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If you are experiencing issues with updates to your iCal not appearing on your iPhone, it may be due to how iOS handles subscribed calendars. Although we set our calendar to refresh every 4 minutes (X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT4M), iOS sometimes does not update as frequently due to background restrictions and caching.

Why Does This Happen?

1. Background Data Restrictions: iOS limits background tasks to save battery life and data. This can slow or prevent automatic updates for third-party subscribed calendars.

2. Caching: To optimize performance, iOS may cache calendar data rather than constantly refreshing from the server, which can cause delays.

3. Server-Side Delay: Sometimes, even when our calendar is updated, Apple’s system may not push those changes immediately to users' devices.

Steps to Refresh Your Calendar

To ensure your calendar is up-to-date, follow these steps:

1. Manually Refresh the Calendar:

   • Open the Calendar app.
   • Tap on the “Calendars” button at the bottom.
   • Swipe down to refresh the calendar list.

2. Disable and Re-enable the Calendar:

   • Go to Settings > Calendar > Accounts.
   • Toggle the calendar off, wait a few seconds, and toggle it back on.

3. Enable Background App Refresh:

   • In Settings > General > Background App Refresh, ensure that Background App Refresh is enabled for the Calendar app. This helps keep the calendar updated even when it’s not open.

4. Clear Cache and Resubscribe:

   • If the issue persists, unsubscribe from the calendar and re-add it.
   • Go to Settings > Calendar > Accounts to remove the calendar, then re-add it using the URL link provided.

Following these steps should help resolve most update issues on iOS. If the problem continues, there may be a caching delay on Apple’s servers that is outside our control.