Google Calendar app officially removes “Goals” [U]

In April 2016, Google updated Calendar for Android and iOS with a tool to help you find time for your personal goals. Amid another upcoming removal, Google Calendar plans to get rid of “Goals.”

Update 8/24: As we reported earlier this month, Google Calendar “goals” are officially going away. A new notice in the Android and iOS app tells users to “create an event instead” and a support article explains how “existing goals will remain on your calendar but no longer repeat” in November 2022. At this stage, you can’t create new goals and the option will likely disappear from the FAB.

The following alternatives are offered by Google:

Original 8/3: “Objective” appears in the FAB mobile list (floating action button) next to “Event”, “Task”, “Reminder”, and “Out of office” (on Workspace accounts). Touching prompts you to choose a goal:

• Exercise: Run, do yoga, move your body
• Build a skill: Learn a language, practice an instrument
• family friends: Make time for those who matter most
• me time: Read, meditate, take care of yourself
• organize my life: Stay on top

After choosing and specifying the activity (or selecting “Custom”), Calendar asks “How often” with multiple increments and “For how long”. Google then asks you to choose the “Best time”: Morning, Afternoon, Evening or Anytime.

After confirming the Goal settings, Google finds the time and location events (with a unique flag icon) in your calendar, while noting that it will “learn your preferences”. Event pages feature goal rings, while you can receive “smart notifications” before and after a session to “help you prepare and track your progress”.

Google Calendar for Android version 2022.30.2 is rolling out today and prepares an abort prompt:

Goals will soon leave Google Calendar

Google explains that “you’ll still see the Goals you created on your timeline, but they won’t repeat.” He recommends creating recurring events “to track your goals.”

Learn more about alternatives to lenses

Create an event instead

This removal, in the context of reminders, is unsurprising as Google strives to make Calendar a targeted Workspace product. That said, for a while in 2016 – fun fact: a Nexus 6P is the device seen in the top cover image – Calendar wanted to look at personal productivity and time management. For modern Google, that would probably be an assistant capability.

Speaking of reminders, the app continues to tweak the strings for this possible removal and transition to Google Tasks. This update, which is not yet widely deployed, also includes work on extending the client-side encryption option from Google Workspace for Business to Calendar (for events) post-launch in Drive and Docs. /Sheets/Slides.

Google Meet description, attachments and video conferencing get extra encryption

Thanks to JEB Decompiler, which some APK Insight teardowns benefit from.

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