[jeffh]

Problems with tower-broadcast time stamps are the reason BlackBerry devices historically did not attempt to automatically change time zones. Disabling that function and controlling your time zone setting manually would solve the problem. I suspect you won't be the only person to report it. It'll be interesting to see if it occurs in other time zone boundary areas.

[gnGracie]

Thanks for the info. I wondered why my bb didn't change times when I traveled last week.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Toronto Girl]

Thanks Jeff:
I too was surprised the first time this happened to me crossing time zones. Unfortunately, when I changed the time manually it changed hundreds of all day events which did not auto correct when I changed the time back upon my arrival home. Live and learn! I'm just working with 5.0. Looking forward to a simpler sol'n. Will watch for updated posts.

[jeffh]

The all-day appointments bug is very annoying. I don't expect the automatic time zone feature to fix it, since it isn't related to the time zone, but rather to how all-day appointments are kept internally.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Irael]

I realize this forum is old, but I'm new to BB and just found it after what turns out to be the standard frustration of new users. I've read lots of stuff here. I appreciate the explanation of how the BB works and why it gives you the choice of screwing up your calendar or your time display when you travel. But I don't appreciate the repeated suggestion that folks who have this problem are bringing it on themselves by entering the "wrong" time for their appointments.

The reason new users have such a problem with this is that all of them have the completely reasonable and normal assumption that you want your calendar to show the time of an appointment in the local time at which it will take place rather than time of the place you happen to be at two months before or after it took place. If I have an appointment in New York at 5, I really don't care that it will be 2 in California where I was before I left for NY. The airlines, and apps like Worldmate, also make this reasonable assumption. So, when the airline tells you that your flight home from NY leaves at 5, everyone--everyone--understands they mean 5 pm NY time. It does not occur to anyone but the programmers at BB that before you leave California, you ought to enter the time for your 5 pm return from NY as 2 pm because that's the time it will be in California when you take off.

Some people who have responded have focused on the need of folks who are making telephone appointments to have some single time reference that will be good in all their locales. This is, of course, not a problem for each individual person, who will enter the appointment for the time it is where they are. And it's not a problem for the person setting up the appointment, who can specify a time zone--this call will be at noon eastern time, or whatever--and let every participant enter the appointment in their calendar at the appropriate time for them. An administrator who is entering the appointment in multiple folks' calendars may have a problem, but it's nuts to solve their problem by making the BB nonfunctional for the rest of us.

What I have learned from this forum is that there are some people out there who have lived with this idiotic system long enough they have come to think it is normal. On that count, weigh the reactions of newcomers more heavily. That's what user-friendly means. You shouldn't have to drink the BB Kool-Aid to appreciate it.

I do like my phone, actually, but not this feature. At a minimum, BB needs to offer people the option of decoupling the phone time from the time of the appointments in the calendar. I don't need BB (or Outlook) to try to change that for me as I move around, and it won't need changing if every appointment is entered in the local time at which it will take place.

Ok, got that off my chest.

[jeffh]

You missed the point. You enter the time of your return flight from NY as 5 pm ET, regardless of what time zone you are in at the time you enter it. The BlackBerry will convert it to whatever time zone you are in. All you have to do is enter the time zone correctly. It's not Kool-Aid; it's just common sense.

[ADGrant]

You missed the point. You enter the time of your return flight from NY as 5 pm ET, regardless of what time zone you are in at the time you enter it. The BlackBerry will convert it to whatever time zone you are in. All you have to do is enter the time zone correctly. It's not Kool-Aid; it's just common sense.

The confusing thing about time entry with the BB is it doesn't show you what you entered, instead it adjusts the appointment time to the time zone you are actually in.

Pre Outlook 2007 things were much worse on the PC side of course, but now they are a bit better than RIM. It displays the entered time and zone (but shifts the appointment on the Calendar) and allows the start and end time to be in two different time zones (great for flights)

[Irael]

No, you missed the point. I don't want to have to enter the time zone for every appointment I make (I don't even know how to do that and I don't want BB to force me to learn this extra step) I want BB to assume that, like very other normal person, I enter an appointment time in my appointment book for the local time zone at which I will be when it occurs (think paper appointment book--would you really do anything else?), so that it leaves the goddamn appointment time untouched when I change the clock.

I don't want my 5 pm return flight from NY to show up as 2 pm when I am in California. When I think ahead about my day that day in NY, or talk to someone there about when my flight leaves, I want my appointment book to show it in local time there which is all that matters.

Yes, you have shown that if you make a lot of extra entries and do a lot of mental juggling when you think about your appointments you can somehow keep this straight. But that's not a BB service, it is a screwup.

[jeffh]

...Yes, you have shown that if you make a lot of extra entries and do a lot of mental juggling when you think about your appointments you can somehow keep this straight....

It's different to what you expected, but it's not hard. There are actually two inter-related issues: how BlackBerry handles appointment times on your calendar when you change time zones, and the fact that the BlackBerry doesn't automatically change time zones when you cross time zone boundaries. RIM has heard the complaints on the second issue and given OS 5.0 the ability to automatically change time zones. If you've read the recent posts in this thread, you know that at least one person has found a problem with that while traveling along the US border with Mexico. It remains to be seen whether RIM will change the appointment calendar.

[Irael]

But there is no way under the current system to have my calendar show that my flight leaves NY at 5 pm (NY time) no matter where I am when I consult it, which is what I and most people would want. It will necessarily say the wrong time--and I think anything other than 5 pm is wrong--either when I am in New York, or when I am in California planning the trip. So I have to remember what time zone I entered the appointment for, and how many hours different that is from the time I happen to be in at the moment. I'm sorry, but I think this is a bug. I want my phone to make things easier, not more difficult.

The simplest solution is surely for RIM to offer users the option of setting a default that either a)works like it does now, or b)leaves all appointments set for the time that the user entered, without changing them when the clock changes. And then whatever default you set, you could also have the option of marking some particular appointment to work the other way. Is that so hard for them to do?

[racensave09]

I think what Irael has suggested makes sense but I'd like to put my own spin on it. The auto-time zone update has been working great with the one little bug of giving me Mexican time zones. My assumption is that could be an easy fix by allowing users to disable certain zones, OR read a time zone code off of the tower it is connected to.

As for what Irael wants, my interpretation is that a setting to SHOW what time zone an appointment is entered for would be useful. In terms of a Hidden Today list, my flight departure time would be listed at "5:00 EST Flight Departure". This would be displayed no matter what time zone you are currently in.

Irael, am I right in what you are thinking?

[jeffh]

An alternative approach that I have suggested in previous posts is to allow you to set the time zone on a day-by-day basis. So if Irael is going to be in New York on Tuesday the 12th, he could tell the BlackBerry to use ET for 1/12 whenever that date was used or displayed. Showing the Time Zone in use on a given date would make sense in that scenario. It would allow him to look at his NY trip calendar today in LA and see his meetings in ET.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[jerrydoank]

Thanks for the fantastic post!

[acrpr]

It is absolutely unacceptable that the latest brand new Blackberry is unable to update time zones automatically. Blackberry explanation about calendar distortion is simply unacceptable, most phones in the market also have calendar applications and are able to update Time Zones automatically. On top of that, Email Images are not automatically downloaded neither.

What also bothers me is that the 9700 comes with the option to update time zone automatically and to download images automatically, and even when you checked it's simply doesn't do it. It's misleading!

There are a couple of simple things like these in which Blackberry is simply not that great that it's seems to be.

[acrpr]

It's different to what you expected, but it's not hard. There are actually two inter-related issues: how BlackBerry handles appointment times on your calendar when you change time zones, and the fact that the BlackBerry doesn't automatically change time zones when you cross time zone boundaries. RIM has heard the complaints on the second issue and given OS 5.0 the ability to automatically change time zones. If you've read the recent posts in this thread, you know that at least one person has found a problem with that while traveling along the US border with Mexico. It remains to be seen whether RIM will change the appointment calendar.

Just to share with all of you my latest experience about Time Zones issues. Today I flew from Eastern Standard Time (-5) to Atlantic Standard Time (-4), both options Automatically update Time Zone and Network time were checked; when I turned on my BB immediately after landing nothing happened, Time Zone remained unchanged. However, I decided to manually update Time Zone to Atlantic Standard Time, when I did it just few minutes later, my BB immediately updated the Time Zone automatically back to my home Eastern Standard Time, but I was in Atlantic! At least we now know that the BB has the capability to update, so we are close!!!, but do it correctly is what is pending.

Regards,

[jeffh]

That's an interesting bug. Did you notice if the Network Time was correct either before or after? One of the frustrating aspects of the problem is that the Network Time normally does switch Time Zones, it's just RIM doesn't use that time, for all the reasons discussed previously.

[acrpr]

Yes, Network Time was correct both before and after. In fact I have also noticed that the device is able to detect Network time correctly, but as you mentioned for some reason it is not displayed. The other thing that I have noticed is that when you update your time using the Clock application, there is an option called "Home Time Zone", and no matter what Time Zone you specified in the Options/ Date/Time section, the BB intends to go back to it's home time zone. I hope this issue be fixed in the upcoming OS updates.

Regards,

[jeffh]

"Home Time Zone" sounds like an interesting option. I don't have OS 5.0 yet and haven't heard of it. I know this is a lengthy thread and you may not have read all of it, but a year or more ago, an independent BlackBerry app developer spent some time trying to use Network Time, or at least display it, but finally gave up in frustration because RIM doesn't make the data available to programmers. So the correct time, including time zone, is there, but you can't use it. I understand the arguments against auto-updating the Time Zone, (I created this thread to explain them), but I don't understand why RIM doesn't make the data available to programmers.

[acrpr]

I do feel that the issue is soon to be resolved because it is a "hot" issue specially for people that used to travel frequently between time zones, and a great majority of them are Blackberry users, thus RIM people should have heard already that the issue is harassing Blackberry travelers. I have noticed on the early version of OS 5 that the options and icons seems to have been created, probably most of these options will be fully operational in the upcoming updates. Let's see..
Thanks for your feedback,

[andreasolo]

Please I beg of thee, can someone please tell me if an executive is in Canada and has a flight at 645 pm, would the admin who is in Texas put the calendar event at 745 pm CST or at the flight time of 645 MST? We are desperately trying to get an answer on this since it wirelessly sync's.

Many thanks,
Andrea

[jeffh]

Please I beg of thee, can someone please tell me if an executive is in Canada and has a flight at 645 pm, would the admin who is in Texas put the calendar event at 745 pm CST or at the flight time of 645 MST? We are desperately trying to get an answer on this since it wirelessly sync's.

Many thanks,
Andrea

You can enter the time either way. If you enter it at 745 pm CST, that's how the admin will see it in Texas. Assuming the boss in Canada has his BlackBerry set to the correct MST zone, he will see it as 645 pm MST. If you enter the flight as 645 pm MST on your BlackBerry in Texas, the BlackBerry will automatically change the time to 745 PM CST, since that's the time zone you have selected for Texas. If your boss is unable to set his BlackBerry to the correct time zone, you have a bigger problem that I can't help you with.

[racensave09]

Please I beg of thee, can someone please tell me if an executive is in Canada and has a flight at 645 pm, would the admin who is in Texas put the calendar event at 745 pm CST or at the flight time of 645 MST? We are desperately trying to get an answer on this since it wirelessly sync's.

Many thanks,
Andrea

To me those times are identical. I am unfamiliar with BES, as noted from the wireless sync, so cannot say how the flight time will change on his phone.

My best suggestion is to put it in as MST in case the time change doesn't occur. This way, the exec would see the proper time AND you'll have a log of what time zone it is

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[jeffh]

Wireless synching and BES has no effect on the time zone or time display. As you noted, the times are the same. As long as everybody involved uses the correct time zone, the BlackBerry will handle the conversions properly.

[andreasolo]

Many thanks...I really appreciate the quick responses. Andrea

[kimly55]

I am a newbie to the BB, and I've tried slogging through years of bantering, but I haven't been able to find my solution. If I'm several time zones away in Anchorage, and make an appointment with someone on the East coast in the future, my BB shows local time. How do I just keep my BB on Eastern time so I don't tell someone to come 4 hours early for their appointment?