Popular Calendar App Fantastical Makes the Jump to iPhone

[MacRumors]

Fantastical, the excellent calendar app for the Mac, has finally been ported to the iPhone. The app has been totally redesigned for the smaller screen, rolling out a new feature called the 'DayTicker'

The Verge and The Next Web both have extensive reviews of the new app. TNW's Matt Panzarino had this to say:

I'm not what you'd call a productivity guru. I don't use any interesting methods or cool combinations of software to do what I do. My philosophy is more along the lines of 'start doing and stop when you're dead'.

That's one of the reasons that I love Fantastical for the Mac so much. It's a small icon that sits in my menu bar and allows me to quickly dash off appointments and reminders in plain english. It's blazing fast and it helps me avoid all of the nit picky fields and tick boxes that infest calendar apps, including Apple's poor built-in option. No fussing, no scripts, no precariously balanced suite of productivity apps that eat up half my day just maintaining.

Today, Fantastical comes to the iPhone bearing that same spirit of no-nonsense calendar management, but with an additional intuitive layer of greatness.

The app features the same natural language parsing engine as it does on the Mac, with the addition of a feature called the DayTicker. The DayTicker is at the heart of the reason Fantastical for iPhone has replaced Calendar for me. It's a ribbon-shaped display of your current day and the surrounding days that makes it incredibly fast to see what you've got coming up at a glance.

Fantastical for Mac is available as a free trial download from the developer's site, or directly from the Mac App Store for the temporary sale price of $9.99. [Direct Link]

Fantastical for iPhone is available through the App Store for $1.99. [Direct Link]

Flexibits is also the company that we've hired to develop the MacRumors iOS app, currently in the works.

Article Link: Popular Calendar App Fantastical Makes the Jump to iPhone

 

[shorn]

The Mac app i superb, and from my initial play with it on iOS, it's just as good.
Native calendar app is now redundant!

 

[r2shyyou]

Flexibits is also the company that we've hired to develop the MacRumors iOS app, currently in the works.https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/29/popular-calendar-app-fantastical-makes-the-jump-to-iphone/

Sweet! Glad it's still being worked on!

 

[star-affinity]

No week/day view overview?

I guess one is supposed to have Week Calendar for that. One app for every view.

 

[iJon]

Super stoked to see this this morning. Immediatley replaced Calendar on my iPhone.

 

[MsQueen]

The Mac version is outrageously overpriced.

 

[haincha]

For anyone who currently has this app, does it pull the information from iCal like the desktop app, or does it make me start over Calendar-wise?

 

[JaySoul]

I'd like it more if it accomplished my Things To Do without needing to involve me at all.

 

[silver25u]

It needs (better) Google Calendar support. I know it supports synced calendars in a round about way through the builtin calendar app, but it isn't ideal and it merges all synced calendars into 1.

 

[r2shyyou]

For anyone who currently has this app, does it pull the information from iCal like the desktop app, or does it make me start over Calendar-wise?

Here's The Verge's description of how it syncs info:

Fantastical plugs into the calendars you’ve already set up on iOS and makes direct edits to those calendars instantly. This means that any calendars you already use on your device (like Google, iCloud, Facebook, CalDAV, Exchange, or other calendars) are already present in Fantastical, and require no setting up. Fantastical doesn’t even offer options to add or remove calendars — only to hide calendars you don’t want to see.

 

[edge3281]

Nice

Much cooler and more useful than a recent iPhone camera attachment with slide out keyboard that I recently saw...

 

[haincha]

Thanks r2shyyou, I didn't read the Verge's article. I guess I should read the source occasionally.

 

[joejoejoe]

does it integrate with icloud?

iCloud syncing, shared calendars etc will keep me stuck to ical if not...

 

[r2shyyou]

does it integrate with icloud?

iCloud syncing, shared calendars etc will keep me stuck to ical if not...

Yes, it does. For more info, read the reviews:

The Verge and The Next Web both have extensive reviews of the new app.

 

[bpcookson]

Ooohh... this is sexy...

 

[dahauss]

Well I purchased it today..I just dont see what is so special about it over the built in iPhone 5.1.1 Calendar App. it does evderything the built in app I already have does and nothing more. it doesnt show me the current date on the icon like the built in app does. I also cant turn the phone in landscape to scroll through the week view like I can on the built in app. Also it doesnt tie into SIRI ... Also other apps open the regular calendar anyway so this is useless as a replacement app...

Can someone tell me what makes this a better app then the built in one? I see lots of people raving about it but I just dont see the need.

 

[adammsu]

the modmyi plug to me sounded sponsored....

 

[sishaw]

For anyone who currently has this app, does it pull the information from iCal like the desktop app, or does it make me start over Calendar-wise?

Pulled information. It asked for access permission first.

----------

Well I purchased it today..I just dont see what is so special about it over the built in iPhone 5.1.1 Calendar App. it does evderything the built in app I already have does and nothing more. it doesnt show me the current date on the icon like the built in app does. I also cant turn the phone in landscape to scroll through the week view like I can on the built in app. Also it doesnt tie into SIRI ... Also other apps open the regular calendar anyway so this is useless as a replacement app...

Can someone tell me what makes this a better app then the built in one? I see lots of people raving about it but I just dont see the need.

Apparently you can type or speak your appointment in natural language (meet Suzy next Wednesday) and it parses it and puts it on the proper day and time automatically. Haven't actually tried it yet.


It works! Just as a test I typed "go home tonight at six" just like that, and it created a calendar event with the appropriate text ("go home") for the correct time (6:00 pm). The same event shows up in the native iOS calendar, so no need to retype or copy/paste the same event. Pretty cool!

 

[gatearray]

Ooohh... this is sexy...

Unfortunately that app icon is anything but, yikes!

The natural language scheduling is cool, I'm sure everyone realizes that this feature is present on the OSX calendar, as well. I have to wonder if we'll see Apple bring this over to iOS's native app in a more direct way someday. Meanwhile, Siri does a pretty good job at this same function.

 

[Pared]

Why can't I copy/paste an event? Seems like its extremely difficult to do since no one has done it yet. Frustrating. It also can't avoid adding the default 30 mins before reminder that Google calendar does. The default calendar app does not do this.

 

[TeachMeiOS.com]

I wish apple would just improve their calendar app

This is a great example of innovation that has gone beyond what is built in to the iOS software. I use another calendar app called EasyCalendar and wrote a review on it recently: EasyCalendar Review. Some of the features of EasyCalendar look similar to Fantastical in that it has an incredibly simple UI that makes for much easier calendar navigation. I wish Apple would either acquire one of these companies or improve on what they are doing. I hardly ever use the built in calendar app anymore!

 

[GIZBUG]

Looks interesting. Already paid for and use Pocket Informant though....

 

[Aniseedvan]

I love the mac version, but i'm wondering whether i should wait for the ipad version given i often create appointments on the ipad and mac and less so on the phone.

The natural language inout they use i thinks works best on a keyboard, not necessarily in portrait on a phone. But that might be more the fact I am still getting used to the iPhone keyboard after my Android one for quite a long time..

 

[Outrigger]

I bought the app yesterday, and I found a major bug. Not really sure who to report it to.

If you set a non all-day event, and change the default reminder from 15 min to anything else, after you press done, it will change it back to 15 min. To me, that's a big bug. Does anyone else sees this? Even when I edit the same even in the default calendar, the remind is still set to 15 min in Fantastical. I'm not sure if its a bug or a lack of permission.

 

[Gala]

Well I purchased it today..I just dont see what is so special about it over the built in iPhone 5.1.1 Calendar App. it does evderything the built in app I already have does and nothing more. it doesnt show me the current date on the icon like the built in app does. I also cant turn the phone in landscape to scroll through the week view like I can on the built in app. Also it doesnt tie into SIRI ... Also other apps open the regular calendar anyway so this is useless as a replacement app...

Can someone tell me what makes this a better app then the built in one? I see lots of people raving about it but I just dont see the need.

It does sync with Siri and Apple Calendar App. You just need to make sure the the "calendar" that Siri integrates with is turned on in Fantastical. Everything from Calendar.app is in Fantastical. The date in the icon and the landscape view aren't there, but I've never used those features. Where this app surpasses Calendar App is that you can type appointments in and it configures it for you. For example, entering "dinner with Sally at 8 next Thurs at McDonalds" puts an appointment at 8pm the following Thursday for Dinner with Sally and in the location notes it says "McDonalds"