Chris Foresman at Ars Technica, on the new MobileMe Calendar beta program announced today:
The current Calendar looks very similar to iCal on Mac OS X. The new Calendar Web app gains new views for month, week, and day, as well as a handy list view. These seem to map very closely to the Calendar UI on the iPad. Along with the UI changes, Apple is adding private calendar sharing with other MobileMe users, public sharing via CalDAV and a read-only Web view, and event invitations with RSVPs. Like the new Mail, Calendar will also gain performance improvements as well.
It’s interesting that both MobileMe Mail and now Calendar have been overhauled to match closely what is on the iPad. Clearly, Apple wants iPad owners to be comfortable with MobileMe’s web apps — and vice versa.
Like iLife before it, iOS is slowly proving to be Apple’s playground for new user interfaces. It wouldn’t surprise me if Mac OS X 10.7 had an iOS feel about it in certain areas — Snow Leopard’s interface just feels thin compared to the iPad and MobileMe.
Also interesting: this beta breaks compatibility with OS X versions previous to 10.6.4, Entourage and Outlook — the new system is powered by CalDAV.