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Comment by notatoad | Hacker News Reader

CalDAV is the spring cleaning killing that I'm most surprised about. It should have been obvious to everybody that reader was on track to be killed, but I would have thought that google would be eager to support any product that involves you telling them what your schedule is, whether that's through their calendar app or any other calendaring app you've got connected to their backend.

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If you throw out all the 'tit-for-tat' assumptions, it really makes sense. Google has an API for nearly everything. I could easily see this as a standardization approach.

Personally, I'm not effected at all between using the Google calendar website and my android based phone. I think Google's goal is to push everyone to use the API for their calander in future apps. I don't mind doing that for what they provide.

I could easily imagine that use of their API could allow for better data gathering than using the open standard.

Microsoft recently filed an amicus brief supporting Oracle's position on API copyright. I wouldn't speculate that this is the motive, but it would be interesting if Microsoft is pressured into using Google APIs

> If you throw out all the 'tit-for-tat' assumptions, it really makes sense. Google has an API for nearly everything. I could easily see this as a standardization approach.

Except caldav is just a protocol. It's not an API. Google could have made an API that supports the caldav protocol, but chose not to.

This also effects me a lot, personally, because I have a Kindle Fire and an iPhone, and I use my Google calendar to sync up everything between the two.

So then the Google calander API has always been used, but the data is delivered in CalDev format?

This move would then represent Google refusing to accept that format?

I didn't read things that way.

It makes good business sense - look at Maps API. You can get X number of free calls, but if you go over a certain limit you need to pay (That limit is pretty high if I recall)

So now fast forward to Microsoft and Others incorporating that API into their products - am I understanding correctly Google could charge for API calls similarly?

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