I often move between Ireland, Germany/Switzerland (same timezone) and Israel.
I use MobileMe, iCal and (two) iPhones.
The problem is that Apple's calendar applications seem to assume that everything I do involves conference calls which happen at the same time in physical reality and hence in different times in each time zone.
I have lunch at 1 PM, regardless of whether I am in Ireland or Israel. I do not want to remember what time it is in Ireland when it is 1 PM in Israel when I make a note, in Dublin, for my lunch appointment in Tel Aviv.
I tried several settings (time zone support off, time zone support on) but nothing really works.
If I switch time zone support off (on ALL my devices), my lunch dates fluctuate a lot and I miss appointments because 3 PM is not 3 PM any more.
If I switch time zone support off (and miss one device), my appointments are subject to weird changes produced by the one device should I accidentally use it.
I finally concluded that it is best to leave time zone support on and tell all devices and computers that they are in Ireland. That way my lunch dates don't change any more.
But now all iCal and iPhone alerts are off and, here in Switzerland, alert me an hour late and for the wrong time.
How can I configure iCal and the iPhones to IGNORE time zones. I really have more local appointments than conference calls and iCal's behaviour is only good for conference calls.
Best Answer
I now include the actual time in the title of the event. For example: "9am Flight LAX -JFK" This way, if the phone changes my time setting (which it inevitably does regardless of how I have it set) I will still know what time my flight is. Doesn't work for alerts, but I often enter flight info in a different time zone from where I will take the flight and this helps to keep me from missing a flight.