“Every month we’re making the app better,” Michael Simmons of Flexibits told me during our briefing, explaining that the company’s goal is to regularly roll out new features to the apps and via the cloud service. But access to the new features (across Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch) will require a $5/month or $40/year subscription.
#Fantastical calendar review upgrade
Existing Fantastical 2 users will be able to upgrade and get access to all the version 2 features while using version 3. It’s also connecting with Flexibits’s own new cloud service, which adds a slew of new features-and further possibilities down the line.Īs you might expect in this era of App Store apps, there’s also a new payment model for the app. With this release, Fantastical is now stepping away from its attachment to Apple’s built-in calendar database, adding the ability to connect to all sorts of calendar and task services. I’ve come to appreciate its thoughtful interface and its excellent natural-language parsing for event entry.īut with Fantastical 3, Flexibits has transformed the product-it’s got a refined new look, yes, but what’s going on behind the scenes is the biggest part of the story. I’ve been using Fantastical as my calendar app across all my devices for years now. The left sidebar can come and go with a swipe. Warning: This story has not been updated in several years and may contain out-of-date information. In the end, Fantastical 2 delivers a superb app to those users who don't enjoy using the iOS 7 calendar app, or those who are looking for a better solution to managing hectic schedules than what Apple provides.Fantastical 3 steps out of Apple’s shadow The ease of use when adding and editing events, along with the ability to view exactly where an event is and get directions to it are all features Apple should look into integrating into its own app. It makes managing your calendar and reminders easy, and it looks good while doing it. I wasn't convinced it would provide enough of a benefit over the Apple calendar app to justify spending a few dollars. I held out on buying Fantastical 2 due to the price. Having the app calculate travel time, including any traffic or construction encountered, would make having the location plotted within the app infinitely more useful. Setting predefined alert times to remind you of an appointment is available, but what I would like to see is a custom alert time based on your current location and the location of the meeting. In my testing of Fantastical 2, I never had to go back in and edit the location I'd entered. The calendar on OS X Mavericks does map out the location (when it can actually find the venue) and even figures drive time, but that doesn't cross over to iOS. Sure, Apple allows you to enter the location of an event, but it doesn't currently do anything with that information. This, again, is a big feature and advantage Fantastical 2 has over the default Apple Calendar app. Here you'll find the basic information you'd expect from any calendar app, but you'll also find a map with the location of the meeting or event, with the ability to launch directly into navigation via Apple Maps or Google Maps (customizable in the app settings). Tapping on an event in your calendar will open up the details screen. But being able to quickly add an event to your calendar, with the ability to go back and edit it later on, is valuable and extremely useful. Of course if you want to take a more granular approach to editing an entry, you'll still have that option. The same can be done when adding a reminder within Fantastical 2 by flipping a switch on the entry screen. The gesture makes switching views a natural motion, giving and taking away information with a flick. Upon first launch, there's a quick tutorial to demonstrate a gesture to expand and collapse the main calendar view from only five days to a month. In other words, if you have Google Calendar or another service setup and displaying in the Calendar app, that information will automatically display in Fantastical 2 without you having to independently authorize the app. Instead of requiring you to log into your Google or iCloud accounts to access your Calendar data, as other calendar apps do, Fantastical 2 uses the information that is already being synced to your iOS device through the official Calendar and Reminders apps. Once you've installed Fantastical 2 you'll need to grant the app access to some of your personal information.
And there's no shortage of features in Fantastical 2. The truth is, it does duplicate Apple's calendar app, but the real value comes in the form of the features it adds to your calendar.
0 kommentar(er)
