I am a big fan of the cloud especially for syncing
information across my devices. My
calendar is one of the foremost tasks that I sync between my PC, Mac and Apple
mobile devices. To accomplish this I use
Google calendar and Apple’s iCal. However entering events via iCal or Google calendar is not always easy
or convenient. Fantastical is today’s
review app designed for the OS X users who wish to quickly input an event or glance
at upcoming ones.
Flexibits is a new company whose first program is Fantastical,
a calendar that resides on the OS X menu bar for quick access. Simply clicking on the Fantastical icon pulls
down a calendar with upcoming events listed below the dates. It is designed to operate with iCal,
Entourage or Outlook for the Mac and works with online calendar accounts such
as MobileMe, Yahoo and Google if they are added to iCal.
Product name: Fantastical
Reviewed by: Tomas Ratas
Sponsor: Flexibits
Tech Specs,Features or the
Basic Info:
The calendar you’ll actually enjoy using
Creating an event with Fantastical is quick, easy, and fun:
- Open
Fantastical by clicking the menu bar icon or pressing a customizable
keyboard shortcut - Type in
your event details and press return
…and you’re back to what you were doing with a shiny new event in your
calendar!
Fantastical’s natural language engine is expressive and intelligent so
you can write in your own style. Fantastical will even recognize the location
of your event and let you invite people from your Address Book to the event.
Your
events have never looked better
The
event list and calendar allow you to easily locate and plan all of your events.
Color-coding and beautiful design help you quickly make sense of your schedule.
You can even change the number of events you want displayed, allowing you to
focus.
Just
click an event and the event’s important details will be displayed. Instantly.
BYOC
(Bring Your Own Calendar)
Fantastical
works with your favorite calendar application: iCal, Entourage, or Outlook.
You
can even use Google Calendar or Yahoo! Calendar accounts: simply add them to
iCal and you’re all set.
CalDAV
sync
We
built our own implementation of CalDAV. Translation: Just add your calendars to
iCal and Fantastical will automatically sync your events, keeping them
up-to-date. Even when iCal isn’t running. We sweat the details so you don’t
have to.
Automatic
alarms
Fantastical
can automatically add alarms to all of your new events. You can even customize
your alarm settings based on all-day events or timed events. You’ll never miss
an important event again.
Instantly
locate your events, past, present, and future. And just like the event list,
clicking an event instantly displays the important details about the event.
Installation, Testing and
Comparison:
Fantastical can be downloaded from the creators
site as a trial for those who
like to “try before you buy” and can be purchased from the same site or through
the Apple App Store.
Installation is simply and straightforward as
the application guides the user through the setup process. Fantastical will ask the user which calendar
program to use based on what’s installed on your system. Since I have Apple Mail and MS Outlook on my MacBook
Air it asked me to choose the calendar I wish to use.
If your calendar is linked to an online
calendar such as Google it will ask for OS X keychain access for that
particular login information. Then simply
choose whether you want Fantastical to automatically open at login or not. I don’t know why you not want to
automatically open but to each their own.
That’s it; you are now ready to use
Fantastical. You will see a calendar
icon with the current date on the OS X menu bar. Clicking on this icon will display the
attractively designed calendar with a listing of upcoming events below it.
The current date is circled and events are
displayed with colored bullets in front of them depending on which calendar the
information is from.
At the top of the application is an input and
search bar. Both of these bars are very
functional. With the input bar you can
schedule events using plain text – for instance “dinner with Steve on Wed at 6”
would be entered on your calendar for that following Wednesday at the
appropriate time. Under this text field
are the standard settings for event entry including alarms, time and date
ranges, invitees and location.
Like most well designed OS X programs the
creators of Fantastical made the program very intuitive. It is powerful enough
for advanced users but simple enough for the novice Mac user to get the most
out of the program.
Other features of Fantastical include the
ability to locate specific past entries via the top right search bar. If you want to know when your last dentist
appointment was, you can easily find it with this capability.
An anchor icon rests on the bottom left of the
event field which makes Fantastical stay open or close when switching to
another application. On the opposite
corner is the setting icon allows the user to change what is shown in the event
field, “Go to today”, change the preferences, get help, or quit the
application.
The preference options include General,
Calendar, Alarms and Update. You can
change the event view from this setting icon or through the Calendar preference
setting. Event views include by days or
number of upcoming events.
Strangely there is no option to change appearance
of the calendar. I asked the creators
about the lack of appearance options and they said for now they are not
planning on offering additional calendar styles. I personally like the style of the calendar
but I would like to have the option to choose its color scheme.
My one issue with Fantastical has to do with
the inability to edit or delete events already scheduled via the program. If you wish to edit an event you just put
into the calendar you’ll have to double click on it and it will open iCal or
Outlook where it can be changed. My Flexibits
contact did mention that this will be addressed in a future update; so it is a
temporary issue for now.
Summary:
Overall Fantastical is an excellent calendar
program that resides on the OS X menu bar. It is easily accessible and intuitively designed. The natural language engine makes event
information entry simple. This feature
alone helps separate Fantastical from its competitors.
Flexibits designed Fantastical with a pleasing
interface that is simple and uncluttered allowing the focus to be on the
calendar and related events. For those
who have busy schedules the search feature is another great capability of
Fantastical.
My main issue with the inability to edit events
within Fantastical seems likely to be address in the near future with an
update.
Although it does not have all the features of
other calendaring programs you’ll probably not notice them as this program does
its job so easily and so well. It is currently
available for an introductory price of $15 until June 1st.
DragonSteelMods gives Fantastical a 5 out of 5
score.
Pros:
+Uses natural language for event entry
+Built in search feature
+Works with online calendars including Yahoo
and Google
Cons:
-Unable to edit events within Fantastical
Disclosure: This product was given to DragonSteelMods for review by the company
for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the
review; we do not, never have, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products.
To learn more about our review policy, testing methods
and ratings please see this page.