Well, under my "minimalism philosophy" I have been using stock apps (calendar, reminders, notes, voice memos - I have more advanced vis-a-vis third-party apps for each of them) on my iPhone 4 (iOS 7) exclusively for the last three months just to see if they meet my humble needs. However, there are small nuances that I have started to take into account which kind of irritate me in stock apps.
1. Calendar
I don't have many events but nevertheless I find it somewhat cumbersome to do extra taps to input, edit and view events in the stock Calendar app. I.e., I don't like that in order to see notes to my events I have to look at each event in a day or list view. If I want to quick edit or delete an event - again extra tap. Also I can't choose flexible time intervals for recurring events.
For the sake of comparison, Calendars 5 app displays notes for each event in a day or list view. It is also convenient to quickly move, copy, delete or edit the event without changing current view. It does also have natural-language input of events with flexible options for recurring events.
Fantastical 2 is also great but only at gorgeous dark theme and natural-language input. However, like stock calendar app, it doesn't display notes for events in a list view.
So my preference for calendar app would go to Calendars 5.
2. Reminders
Surprisingly, stock Reminders app displays notes (I use them for sub tasks sometimes) for the tasks, which is very welcome. The only two cons are lack of flexible time intervals for recurring tasks and absence of natural-language input of tasks. Of course, I am not mentioning sub-tasks, etc that are too much to demand from stock and third-party reminders apps. And yes, I have to do extra taps to edit tasks. I also would love to use lists as projects in Reminders but once I complete the list tasks I have to delete the list, otherwise I will end up with too many lists, but will be unable to refer to that list/project tasks later. So, in line with minimalism and focus principles I use one list for all work tasks adding a keyword (i.e., project name) to separate them for easy search and convenient view.
Calendars 5 also lacks natural-language input of tasks, but do provide flexible time intervals for recurring tasks. Calendars 5 displays tasks alongside with events which is convenient. Calendars 5 also provides due dates for tasks in addition to reminders.
On the contrary, Fantastical 2 do offer its famous natural language input as well as flexible time intervals for tasks.
But, both third-party apps don't display notes for tasks in a current view. Moreover, Fantastical 2 doesn't display the full name of a task if it is rather long (developer promised to look into it) and I don't like how it displays tasks.
So, regarding Reminders I don't know which app is good since each of them has obvious pros and cons. I might survive without natural language input but lack of flexible time intervals for tasks repels me from making stock app my default.
Another point is that one third-party app like Calendars 5 can replace two stock apps (Calendar and Reminders) retaining their functionality.
