Not going to happen.

You can sync your iphone calendar to many caldav calendars online and Lightning will also sync to them. but plugging it in is not going to happen.

" but plugging it in is not going to happen."

What does that mean?

Must be possible as Outlook syncs seamlessly through iTunes.

I would happily go back to Outlook but as my copy is corrupted I can't.

It means that you can not plug your iAnything in to a computer and synchronize it to Thunderbird.

You have an issue with that, contact Apple. They are the ones that write the integration into Outlook.

As I said, use a caldav provider on the web as an intermediary. something like Google. As both IDevices and Lightning will sync with the Google calendar.

I dont have an 'issue' with anything, merely implying that it must surely be within Mozilla's capability to arrange the same.

"It means that you can not plug your iAnything in to a computer and synchronize it to Thunderbird."

That was all I needed to know - Mr Moderator

Perhaps your not aware of the fact Thunderbird is not a Mozilla project, it is a community one. So Mozilla is not in the equation.

And no it is not something the Thunderbird Council would be perusing with Apple. Open communication protocols are what Thunderbird is about, so a special communications arrangement with Apple products is not something we would even encourage.

Apple users might ask Apple to supply such and Apple may do so. But that is between you and your product supplier. There may even be some enterprising entrepreneur that writes a plugin for people to purchase/ licence.

OK - the community project then.

Like all Councils things get restrictive. Surely if you facilitated easy sync with mobile devices you would get more customers to use your project and support it and enhance open communication. As things stand, from a laymans point of view, it's not in the least bit open having to go round the back alleys to get what you want

This layman sees it completely different to you. How much easier can it be that to synchronize with every caldav provider in the world. It is not some obscure connection to a proprietary product (itumes) which only runs on approved operating systems. it is every single caldav provider. And that includes ICloud. But i rarely mention it because Apple makes using it just about as hard as they possibly can by hiding crucial information, as this Harvard University posting shows http://computing.physics.harvard.edu/icloud It also shows you how to do it.

Your layman perspective is coloured by your prior usage of Outlook and apples support for it. There is nothing difficult in synchronizing an iPhone to a caldav provider, nor is it difficult to do the same with Lightning.

What is difficult is getting the message to people that a cord is not required and using one is not more convenient. This discussion is a perfect example. Your telling me that writing more software and using a cord to connect your computer and your phone is convenient and "facilitates easy sync" and I am saying set it up right and it does it itself. No cord,s no doing anything it just happens every 15 minutes or so, just like your mail syncs.

"Need a simple step by step to link my iPhone3 with my lightning so it will synch with the calendar when plugged into USB 2 on my PC"

That was my original question - seems a pretty simple one to me.

Perspectives are influenced by experience so of course I was expecting similar from Thunderbird.

To a layman who doesnt even know what a caldav is the following was unhelpful :-

""Not going to happen.

You can sync your iphone calendar to many caldav calendars online and Lightning will also sync to them. but plugging it in is not going to happen.""

I am not prolonging this dialogue because it is a waste of my time and has coloured my impression of this 'help' forum somewhat unfavouirably.

I will seek guidance from a more sympathetic source elsewhere