webcal:// support on Android not working - is there a supported calendar feed alternative [closed]

Question

We offer our clients the ability to subscribe to an iCalendar/VCalendar feed on their devices using a webcal:// link

We have a nice simple button that says "subscribe to this calendar", they click on it and their calendar app sucks in the data - voila.

This works great on most devices, but we've found it fails miserably on android devices.

On the default Android browser it gives a "Webpage not available" error which doesn't help our users.

On Chrome on Android it doesn't do anything when they click on the button, it just sits there and if I paste the webcal:// link into Chrome's address bar it looks it up in google instead of loading the cal feed.

If I use http:// it will display the feed contents in the webpage but won't trigger the calendar to subscribe to it which isn't very useful for our less savvy users.

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So my question is: Is there a supported calendar feed type for Android that works without the user having to manually copy the link code from the web app, then open their calendar app and, click to add a subscription and then paste in the link?

At this point the best alternative I have is to detect the browser type and if it is Android pop up a window with the link code for users to copy and to give them instructions to go find the subscribe link in their cal and paste in the link. I know this is going to result in lots of support calls from less technical users though so I'd rather not :)

Thanks!

Answer 1

As the webpage says

Android phones do not support webcals. However, you can subscribe the calendars to Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar and then synchronize GoogleCalendar with Android. Also, you can install ICSSync on your device and then add calendar links to that app.

http://www.webcal.fi/en/supported_applications.php

Answer 2

This is not the answer that OP is looking for. As pointed out by @Seïfane Idouchach Android browsers doesn't support webcal feed.

Workaround:

1. Use http:// instead of webcall://
2. Setting header to 'Content-Disposition: attachment' to make it force save the file on android devices. (You may also want to set the filename header).
3. Now due to the above two steps, android client would download the file.
4. Once downloaded, users can click the file to add them to calender app.