How To: Never Forget A Birthday With iOS

Honey, do you know what today is?

I’m sure you or someone you know has faced the infamous question, “Do you know what is special about today?”, from a friend or loved one. This topic has been the premise and butt of many jokes on our beloved sitcoms and we laugh every time. But let’s be honest, it’s funny because it’s grounded in the all-together very true day-to-day reality. The fact is, everyone at some time or other has missed or forgotten really important annual celebrations.

Unfortunately forgetting these special days cause much unintentional grief, the silver lining, is only for retailers, who sell a lot of flowers and candy. Well, fret not my calendar challenged friend, there is a quick and easy way to make sure that you are alerted of that important date and no, the answer isn’t micromanaging your calendar and constantly manually maintaining such reoccurring events.

Since this is my first article ever, I figured it would be apropos to start out with the birthday topic, and here we go…

If you happen to be an Apple user, there is a quick and simple hidden gem to get your birthdays seamlessly integrated into your calendars.  The next time you enter a contact in your iPhone (iPod and iPad), you can also add a birthday.

First, let’s make sure that it’s enabled in the Calendar app. Click on Calendar (top left) and make sure there is a check mark by Birthdays. Set it once and never think about it again.

When you add a new contact or update an existing one, scroll down and click on the add field button.

Scroll down a bit and choose Birthday.

Now it is simply a matter of entering the birthday.

Check your calendar, TADA, it’s automatically there!

That’s it. Now your calendar will keep track of important dates forever. In fact, iCloud users will have this information propagate throughout their Apple devices. For added amazing functionality you can click on the birthday in your iPhone and be automatically taken to the contact’s phone number, just in case you want to text or call. Very simple, but cool stuff.

Now go make someone’s day by remembering their big day.

It’s the simple stuff that makes life grand.

Unfortunately, for Android users, to do this is a bit more of a process.  However, if you’re interested check out this forum post which explains how to add birthdays into your calendar.