poor summary of information on phone, data input difficult, no group scheduling
3.9.2. Q4.10. How would you improve the synchronization support with your desktop calendar?
iCal supports multiple calendars (eg one for work, one for personal events etc..) — I wish the phone would support this too
Make it faster and more reliable — syncing sometimes create multiple enteries of the same entries
I would add support to subscribe to iCal URL’s & update at hotsync time
Works great!
Support undo, show user the data being synced — I don’t trust sync.
3.9.3. Q7.1 What would you like to be able to do with your device that you cannot do right now?
time zones on events. per-event alarm preferences (volume, etc). Share calendars (other people’s). Filter by category. link an event to contacts. want more than 30 chars in Location field (or link to metadata). show more than just calendar events (todos, for example, or TV listings). transparent negotiation of meeting times
Sync properly to Oracle Calendar and other calendars. View other people’s calendars (not via web).
push email and cal events. overlay calendars. access event calendars. better scheduling with corporate cal solution
It would be nice to have multiple calendars to categorise different events, each with there own sync source. For example work calendar events and personal calendar events, one syncing from my a work syncML server, the other from my home pc.As mentioned earlier, the ability to apply a pass code for a calendar with sensitive data (i.e. work related events) would be essential.
Appendix A
(normative)
CalConnect TC-MOBILE Questionnaire V2
This questionnaire is designed to give the Calendaring Scheduling Consortium’s TC-MOBILE technical committee information about mobile devices currently being used, including specifics about the device capability as well as support for calendaring applications. The information provided in this form will be used to help guide the technical committees report on mobile calendaring. A summary of the results will be published by the Consortium through its usual process.
Please fill out this form with as much information as possible. If you are not sure of any answers, just leave that field empty or select the “Don’t Know”option.
A.1. Personal Details (will not be included in published report)
What is your name? ___________________
What is your email address? ___________________
What is your organization? ___________________
A.2. Section 1 General Information
Q1.1. Who is your device manufacturer? ___________________
Q1.2. What model is your device? ___________________
Q1.3. Who is your service provider? ___________________
Q1.4. How long have you had this device? ____ years
Q1.5. Do you intend to replace it soon?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q1.6. How would you rate the documentation/manual that came with the device?
○ Good ○ Average ○ Poor ○ Don’t know
Q1.7. What is the primary use of this device?
○ Personal ○ Business ○ Other
Q1.8. What is the primary desktop calendar application that you use? ___________________
Q1.9. What type of organization do you work in? 
Q1.10. What is your primary geographic location?
Q1.11. Which other geographic locations do you travel to?
Q1.12. Does your service provider provide support outside your primary geographic location?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
A.3. Section 2 General Device Capabilities
Q2.1. How would you describe the capabilities of this device as a whole?
○ Low-end ○ Mid-range ○ High-end ○ Don’t know
Q2.2. What size screen does it have?
○ Small ○ Medium ○ Large
Q2.3. What type of keypad does it have?
○ Phone keys (0-9 etc) ○ Full qwerty ○ Other
Q2.4. Have you found that you run out of storage space or memory for your data and applications?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q2.5. Does it allow third-party applications to be used?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q2.6. What are the standard set of applications on the device?
___________________
(e.g. Contacts, calendar, email, alarm, games)
Q2.7. What are its multimedia capabilities?
___________________
(e.g. takes pictures, video playback)
Q2.8. Which multimedia capabilities do you actually use?
___________________
(e.g. audio recording)
Q2.9. Which multimedia capabilities would you like to have?
___________________
(e.g. digital music playback)
A.4. Section 3 Access to Calendar Information
Q3.1. Does the device have a built-in calendar application?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q3.2. Are there third-party calendar applications for the device?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q3.3. Can you use a web-based calendar with this device?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q3.4. Do you normally use any calendaring applications on this device?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q3.5. Do you normally use a web-based calendar on this device?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q3.6. Do you use the calendar feature to just view a calendar or to also edit it (e.g. create new events)?
○ View ○ Edit
Q3.7. How often do you use the calendar feature on this device?
Q3.8. Do you use the built-in or a third-party application?
○ Built-in ○ Third-party
Q3.9. How would you compare the experience of using the calendar application on this device with using one on a desktop computer?
___________________
A.5. Section 4 Calendar Application
Q4.1. Does it support creation of recurring events?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q4.2. How sophisticated is the recurrence capability?
___________________
(e.g. repeat daily, weekly, every n days etc.)
Q4.3. Does it support creation of alarms on events?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q4.4. Would you like to receive notification of your desktop calendar alarms on your mobile device?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q4.5. How would you like your mobile device to notify you about events?
___________________
(e.g. play a sound, set-up a phone call etc.)
Q4.6. Can you invite other people to events?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q4.7. Does it support tasks/to-dos?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q4.8. Does the device support synchronization of your phone and desktop calendar?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q4.9. Do you use the synchronization support?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q4.10. How would you improve the synchronization support with your desktop calendar?
___________________
Q4.11. How many different calendars do you have on your mobile device?
Q4.12. Would you like the ability to overlay other calendars on top of your existing events?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
A.6. Section 5 Calendar Date and Timezone Support
Q5.1. Does the device itself know what the correct time is automatically?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q5.2. Does the device itself know what timezone it is in automatically?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q5.3. Can you configure the device timezone manually?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q5.4 Does the calendar application adjust the displayed time of events based on the local time and timezone information
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q5.5. Does the calendar application allow timezones on event times to be set different from the devices own timezone?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
A.7. Section 6 Security
Q6.1. Are you concerned about the security of the calendar data stored on the device?
○ Yes ○ No ○ Don’t know
Q6.2. How sensitive is the calendar data stored on the device?
Q6.3. Are there any security features you would like to have on your mobile device?
___________________
A.8. Section 7 What would you like to do with your mobile calendar?
Q7.1 What would you like to be able to do with your device that you cannot do right now?
Q7.2 Please rank these mobile calendaring use cases in order of importance to you
(mark the most important use case as 1, second most important as 2,…. least important as 5)
Sharing a calendar with colleague or spouse to identify free and busy time.
Book appointments with other people using your mobile device (e.g. scheduling a follow-up meeting at the end of a meeting or making an appointment at the physican and the event automatically being added to your mobile calendar).
Adding calendar events to your calendar that have been downloaded from a mobile web browser (e.g. adding your favourite team’s football matches or a list of public holidays to your calendar).
Accessing a public transport timetable on your mobile device that is relevant to your current location (e.g. automatically downloading a timetable at bus stop or ticket office).
Automatically arranging a meeting at a time convenient for meeting participants after they have agreed they want to meet.
A.9. Section 8 About this Questionnaire
Q8. What do you think of this questionnaire? (e.g. how long did it take to fill out, did you understand all the questions)
NOTE If you press "Submit Questionnaire " and nothing happens, please shorten your free-form answers. Some browsers enforce an arbitrary limit on the amount of data that can be submitted via this form.