It’s been at the top of many an early Ubuntu Phone users’ wishlist — and now it’s finally happening.

Yes, the native Ubuntu calendar app is to add support for the leading open standards for exchanging calendar data: CalDav and iCal.

And it could come as soon as OTA 13.

The Story So Far

Until now the Calendar app — and Ubuntu Touch in general — has only been able to shows events synchronised through Google Calendar.

But not everyone using an Ubuntu Phone uses Google.

Some need to sync calendar, email and contacts with a Microsoft Exchange server at work. Others roll their own OwnCloud server that they want to stay in tune with.

A manual “workaround” of sorts is available for those comfortable with the command line, but on an open “smartphone” platform in 2016 it’s a strange situation to be able to sync using Google, but not a well-documented, widely used open standard.

And needing to remember to run a command at the command line each time you need to sync? A touch impractical to say the least!

But these issues, ongoing since 2013, could soon be solved. Canonical’s Bill Filler reports on OwnCloud sync and CalDav progress in a bug report logged to track the whole sorry saga. Filler says:

“We’ve landed multi-calendar google sync for ota13. We’re in process of finishing OwnCloud multi-calendar sync, using the new OwnCloud online account.

Once this lands, generic calDav support should be easy, just need a generic CalDav online account and then it will just work.”

Hurrah!