'Fantastical 2' Launches for Mac With Yosemite-Style Redesign, Full Calendar Window

[c0ppo]

Pirates, Cheapskates and people that only buy mobile apps who don't understand economies of scale.

they should look at the cost of some of my software...

Smoke - £1,300
Cinema 4D - £3,120
Maya Suite - £4.800
Nuke Studio - £5,600
Adobe CC - £50 a month.

in fact all the software I own is more than twice the price of my mac Pro 12core max'ed out.

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In fairness... the dude might just have a 2008 machine that can't be upgraded now... I am in the same boat with some of my older Pro's and iMacs

Are you really comparing Cinema, Adobe, Maya, etc. to a freaking calendar app? Really?

On my mac atm there is about 4000$ worth of software. And it's worth it, since using it makes me even more money a month then I've spent for that software. I will gladly pay again when I need to.

But a calendar app for 50$? And no upgrade price for fantastical 1 owners as well?

I have to ask it again... Are you really, but really comparing fantastical to Maya ???

 

[mcgruff]

The nice price.....

$39.99? And that's the "get to know me" sales price?

I have to think that's a non-starter for most folks....even those of us who use Fantastical vsn 1 and like it. That's a big swing and a miss.

 

[GlenK]

Still using BusyCal which I've been very happy with. This looks similar.

 

[oliversl]

Now Fantastical look like any other app on Yosemite, lost all his personality, too sad. Now is: white, circles, bright colors.

On the bright side, it looks better than the Photos app which is the most horrible GUI in an app from Apple ever.

 

[mw360]

At $9.99 = 100% buy, at $19.99 = 50% buy, and at $39.99 = 0% buy.

Hmm. really?

At $9.99 = 100% buy,

Realllly?

But as other's have said, iCal is fine and does everything I need it to.

No, thought not. Sorry to single you out in particular, but yours best illustrates the mentality amongst this crowd. If you don't need it, why demand it be priced vastly lower? Just so you can pretend that you would have bought it, just to tinker with it for a day?

Maybe these folks are better off with fewer users, who've decided they actually need the product, who will be less of a drain on customer support and who won't give the app a 1 star rating because it turns out they didn't really want it but it was worth a shot at $9.99.

 

[phunkidude]

I don't get it. It's just a calendar. What's wrong with the OSX version?

And whoever has a calendar as full as the one shown in the sample, needs a PA, not a new calendar app.

 

[roderickv]

I don't think this thread represents Flexibits' target audience. For the average person, $40 for a calendar application is absurd. For a business owner, $40 isn't that outrageous.

Actually I am a business owner and have been for 12 years. A smart business owner always considers the cost. More specifically the return on investment and $40 for an "upgrade" to this particular calendar app does seem overpriced. The problem for most (me included) is we already have Fantastical 1, so what Flexibits needed to do here was convince us the upgrade was worth $40 and in my case they didn't, so I'll happily continue to use Fantastical 1, which meets my need fine.

 

[driphone]

I agree with most $40-50 is high considering most have already bought more than one versions of the App (Mac, iPhone, iPad)...but I guess if you really need the new version and see the added benefit of using the new features then go for it.

I suspect the market will eventually dictate a price adjustment.

 

[prowlmedia]

I love Fantastical 2. Paid for it on my iPhone and it sits in Pole Position (top left, 1st screen). It's that good. But for my Mac? I'd probably, begrudgingly pay again. But $40? Never gonna happen. Maybe, just maybe $10. I've always got my phone on me, and can easily pull my calendar up there. Again, I love this app, but not all of us Apple fans are rolling around in money.

Seriously. If you can't spend $40 on something you would LITERALLY use EVERY day... Isn't that like half the price of an xBox game?

 

[Arnold Ziffel]

Looks & runs great, shame about the price point. Seems like not a lot of research was done on that aspect.

I'd love an upgrade from the very dated v1, but I don't see how that cost is justified at all.

All prices, unless given as a price range, are *points*, so no need to say "price point". Needless redundancy.

 

[prowlmedia]

Are you really comparing Cinema, Adobe, Maya, etc. to a freaking calendar app? Really?

On my mac atm there is about 4000$ worth of software. And it's worth it, since using it makes me even more money a month then I've spent for that software. I will gladly pay again when I need to.

But a calendar app for 50$? And no upgrade price for fantastical 1 owners as well?

I have to ask it again... Are you really, but really comparing fantastical to Maya ???

No Just pointing out that people have forgotten the value and cost of development. We are too used to getting stuff for free now. We'd have paid that a few years ago - pre app store and iOS. Which has a whole different economy of scale.

No upgrade price is a problem of course.

 

[tgara]

I don't think this thread represents Flexibits' target audience. For the average person, $40 for a calendar application is absurd. For a business owner, $40 isn't that outrageous.

I think that's right. For power users who need a powerful calendaring application, $40 seems about right. Heck, BusyCal is $50

http://www.busymac.com/store/index.html

Full disclosure, I use my calendar app every day, and frankly the OSX Calendar app is a bit underpowered. I'm considering either Fantastical 2 or BusyCal and will happily pay for one or the other.

 

[mw360]

Indeed. Especially since they sell it from their site as well (I've bought first version there), so mac app store is not the problem this time. Just look at panic.com and their products.

I feel betrayed, since I own iOS version as well. Gonna stick with first version as long as I can. It works for now, so I don't need an upgrade. But when I do, it won't be fantastical that's for sure. Too greedy, so cya to fantastical developers, thanks for being awfully greedy.

The Mac App Store rules say they can't sell it cheaper elsewhere.

How did Panic work around this? As far as I know for Coda2.5 they migrated MAS purchasers to become direct customers, but only because they pulled Coda from the MAS.

 

[Chrjy]

All prices, unless given as a price range, are *points*, so no need to say "price point". Needless redundancy.

Someone got out on the wrong side of the bed today

 

[Traverse]

i use the default OS X app and it syncs well with my iOS default app. I too find this sufficient. we mut both be old fuddy duddies....

I'll go so far as to say that I use almost all of the iOS and OS X default applications.

Mail
Safari
Calendar
Reminders
Notes
Weather

They get the job done with no need for third party bloat. Now if only that were the case with the iWork suite...

 

[GPerry]

$40-50 Does not include iPad and iPhone

Especially too expensive if you add in $7 for iPad and $3 for iPhone apps. Now you are talking $50-60 for a calendar app!

 

[bcc2k]

40$ is too expensive for me as I don't need the big window view (the yosemite calendar is sufficient) and the menubar view doesn't automatically show the reminders anymore.

 

[HenryDJP]

In fairness... the dude might just have a 2008 machine that can't be upgraded now... I am in the same boat with some of my older Pro's and iMacs

Possible. But in fairness he didn't state that and since Yosemite tends to a negative rap sometimes here I don't think I was out of place.

EDIT: Maybe this post from him will convince you. But thanks for sticking up for another member without checking first.

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20783422#post20783422

 

[ck2875]

Not sure if someone else has mentioned it already, but I just noticed that you can download a 14 day trial of F2 from their actual website.

http://flexibits.com/fantastical

If nothing else, it's nice to be able to see if I think it's worth $40 (though I doubt I will).

 

[Lost Hills]

Not sure if someone else has mentioned it already, but I just noticed that you can download a 14 day trial of F2 from their actual website.

http://flexibits.com/fantastical

If nothing else, it's nice to be able to see if I think it's worth $40 (though I doubt I will).

Thats how I solved the crash on start up issue, I installed the trial, set that up, then installed the App Store version on top of the trial version. Works fine now.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

That's generally not Apple's M.O. They create their own software from the ground. It's possible there's more but the only time I've known them to take outside existing software and refine it for the Mac was Sherlock (formerly known as Alfred) and Coverflow.

I understand that. That's why I kicked off the post with "imagine". IMO, it would be nice to have a bunch of higher quality apps than the stock set, endorsed & integrated by Apple. Mail still seems somewhat flaky to me. Fantastical is better than the stock calendar. Font Book is pretty weak vs. a number of other font managers. Etc.

Apple has had 10 iterations of OS X to dramatically improve the stock apps (more if you'll count the Next OS as OS X before 10.0). Instead, while there's been incremental improvements, some of these third party apps seem "what Apple's should be" IMO. I'd love to see the M.O. change for an OS X iteration and buy the best of what's out there that challenges the stock apps, enhance/integrate them like the stock apps and then roll that out.

But alas, since that's not their M.O., I guess we should be happy with tremendous innovations like slightly more transparent windows (which I still can't believe was so heavily touted and repeated at last year's WWDC).

 

[c0ppo]

No Just pointing out that people have forgotten the value and cost of development. We are too used to getting stuff for free now. We'd have paid that a few years ago - pre app store and iOS. Which has a whole different economy of scale.

No upgrade price is a problem of course.

But you can't compare Maya with Fantastical. I am a developer, and I do agree on users usually not willing to pay, wanting everything free, and then complaining about the ads, etc.

But if me and my team would start on making something like fantastical, we probably would have made it. But if we started to make something like Maya, maybe we would have finished it... In about 300 years or so.

Maya is a brick stone building. Fantastical is just a wooden plate. That's how I'd compare the two. And giving that the fantastical developers hate making upgrades, I sincerely don't think they deserve not even 1/5th of the money they are asking.

Just check out the iPad version and comments. You will find my comment there as well.

But I have no doubt that they will roll out an update for iPad as well. Just that it will be paid update, not free long overdue upgrade they should have made a long ago.

 

[phytonix]

Color me unsuprised.

It has become very clear that developer is very greedy for a couple of years. This is just another piece of evidence. Honestly it is not worth the price. iCal can do natural language parsing already.

 

[iSee]

I think it kinda makes sense to go "upscale" on the price of this.

The built-in Calendar is pretty good, so casual users probably aren't going to buy another calendar app for almost any price.

So this is for calendar power-users who are looking for more and are willing to pay for it.

(Personally, I try really hard to avoid having my life so structured that I'd need a calendar that does more... that final screen shot is exactly what I am trying to stay away from!)

 

[c0ppo]

The Mac App Store rules say they can't sell it cheaper elsewhere.

How did Panic work around this? As far as I know for Coda2.5 they migrated MAS purchasers to become direct customers, but only because they pulled Coda from the MAS.

I owned Coda 1. When Coda 2 got out, I had the choice of getting upgrade price, not full price. And Coda 2 was even cheaper (if my memory serves me) when it was released compared to fantastical 2.

And one more thing, Panic makes really great software. But not only that, try opening up a support ticket for one of their products. Pretty soon you will get a response. Now try doing that with flexibits. A greedy developer is a greedy developer.

Pay for it, but dont get ur hopes up for an upgrade, or even for some support. Want an upgrade? Please pay 50$