Zoom became a brilliant success during the pandemic because of its elegant simplicity. It was easy to install, set up and use, unlike earlier videoconferencing software. Through version 5 it retained the elegant simplicity and ease of use while adding power.
I find the Zoom Workplace a disaster. I can find no way to put a Zoom meeting on my Apple Calendar without transferring the schedule manually. Zoom wants me to use its calendar (although it does not automatically put new meetings on it), but I only want to manage one calendar. Zoom wants me to use its own email, for no obvious reason other than to take control. It has added all kinds of bells and whistles that might be useful in a giant corporation but not for an individual. What was simple and easy had become complex. It feels like a small company that brilliantly executed a bright idea was taken over by a larger company that wants to expand Zoom into a power suite like an Microsoft Office built on MS Teams to serve giant corporations.
Have others found tricks to get Zoom to talk to Apple Calendar and avoid all the unneeded complexities? Or am I missing something like a guide to what parts of Zoom I can ignore?
Iāve simply ignored all the new features with no problem. Are you finding it hard to do that in your workflow?
My main irritation is that it seems the Reaction button keeps moving, and we use it for voting in FLRC board meetings. So once every month or two, I have to scan all the buttons on the toolbar to find it. And itās in a different place if youāre sharing your screen, which I sometimes am during these meetings.
I have been able to ignore the new features, but Iām really annoyed by having to cut and paste scheduled meetings into my Apple Calendar. I also was disturbed to find correspondence about an interview wound up in the Zoom mailbox, which I had been ignoring. Apparently I didnāt miss anything important, but I did not expect to have mail go there.
What I worry about when an app gets so complex is that I will accidentally trigger something that causes a problem. For example, accidentally recording every conference you arrange can put a gigabyte of video in your Documents file for every hour you record.
If youāre scheduling an event, you need to select the more options button. At the bottom there is an External Calendar checkbox that will enable a dropdown with iCal as one of the choices. Selecting that will put the event on your Apple Calendar (in addition to Zoomās Calendar).
Thanks. I tried but no joy. I could not edit the meeting I have scheduled to include my Apple Calendar or to include the email address on my Apple Calendar. I started trying to schedule a dummy meeting, which also did not work, but I may not have gone far enough. I was using the Zoom version that runs in a browser to edit an existing meeting; I could not find a way to edit a scheduled meeting on the Zoom app for MacOS, and donāt use a phone for meetings.
Few people know that you can actually drag icons to rarely used āfeaturesā out of the bottom of the Zoom window. Reduces clutter and makes it easier to find the stuff you actually use all the time.
In the older version of Zoom I could completely mute the incoming sound. This is helpful if a call comes in which I have to take and donāt want sound in the background. Now if I try it tells me that I canāt do it and ask if I want to disconnect. This is not helpful.
You canāt directly mute the speaker, but if you select the audio pop-up menu using the carat next to the microphone icon, you can select āAudio Settingsā¦ā at the bottom and adjust the appās speaker volume.
Yes, it clearly strives to be a one-stop shop for workplace teams. But it was only ever the best videoconferencing software.
Our college provides and expects us to use Teams but most of the staff have personal Zoom accounts which they use. None of us collaborate within it beyond the videoconferencing.
It seems that every update to Zoom, Teams or Skype introduces different ways for initiating calls and using common functions. Sometimes the app demands an update before proceeding. Very frustrating.
Half the time I find that the Teams app wonāt work for me on the Mac and I have to use the web browser version. However Safari will not work - I have to use Microsoft Edge - erk! Not a great look when trying to join a meeting.
Soā¦ it seems Zoom developers are taking lessons from Microsoft!
Oh for the days of iChat and Steveās influence on user interfaces! Even that got degraded when it changed to Facetime and the iOS team got involved.
