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Is it worth buying Fantastical?

L

lsquare

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 30, 2010
697
66
Fantastical for OSX and iOS seems to be getting very good reviews and I'm not sure why I should get that. What can it do that the calendar app in OSX and Outlook can't? Any advantages to the iOS version of Fantastical over Apple's calendar app?

Can Fantastical sync with Outlook and Apple's calendar app?
 
lsquare said:
Fantastical for OSX and iOS seems to be getting very good reviews and I'm not sure why I should get that. What can it do that the calendar app in OSX and Outlook can't? Any advantages to the iOS version of Fantastical over Apple's calendar app?

Can Fantastical sync with Outlook and Apple's calendar app?
Click to expand...

I had the same queries before taking the plunge – eventually picked them up on a sale, so that helped things.

I run Mac OSX at home, for my personal stuff, whilst still being dependent on a Windows PC, running Office at work – including Outlook (obviously).

I have Fantastical on my Mac, iPhone and iPad.

In short – it syncs with my work calendar. Any appointment added in Outlook on my work pc and exchange account, appears on Fantastical, and vice versa.

As a means to quickly capture calendar events, it really is a fantastic (har-har) application. The natural language works a treat. On iOS, I use it in conjunction with Launch Centre Pro – or its Today Widget – or from within several other apps, and it's lightning fast. Its language programming is very good, imo. With very few exceptions, it works out what I am meaning to say, and effortlessly drops in the details, location, dates and times for my events.

Staying on iOS – the overview function of both the iPhone and iPad app works vey well. You can quickly see what is coming in terms of appointments, by using the Landscape mode, which is superb – particularly given the dynamically active event-scroller area.

Over to OSX.

Here, Fantastical functions primarily as a menubar app. Clicking on the icon, drops down a min-calendar, with a list of the next appointments etc. underneath it. You can easily enter new events through the dropdown, or even using a clipper-type shortcut command, and you can flick through the different calendar months quickly with a swipe of the trackpad.

That being said – this is the single drawback for me. Part of me wishes I could expand that mini-calendar into a full-sized up, a la :apple: Calendar, to really get to grips with what events are coming up... Something similar, therefore, to the landscape mode over on iOS. It's a small gripe, since I could easily do exactly that inside the :apple: Calendar app, but if Fantastical could do that, it would be the very final cherry on top.

One last thing re Fantastical on OSX: Alfred 2. Thanks to some whizz over at the Alfred 2 forums, I have a workflow installed inside Alfred. I simply activate Alfred, type "cal", and then start typing my event. It automatically parses everything for me, and when I hit enter, Fantastical is automatically called up – I do a quick review that everything is correct, and hit enter again to confirm the new event. A few seconds later, and I'm back doing whatever it was I was busy with before having to put something into my calendar. Joy. It works a treat – and makes Fantastical on the Mac an integral part of my daily workflow.

Hope this ^^ helps!
 
Cassady said:
I run Mac OSX at home, for my personal stuff, whilst still being dependent on a Windows PC, running Office at work – including Outlook (obviously).

In short – it syncs with my work calendar. Any appointment added in Outlook on my work pc and exchange account, appears on Fantastical, and vice versa.
Click to expand...


I use Google calendars for my personal schedule and Outlook at work. I have been dying ever since Google pulled the plug on their calendar sync program. Is this something Fantastical can do? I will not hook my phone up to my work account, because I have a philosophical problem with giving them the ability to wipe my phone if and when they see fit.

The beauty of Google's calendar sync option was that it was installed on my work PC and pushed the calendar to Google. How could Fantastical accomplish it?
 
I purchased it for iPhone and iPad. Got it on sale each time, so there was that. After using it for months, I just recently deleted it from both because I found myself going back to the stock calendar app over and over. And I use the calendar app every work day. I guess I'm not a power user and the spartan stock app works well enough. Even though I dictate emails and text messages all the time, I never dictate a calendar appointment. I don't know why, I just don't. So the natural language feature was never useful to me.
 
I use Informant for iOS. There is nothing better available, and I have all of them. The only negative is that it's not available for Mac. However, they are working on it, and it should be available soon.
 
I have the paid version and there is an advantage or two. But, two things that it or any Mac-iOS app can't do is prioritize all day appointments and run a "bar" over 2 or more days, like "vacation".
I'm a firefighter and work 24 hour shifts, so on my calendar I always want my work day "Fire" to be at the top of the list.

I wrote the developers, the reply was maybe in the future as they don't see a need for features like that b
 
I just got Fantastical for both iOS (phone) and Mac OS X through their current sale. Honestly, I don't think it was worth the money for the desktop app. I wish that there was a larger windowed option like what Cassady said. For iOS though, it was definitely worth it. The notification widget is amazing and you can see so much information. The app itself is great as well. Sunrise is a solid option for free too.
 
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