Our Verdict
As Apple ’s calendar app for Io and Mac OS X moved across recent spillage from inconsistent , inadequate , and irritating to more or less just ok , the market for replacements grew and mature . Fantastical for iOS , now in its 2d sack , filled a interruption there by not just presented a clean tilt and offering strong funding for unlike calendar systems , but also its instinctive - lyric processing . Type in a semblance of an event , and Fantastical would parse it and invest it for you without fuss .
Fantastical ’s makers , Flexibits , brought a sort of snipping of Fantastical to OS X in its first translation : a drop - down day view closely remindful of the iOS version . With the release today of version 2 , Fantastical on the Mac is now a full - fledged permutation for Apple ’s Calendar and a strong competitor to similar intersection . The late version now appears as the Mini - Window , an optional system carte du jour bar soda - down that gives a capsule sight .
The maneuver ism for the broadcast is that it ’s a calendar app that focuses on upcoming issue in a list survey , keeping that aspect participating no matter whether you ’re see at a graphical layout of day , calendar week , month , or twelvemonth . I live in the week view , and the combination of the coming list and a glimpse at the current workweek tends to work well together .
Type in something that ’s very nearly a descriptive sentence and Fantastical 2 parses out the upshot entropy .
Fantastical can pick up existing accounts and calendar coif in the Accounts system preferences pain , or stack away topically or via Exchange , as well as permit you manually add other iCloud , Google , Yahoo , and Fruux accounts , or any CalDAV - compatible calendar link .
For me , its watery point is that it find like a smartly designed event list with liberal views attached , but for many users this may be its strength .
Speak freely
Flexibits has always stressed its natural - spoken language aspect , and it works as well or better in OS X than in iOS . ( I ’ve used the iOS interpretation for years . ) you could typically typecast a narrative sentence like , “ Meet Laci at 10:15 am at 123 Every Street , New York , NY for two hours on Tuesday and put an alarum an hour before , ” wardrobe restitution , and you ’re done . The appointment is set by nonremittal to the current one selection ; the address added to the location field ; the final stage point figured out ; and the alarm turned on .
This lets you admit the kitchen sink when you make an appointment instead of needing to rap release and flip-flop levers later , though those options are available to qualify later . you could also add together entry in the drag - and - press release model on the calendar layout , but even then Fantastical takes your mouse motion and fills in the parameters have-to doe with to them and moves the text - entry focus to its fill - in field .
fantastic 2 orients itself around its issue leaning scene , with the graphical datebook as a moderately running additional , rather than using the graphic survey as the primary method to interact with events and reminders .
The supported mental lexicon is quite big , though it ’s easy to stump it . For instance , inscribe , “ eat bitter honey oil every nighttime at 8 atomic number 61 ” works just fine , but “ consume sulphurous green at 8 pm every night forever ” does not . Flexibits enunciate it will be antiphonal to feedback and expand the vocabulary base on user asking , and even did so during the genus Beta - testing phase .
admonisher have more limited parameters , and you’re able to preface your to - do sentence with “ monitor ” or “ remind me to ” or the like . If in the process of creating a admonisher or result , you’re able to click a switch to flip to the other kind of first appearance . That ’s the one click you might detect useful during point institution .
As with most mature software program , Fantastical pay back you by experimenting or becoming a more sophisticated user . While it appear at first glimpse that you have to choose a calendar from the popup incoming rather than type it in , Flexibits run into the cutoff of using a gash follow by the singular part of a calendar name — like “ /Office public ” — and the appropriate one appear in the calendar line of business for the introduction in progress .
Or you might notice that days and time are enter in a literal data format when you drag and drop , and thus go in the current appointment in full , like 3/25/15 , to produce an all - sidereal day event .
Work the mouse and keyboard
An app that grow from an iOS sensibility emphatically believes in minimizing the number of “ touch ” with a mouse as well . This loosely works to its advantage . In the year view , for representative , often a somewhat wasted sentiment in other calendar programs that provides too much information and too small functionality , Fantastical uses shade to indicate the intensity of a sidereal day from chicken ( least ) to red ( most ) . Hovering over a Clarence Shepard Day Jr. for a second reveals a floating sum-up ; clicking a day scrolls the list at leave to that day ’s body process .
fall into place an result in the list sidebar or in the Mini - Calendar list or double - click an event in the weekly or monthly perspective brings up an editable pop - over with the same options found when you ab initio create an upshot . This also come along when pick out an event in the day view , although in a freestanding right - hand dose .
In its campaign to keep its glide path clutter - free , choice besides the basics are hidden while create or when edit an event or admonisher . rap a down arrow reveals point , such as invitees , URL , and note , as well as time zone and double in the default option area if they have n’t already been fix for an event .
you may protrude typing an address , and Fantastical offers suggestions from Google Maps , let in item you ’ve hive away there , such as Home .
For frequent traveler , Fantastical sustenance fixed and aimless time zones for events : the former used for event go on at a specific time ( an appointment or a flight of steps ) and the latter that should hap at a given time of day ( such as take in a medication ) regardless of zona . get into a time zone in natural language or the word “ float ” or “ floating ” and fantastic places it right .
Time zones are stick out in reminders , but not floating times , and the time zone is n’t shown for reminders , though it is set correctly . The current time zone is derived from the system , but can be overriden in the Advanced preferences . I ’ve regain clip - zone controls maddening in Apple and other apps ; Fantastical has the just ascendance to set and events , though it does miss a optical monitor in the list and datebook views that an appointment ’s time is non - local .
Flexibits expend Calendar Sets to manage which of your calendars appear . I ’ve wound up with about 25 personal , menage , hobby , and workplace calendars across seven invoice , and I typically do n’t need to see all of them . Rather than perpetually display a list of all calendar , active or otherwise , Fantastical offers a Calendars taste to build sets which can be select among in a pour down - up menu at the bottom of the list horizon . It go further , too , by using geofencing to prefer which solidifying should appear when arrive or leaving at a fixed localization .
While this is unspoilt in theory , in drill Flexibits needs to take it further , because it lacks a way to create a set of calendar that always displays or to duplicate a set . As a answer , you have to re - make your choices every time you make a new one , even if the difference is a single calendar . I emphatically escape the ability to toggle one calendar on and off , but I also treasure that I use this so infrequently that I prefer having the screen space back for utile information I concern to all the metre .
Every day, I remind myself to write the book
Fantastical still has room to grow . Its treatment of reminders set them into a 2nd - class citizen family , which may be appropriate for most hoi polloi , but does n’t match how I use them . Reminders that have a due - date bond seem in the tilt with a checkbox to strike out them completed , along with exclamation points for higher - priority chore .
However , you have to press Command - gas constant to reveal all reminders , which flips the monthly calendar and list to show to - do . The list is sort by new - to - oldest , then precedence , then alphabetically . I ’d prefer more coarseness for divide up succeeding tasks and dragging undated items , but Fantastical ’s attack may suit other users just fine .
When cooccurring events pass , Fantastical does n’t do a great job of make them visually legible .
The hebdomadary panorama is the one I tend to keep candid at all times , and Flexibits did n’t appear to factor out in the notion of two or more simultaneous events occurring as with shared calendar . Other programs adjust an issue ’s width or typeface dynamically to provide more of a cue in the in writing layout . The troupe says that it will add together a font - size of it choice for views in a future release , but carry the left - script list sight to be consulted more ofttimes than labels on the datebook layout .
For a program that has a lot of synchronization options for calendar , it miss one important one : you ca n’t synchronise account information or other preferences , like Calendar Sets , between multiple computers run Fantastical ( I have two ) , or shared feature of speech preferences between iOS and OS X. This mean setting up Fantastical from cacography on each gadget and , when a variety occurs , managing it on each gimmick as well . The caller opt to not utilise iCloud for synchronize , as it offers the software system in the Mac App Store and directly as well , but there are many other sync options for these kinds of contour details .
A powerful replacement
Fantastical ’s overt simpleness and obscure depths may not be for everyone . But the company made distinct choices based on years of formulate its iOS version and former atomic number 76 hug drug release . make intent choice instead of make everything into the mix produces both good software program and sharp contrasts — it ’s less likely to be for everyone , but more likely to serve quite well those who encounter the option appealing .
If you happen Fantastical ’s event - tilt centric approach , in which forthcoming events are nearly to - do item alongside actual monitor entries , matches the path you want to handle your calendar , and the natural - language entry an likable way to invalidate adding events , it ’s the right program to nibble .
