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Universal Calendar alternative apps - I was using Fantastical but not anymore
- Thread starter max2
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Don't know about great, but...
Installed Calendar 366, per what @Weaselboy posted in the Fantastical news thread. I find it OK. Some inconsistencies in UI (eg. one screen will show Events first then Reminders, others, flip-flopped; some screens Reminders are displayed in random order vs by time). Find the list view is workable for "show me everything today" type things, but wished that the Events and Reminders were sorted/displayed off time fields vs Reminder block then Event block.
Went back and downloaded Calendar 5. Also just OK. Has same issue of displaying Reminders in a random manner, does not show times for the Reminders on some (all?) screens.
Did some cursory searching and did not turn up anything of interest that was feature rich and not subscription. Or not using their own cloud.
A couple have one-time fee "add pro features", but even with those, UI and just general functions were not compelling.
I can live with stock Apple apps, if push comes to shove, but not a fan of having two apps: miss the early days of iOS (and MacOS at that time) when Reminders was integrated within Calendar.
Oh and: this one looked interesting. https://vantageby44.com/ But not clear that it does Reminders vs. their own To-Dos database/system. $9.99 for "pro" upgrade. [Edit: per FAQ, seems that it is Apple native Reminders]
Informant 5 also looks interesting. Subscription, but appears they also have a pay-once to own option. Can sign-up for one-month subscription to play with, and then commit to full price or cancel. [Edit: App Store info is misleading re: pay-once, it's a yearly subscription for the $25 price]
Just downloaded BusyCal. Just OK. Display is better than Calendar 5 or Calendar 366, but Event creation is pretty brain dead (eg. no custom recurrences ["third Friday of the month..."],not able to set a timezone for an event; guess can always fall back to stock app to do those type of things and use BusyCal for the more mundane day-to-day).
Installed Calendar 366, per what @Weaselboy posted in the Fantastical news thread. I find it OK. Some inconsistencies in UI (eg. one screen will show Events first then Reminders, others, flip-flopped; some screens Reminders are displayed in random order vs by time). Find the list view is workable for "show me everything today" type things, but wished that the Events and Reminders were sorted/displayed off time fields vs Reminder block then Event block.
Went back and downloaded Calendar 5. Also just OK. Has same issue of displaying Reminders in a random manner, does not show times for the Reminders on some (all?) screens.
Did some cursory searching and did not turn up anything of interest that was feature rich and not subscription. Or not using their own cloud.
A couple have one-time fee "add pro features", but even with those, UI and just general functions were not compelling.
I can live with stock Apple apps, if push comes to shove, but not a fan of having two apps: miss the early days of iOS (and MacOS at that time) when Reminders was integrated within Calendar.
Oh and: this one looked interesting. https://vantageby44.com/ But not clear that it does Reminders vs. their own To-Dos database/system. $9.99 for "pro" upgrade. [Edit: per FAQ, seems that it is Apple native Reminders]
Informant 5 also looks interesting. Subscription, but appears they also have a pay-once to own option. Can sign-up for one-month subscription to play with, and then commit to full price or cancel. [Edit: App Store info is misleading re: pay-once, it's a yearly subscription for the $25 price]
Just downloaded BusyCal. Just OK. Display is better than Calendar 5 or Calendar 366, but Event creation is pretty brain dead (eg. no custom recurrences ["third Friday of the month..."],
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I don't mind BusyCal, NO subscription 😊 ..for now and hope for ever! If they read the reviews for Fantastical I hope they will decide differently.
I like it because it has the weather (provided by Darksky ), better on the Mac than on the iOS because it's bigger than the tinier iOS one. Its views-Day, week and month or list an To do- are really easy to get: you have all the tabs on the bottom. And the settings are really clear. It's not cheap for the Mac, 50$ but you can try it for 30 days-download it from their website, and it's only 5$ for iOS. It syncs with a lot of servers. You need to specify your iCloud per-app password to give it the access and you can also decide how often you want it to sync. I keep it once a day but if I need a faster sync, just go to settings and click Sync Now
You won’t find anything as good as Fantastical. I would keep using version 2 as long as it is supported.
The stock app is sorely lacking.
The stock app is sorely lacking.
Calendars 5 for me. Readdle have been smashing it with their apps recently
Try Saisuke.
SaiSuke2
SaiSuke2 is a calendar and task management app, along with rich sync, customize options. The new SaiSuke2 supports new view modes, gestures and a lot of features. - 11 view modes includes with landscape, portrait support Added vertical scroll Month view and List view. All view modes are...
apps.apple.com
Too bad there is no watch app. Otherwise, I would give it a try.Try Saisuke.
SaiSuke2
SaiSuke2 is a calendar and task management app, along with rich sync, customize options. The new SaiSuke2 supports new view modes, gestures and a lot of features. - 11 view modes includes with landscape, portrait support Added vertical scroll Month view and List view. All view modes are...apps.apple.com
that was my calendar app for years until I decided to try Fantastical 2. Its really good.
Just browsing the forum over the weekend and seems I’ve missed the boat.
If I downloaded Fantastical now, what should I expect? I’m wondering what the grumblings are. Is it that they’ve introduced a subscription side of things or have they removed a ton of features or what?
If I downloaded Fantastical now, what should I expect? I’m wondering what the grumblings are. Is it that they’ve introduced a subscription side of things or have they removed a ton of features or what?
There were some grumblings related to initial issues v2->v3 users were having, but it's primarily about the subscription being $40 per year, which is a ton of money for a calendar app.
I'm using that as well. It's not as polished as Fantastical v3, but as I only use the app on my phone, $40 per year is more than I am interested in paying. Calendar 366's one time purchase is much easier to swallow.
[automerge]1580793092[/automerge]
I'm using that as well. It's not as polished as Fantastical v3, but as I only use the app on my phone, $40 per year is more than I am interested in paying. Calendar 366's one time purchase is much easier to swallow.
Ouch!!
I’m not really a fan of any subscription software to be honest. I always avoid them. In fact I don’t think I pay for any subscription based software. I have enough with my other bills like gas, electricity, mortgage etc without adding on others.
I’m assuming then that there’s a free version where you don’t have to take the hit but it has 0.0000001% of the features?
I’m not really a fan of any subscription software to be honest. I always avoid them. In fact I don’t think I pay for any subscription based software. I have enough with my other bills like gas, electricity, mortgage etc without adding on others.
I’m assuming then that there’s a free version where you don’t have to take the hit but it has 0.0000001% of the features?
Flexibits Premium
Fantastical, the calendar app you won't be able to live without. Learn more about Flexibits Premium.
flexibits.com
Shows what you get for free version vs subscription
Part of my issue with all this is that v2 never got significant updates, and it was out a long time.
Flexibits Premium
Fantastical, the calendar app you won't be able to live without. Learn more about Flexibits Premium.
Shows what you get for free version vs subscription
Yeah and people moan about it. It costs around £80 (maybe more) to buy Fantastical for iPad, iPhone and Mac under previous pricing system. With the subscription model that represents roughly 2 years subscription where you can cancel anytime and not pay a penny more should you not like it, and even then can use the free version. You get full updates and added features even with free version. People complained about having to pay say £50 for Mac version, so whatever they did, was never going to please people.
You're turning this into a circular argument. v2 never got the updates it should have gotten, and they roll out v3 and want you to pay a subscription for things they should have put in v2 a long time ago. Per my original comment, that is another reason I am not pleased with these changes.
Sorry but I agree 2.0 was out 3 years with barely any significant updates. Does that warrant $120 USD (40/year)? No.
Even if you bought it for all devices you would pay half that. On sale you could have gotten the Mac app for $39.99, iphone for $2.99, and ipad for $5.99. Under $50 total. Even full price it was $65.
And the more important argument, what if you dont HAVE a Mac or iPad? So $120 for the iphone app? Sorry, but LOLOLOLOL ripoff
Even if you bought it for all devices you would pay half that. On sale you could have gotten the Mac app for $39.99, iphone for $2.99, and ipad for $5.99. Under $50 total. Even full price it was $65.
And the more important argument, what if you dont HAVE a Mac or iPad? So $120 for the iphone app? Sorry, but LOLOLOLOL ripoff
Perhaps for the calendar set syncing. Many app developers find iCloud 'lacking' for their sync requirements. Just a thought.
Your iCloud calendars don’t sync without you being signed into your account. Apple uses Amazon servers for iCloud and Fantastical uses Google servers with an account.
Agreed. But that’s my ICLOUD account I’m logged into. If I am logged into my iCloud account on my iPhone and also on my iPad, the calendars sync automatically via iCloud. Fantastical would just be the app to interface with the built in iCould calendar data. So, what does the Fantastical account buy me? Why would I want to create a Fantastical account so my calendar data can be synced to my iCloud account (which is shared between iOS devices) AND to a Fantastical account? Why does Fantastical need access to my calendar data on their servers? There really is no reason I can see. I’m surprised people aren’t really questioning this more. Seems like a great way to get access to our data, anonymize it, and then sell it off, all while claiming they don’t sell our data. Technically, anonymizing the data before selling would qualify as not selling our actual data.
Another user here. Just gradually switching over to Calendar 5 by Readdle from Fantastical. Not finding it very difficult at all, serving my needs perfectly.
Maybe I was not that much a power user of Fantastical anyway, glad that I can now safely forget about not mistakenly updating Fantastical on my iPhone.
I know Fantastical won't lose anything for me not using it (I had already paid them some months back), but I did frequently suggest it to my friends and family members. I do still wish them all the best. But honestly charging 3 times more than what Amazon Prime costs is simply unacceptable (at least in my country).
- Natural Language Task/Event Addition ✔️
- Watch App ✔️
- Widget ✔️
- List, Day, Week, Month View ✔️
- Task + Event combined View ✔️
Maybe I was not that much a power user of Fantastical anyway, glad that I can now safely forget about not mistakenly updating Fantastical on my iPhone.
I know Fantastical won't lose anything for me not using it (I had already paid them some months back), but I did frequently suggest it to my friends and family members. I do still wish them all the best. But honestly charging 3 times more than what Amazon Prime costs is simply unacceptable (at least in my country).
I believe one of the issues with apps that only front-end iCloud calendars is notifications. I use Weekview (bought years ago and ignore the nags to subscribe) and the free version of Calendars (will purchase if I continue to like it) and neither can handle event notifications. They'll always come from the stock calendar app and clicking on one opens Apple Calendar.
I don't mind this, as even if one hosts their calendars with e.g. Fantastical, the notifications won't work if you don't have a signal or are in airplane mode.