iCloud for Old iThings

One of the great things about the iCloud is that as a family, we can share calendars and address book (e.g. contacts) to keep everyone on the same page.  When one of my children wants to know what we are doing today, I just refer them to the calendar on their iThing.  The problem with this approach is that some of our youngest children have ancient iPod touches that don't support iOS5 or later.  Thus, for those devices we needed a workaround.  I found a set of instructions from Xairbusdriver at TechSurvivors that was helped me figure out how to make this work.  Thanks Xairbusdriver!!!

Basically, we just needed to manually add the Address Book (e.g. CalDAV) account and Contacts (e.g. (CardDAV) accounts through the iThing's Settings.

Below are the steps that I used to setup the Calendar (e.g. CalDAV) account:

1. Make sure that you have successfully added the iCloud account to your Mac.
2. Open a terminal and look at the number that corresponds to the e-mail address of your iCloud account in the ~/Library/Application Support/iCloud/Accounts directory.  This number is is that account's iCloud ID number.
3. On the old iThing (e.g. iOS4 iPod Touch in my case), open Settings-->Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
4. Select "Add Account"
5. Select "Other"
6. Select "Add CalDav Account"
7. Open the "Account Settings" of the iCloud calendar by bringing up iCalendar, clicking on Calendars, left clicking on the desired calendar, click on "Get Info", then click on "Account Info".  The server for that calendar will be listed to the right of Description:.  In my case, it is p08-caldav.icloud.com
8. Back to the iThing's setup you were on the CalDav Account settings.  Here you will enter the following:
• Server: (or p08-caldav.icloud.com in my case)
• User name:
• Password:
• Description: iCloud Calendar
• Advanced Settings --> Use SSL, Port 443, Account URL: https:////principal
9. Click Next and wait for setup to complete
10. Click Done

Here are the steps that I used to setup the Address Book (e.g. CardDAV) account:

1. On the old iThing (e.g. iOS4 iPod Touch in my case), open Settings-->Mail, Contacts, Calendars.
2. Select "Add Account"
3. Select "Other"
4. Select "Add CardDAV Account"
5. Enter the following:
• Server: (or p08-contacts.icloud.com in my case)
• User name:
• Password:
• Description: iCloud Contacts
6. Click Next and wait for setup to complete
7. Click Done

Hope that helps your family to get better connected.

Blessings to you and yours!

Brad