Apple recently released a support document detailing an issue with birthdays starting more than 77 years ago not appearing in the iOS Birthdays Calendar. This calendar is available in iCal, iOS, and MobileMe, and is generated automatically from information that you’ve entered in your Address Book contacts.
I used to enter people’s birthdays just by the month and day, and I’d usually never put the year. A few years ago, I got a little smarter and started creating an event in the year of that person’s birth on the calendar, and then have it repeating forever, but still I’ve been doing it manually. If you’re like me, you might not even have known there was a way to enter birthdays in the Address Book. The Birthday field in the Address Book is not enabled by default, and you must go into the preferences and edit the template in order to show it. It’s also not a default option to show the Birthdays Calendar. It must be checked off in the iCal General Preferences pane.
The fix for birthdays not appearing before 1933 is detailed in Apple Support Article TS3437, and it is very simple, essentially requiring a re-syncing of your Contact info on your iOS device. So now if you want to put in birthdays for Casey Kasem, Donald Rumsfeld, or Elizabeth Taylor, go ahead assured in the knowledge that they will now show up on your Birthdays Calendar.
Photo Credit: ThaRainbow
