These were some of the best calendar apps for Android that will make your day-to-day tasks that much easier. One of my favorite calendar apps called Sun Calendar was recently shut down and it was really sad to see such a great app go dark. Thankfully, there were many others that took its place on the best calendar apps for Android list. A stock calendar app preinstalled on the Android platform, this one rightly deserves all the plaudits. The app allows for sync option for events and schedules from your Google account. It also offers sync option with other available calendar apps around.
0:58 Editors' note, May 21, 2015: This post has been updated with more information. Some time ago, Google released its calendar app for iPhone, something Android users have been able to use for a long time. Loved by many, the app has undergone a few redesigns over its lifespan on Android, but the iOS version matches up almost exactly to the current experience on Android. It's true the calendar app that comes with your iPhone or Android phone will do you just fine if you need to know what's on your agenda, but they often don't do much more than that. The iOS calendar app, while simple and easy to use, doesn't give you many options to personalize it. And with most Androids, the preinstalled calendar is often a bland, unintuitive app built by your phone's manufacturer. Google Calendar on iOS is definitely good news, but both app stores give you plenty of options to replace your default calendar.
I've rounded up some of the best of the bunch, focusing on calendars that pack a lot of style without sacrificing features to see how they measure up to Google Calendar. But let's start off with the newest addition first.
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET Google Calendar Free, and Google Calendar is old hat for many Android users, but not every Android smartphone comes with it. It was sorely missing for iOS for a long time, but now everyone can experience this well thought out time management app. One of the best things about it is that the layout and design is familiar if you already use Google Calendar on your computer and it has near feature parity on both smartphones. You can pick from a week, month, day and agenda view and each option gives you just enough information - no more, no less.
You can sync multiple Google calendars, and if you've designated specific colors for each of your calendars on the Web, you'll see the same colors in the app. Also, adding a new event is as easy as it is on your computer - just pick the date and time, choose which calendar (if applicable) and add the correct details. What's great: Google Calendar carries over the same familiar design from the Web to your phone and it finally also works for iPhone. What's not: If you have a lot of events on your calendar, the weekly view can get too cluttered to see each event.
You cannot yet use it for iPad. Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET Cal Free, and Cal is the prettiest app on this list, featuring colorful photo backgrounds intended to jazz up your boring calendar. Developed by Any.do, the company behind the sleek to-do app of the same name, Cal also sports a sleek, minimal design. Cal's greatest strength is showing off your daily agenda - basically all of the to-dos, meetings, and appointments you have on your plate on one given date. When you launch the app, it automatically jumps to today's agenda, which shows all of your events and Any.do tasks in a chronological list.
This is different from other calendar apps, which show an hourly timeline with blocks of time shaded for each appointment. Whether Cal's layout works for you or not is a matter of personal preference, but I find it easy to use.
The only downside to Cal is the monthly view - it's not informative, and you can't tell by just glancing at the screen how many events you have, or when they are. That makes scheduling a new event tough, because you have to tap each day to see your schedule. There's also no weekly view. What's great: The app's design is impressive, and the layout makes it easy to see what's on your agenda. What's not: There's no weekly view, and adding new events could be a lot more fluid.
Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET Sunrise Free, Like Cal, Sunrise has a minimal, clutter-free look. The main view shows you a list of upcoming events in the next week with a minimized month view at the top. There's a small arrow at the bottom left, which helps you navigate - just tap it at any time to jump back to the current date. There's also a weekly view, which shows three days at a time, with colorful blocked-off chunks of time for each event. Sunrise does its best to categorize your events, paying attention to the keywords you use to give each event a little icon.
For instance, the word 'class' gets you an academic cap icon, while 'yoga' or 'workout' shows a dumbbell. It's a small touch designed to keep you organized.
What's great: The clean design is appealing and clutter-free, and it includes several different views for checking your schedule. What's not: The monthly view is almost useless, as it doesn't show if you have any appointments scheduled on each day. Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET Tempo Free, This recently updated iOS calendar seems simple at first glance, but there's something bigger happening behind the scenes. The app syncs with your calendars, like every other app on this list does, but it goes one step further to sync with your email too. It does that to find and add relevant conversations to your upcoming events. That's incredibly helpful if you need to check appointment details, or just see what your friend asked you to bring to the BBQ.
Tempo uses natural language processing to help you create a new event. You don't need to be precise, you can enter in 'Lunch with Sarah tomorrow at 1pm' or 'Pilates class every Tuesday at 6pm' and Tempo understands what you mean. The app will even let you know if there's a conflict.
What's great: The app's extras, including finding relevant emails, directly dialing into conference calls, and fetching your flight status, make it more feature-rich than its competition. What's not: The weekly view can be messy and hard to read.
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET Fantastical 2 $4.99 £3.99 AU$6.99, Fantastical 2 used to be an iPad-only app, presumably because the larger screen could more adequately display its great looking interface. Fortunately, the developers realized iPhone users could benefit too, and streamlined the interface to look great on the smaller screen. Viewing your agenda is straightforward in Fantastical 2. At the top of the screen you'll find a five-day view, with events represented by colored dots. The app uses the same colors you have set in the iOS Calendar app to make it easy to recognize your various calendars. You can also turn your iPhone into landscape mode to see a more detailed 5-day view. You also can add events using natural language.
For example, typing 'Dinner with friends at 6 on Friday at The Diner' will create an event titled 'Dinner with Friends' at 6 p.m. On the next Friday, with a mapped out location for The Diner. Also of note, iOS Reminders integration means you'll get a notification for your events.
Overall, the ease of use when adding and editing events, along with the ability to view exactly where an event is and get directions to it are all features every calendar app should look into adding to their lists. What's great: It has a way of making it fun to add and edit events, while making it easier to manage a hectic schedule and stay on top of your tasks with Reminders integration. What's not: While it does have Reminders integration, it doesn't offer smart notifications that will give you advanced warning of traffic or switch routes to your destination like other apps offer.
Screenshot by Jason Parker/CNET Horizon Calendar Free, Horizon Calendar believes that the weather is an integral part of managing your schedule, and has a great way of integrating the outlook to match up with your plans. You can get Horizon for free, but there's also a Pro version that adds extra features, which goes for $4.99.
With this app you can get your day's schedule at a glance, and each of the events on your calendar shows the forecasted temperature on the right side of the event. If you want more information about the weather, you can touch the icon to see the details. Like some of the other calendar apps in the category, Horizon lets you use natural language to set up events and reminders.
You also can quickly switch between day, week and month views to see what your schedule looks like at a glance. What's great: The interface lets you use gestures to quickly navigate between views. What's not: There's no map integration in the free version, so you'll have to spend the 5 bucks to get notifications about your upcoming event such as weather changes and traffic info. Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET SolCalendar Free, SolCalendar gets my vote for the most whimsical calendar I've found. Along with the typical calendar features, including a monthly view and an agenda, SolCalendar comes with tons of extras to help you plan your week or add some flair to your events. You can turn on weather reports to see the current and upcoming temperature and conditions for the next week.
There are several unique sticker packs included (and more that you can download) that you can add to your events for a dose of personality. Lastly, the app can sync with your Google tasks and you can create new to-dos. The app also uses gestures to navigate, which can be confusing at first, but they are easy to learn. The one you'll use the most is in the agenda view, which shows a few days at a time.
Swipe two fingers away from each other on the screen to open the daily view, which gives you an hour-by-hour breakdown of your day. Swipe two fingers toward each other to go back to the weekly view. You can also tap and hold any event to edit, copy, move or delete it.
Get Back Hours Per Week Discover how to improve your workflows and get more focus with this free, in-depth guide to productivity. What We Looked For When Looking for the Best Calendar App A calendar app on its own is a simple thing. You put items on it to show where you need to be, how long you’re going to be there, or what you’re going to do.
Any calendar app must include those features to be useful in any way. But a useful and effective calendar app requires those features to be well-designed, as well as include other functionality.
Here’s what we looked at to arrive at our decision. Ease of use: The number one priority of a calendar app must be the UI. How intuitive is the app?
How easy is it to add a new event? A task or reminder? To add some notes or details to an event?
How hard is it to invite people to an event? These are some of the questions we asked when comparing the options. Aesthetics: For many people, using a calendar application is a necessary evil. It’s a tool to manage how other people are using up your time.
But if you’re going to have to spend time managing this part of your life, an attractive interface can make the chore more enjoyable. Power: Once you have a smart UI in place, the next thing to consider with a calendar app is the feature set. What can the user do from this application? The best app will need to meet the needs of the novice (your grandma) as well as the power user (your CEO’s assistant). And those features cannot detract from the usability of the app. No small order, there.
Price: With many categories of desktop applications, the price can often be irrelevant as the gap is narrow and most options are similar. However, because of Outlook’s inclusion in our comparison, price factored into our decision. macOS integration: How well the application fits the environment is always key — especially for cross-platform tools. At the risk of sounding painfully obvious, a calendar app for macOS must work with iCloud.
And not just for the calendar functionality: Reminders are a key tool for Apple users and need to be accessible in our selection. Third-party integrations: Because macOS users do not all use the same calendar service (iCloud, Google Calendar, Exchange, etc.), our desktop app must work with all the available options. iOS versions: Lastly, because most of us live in a multi-device environment, it is beneficial to have iOS versions of each app. The Calendar App Contenders. (Free): Included in macOS, Apple’s option covers all the basics. It sports an attractive interface, but suffers from several usability issues. ($49.99): The BusyMac team has been in the app-making business for some time.
And their flagship app, BusyCal, has long offered more features than its macOS counterpart. The focus here is functionality. ($49.99): This option started as a menubar app for macOS, often used in tandem with the other desktop calendar options. It originally launched in May, 2011 and has since made its way to iOS. However, Fantastical 2 for macOS sports a new interface and is now a full-fledged desktop app. ($6.99/$9.99 per month, $139.99/$219.99): The old behemoth chugs along.
Outlook was a key cog in the Microsoft dominance on the PC, but it’s always felt like an ugly duckling on macOS. We wanted to know if that was still the case. The Verdict: Fantastical 2 is the best calendar app for Mac The original Fantastical for macOS was the best option for quickly adding and reviewing calendar entries. Keeps all its advantages while adding the functionality of more robust calendar applications.
Ease of Use There is a lot to like about a number of these calendar apps, but what makes Fantastical stand out is the first item on our list of criteria: it’s the easiest to work with. For a calendar app, ease-of-use needs to be considered in a few different ways. First, how easy is it to glance at your day, week, or month and quickly get a feel for how your time is going to be spent? Second, and perhaps more importantly, how easy is it to get items into your calendar? Because many calendar apps do a decent-to-good job of displaying your events, we could argue that ease-of-entry is the most vital part of a desktop calendar app.
And, in this regard, Fantastical leads the way. Aside: savvy macOS users could point to the fact that desktop utilities such as Alfred, LaunchBar, and Spotlight make ease-of-entry a non-sequitur. And I agree: I often use LaunchBar to add events to my calendar rather than Fantastical but this is a review of the full-fledged functionality of the desktop calendar app landscape. If launcher type utilities are your thing,.
From its inception, the focus with Fantastical was its natural-language parsing, the ability for the user to enter random bits of text into the entry box and the app just figures it out. It’s almost magical and it set the bar for calendar apps on macOS.
That has not changed with Fantastical 2. Although the app is no longer just a menubar utility, the ease of getting items into your calendar is the same. The great part of Fantastical 2 is that for those who loved the simplicity of the first version, you can use it in the exact same fashion. The full fledged app interface never needs to be seen.
Indeed, the menubar functionality is now a must-have for a calendar application. I want to be able to glance at my day without having to open the full application. Fantastical gives me that option and builds on the original experience of the first version to also give the full functionality and bigger long-term views of more traditional calendar apps. Apple makes every effort to turn the phrase “it-just-works” into reality. Flexibits does the same with its ability to take what you throw at it and turn your words into events that make sense. And, as alluded to earlier, ease of use also includes a few other touches.
Viewing a calendar filled with events and tasks is one factor, but we’ll touch more on the UI below. Another way many calendar apps cause frustration is in editing events already in your calendar. Some of our options add friction to the process of editing existing entries, most often in the form of multiple clicks. Fantastical does no such thing.
Simply click on an existing event, and update fields as desired. Other options require you to click a button or double click an entry before field values can be added. Advantage Fantastical!
There are a few other common tasks that are (thankfully) easier than was common several years back. Adding invitees, locations, or notes to a calendar entry is a fairly simple process in Fantastical, BusyCal, and Calendar.app — both in creating a new entry, or with editing an existing one.
In this regard, Outlook adds slightly more friction to the process. Aesthetics In many interfaces, the “less is more” mantra is an ideal goal. Most clean, well-thought out UI’s make ample use of whitespace and contrast to differentiate between different types of content. The hard part of designing a calendar application is that the designer has to give the user the ability to view a large amount of information (a month or year view of a busy person’s calendar), yet still maintain clarity. No easy task.
In this regard, Flexibits has done a laudable job with Fantastical. The desktop calendar space for macOS had long been ruled by options putting functionality over aesthetics or options that came close to usable, but slightly missed the mark (Apple’s own Calendar app). Power Play The problem with many of the apps that place the highest priority on aesthetics, ease of use, and a clean experience is that power features are often sacrificed.
And in most cases, this is a good thing. But applications that can provide a clean user experience and full functionality will rule the roost. That’s the case with Fantastical. No one could ever accuse BusyCal of not delivering on features, but it, and other options, lack the grace of Fantastical. So, when talking about feature sets, this must always be kept in mind. How does Fantastical fare with features in mind? Very well, thank you!
It integrates with iCloud and Google accounts, the two most used options for macOS users. But it also plays nicely with Exchange (for those poor souls living double lives), Yahoo, and CalDAV accounts. Is your Google account configured to use two-factor authentication? In essence, desktop calendar applications can be thought of as wrappers. The full functionality is dependent on the background service (iCloud, Google etc). But each client on macOS integrates with those backend services to differing degrees. Fantastical does a fair job of offering the majority of options that iCloud and Google calendar apps provide.
However, one feature Fantastical does not include is the ability for users to share their calendars. But, neither do any of the other options we considered (apart from Outlook giving you options to share Exchange calendar accounts). Overall, most of the apps considered have parity in this regard.
None of the other options add enough functionality to overcome Fantastical’s excellent design. Price For many comparisons of desktop applications for macOS, cost is not a determining factor, simply because the range of prices is mostly consistent, but with Calendar apps, price does come into the discussion.
This is due to the fact that Apple provides a free option within the desktop OS, but also because Microsoft Outlook is more than 4 times the cost of the other contenders. With Fantastical and BusyCal sitting at $49, people have two questions to answer. First, do these third-party applications offer enough advantage over the free app already installed on their computer? If the answer to that question is yes (and for many people, it likely is), the next question to answer is whether or not Outlook offers enough advantages over Fantastical and BusyCal to justify the $219 price tag. Lastly, one consideration when factoring in price to a decision such as this is support.
When a Mac user makes a purchase of this nature, choosing a third-party tool over what Apple already provides, you have to consider what kind of company your purchasing power is supporting. Part of what makes macOS so special is the thriving community of developers. They truly make macOS a better platform (as well as iOS), extending what it can do beyond what Apple envisioned. It’s just another reason that makes our top choice. It feels good to support the Flexibits team. Reciprocal benefit is a beautiful thing! Fitting In Another vital aspect of a desktop calendar app for macOS is fitting in and being a good neighbor.
With iCloud, an app that makes adding and viewing reminders has a distinct advantage over an app that does not. And again, Fantastical meets the need, and does so better than the other contenders. This may be one of my favorite touches with Fantastical. To add a reminder to one of your Reminder lists, simply toggle the switch in the new entry window.
The same benefits to adding an event to your calendar apply to your Reminders. Simply start typing in the entry window, then toggle the switch as shown above. Want that reminder to have a due date? Not a problem — just type it in like you would for an event. The natural parsing of Fantastical handles events and reminders with ease. Displaying your reminders is also done well. In the Mini Window (capitalized for your pleasure), your reminders are placed at the end of your list of events.
If one has a due date and time, it shows amidst your events at that time. In the full app window, the reminders show in both the sidebar and the full calendar view. Apple has made an attempt to have Reminders be the default to-do list of the casual computer user. Unfortunately, they fell short making the experience fluid.
However, Fantastical makes up where they lack. With Fantastical 2, the experience of adding, viewing, and interacting with reminders makes it feel as if Reminders is a natural extension of the calendar. Fantastical has a fantastic (sorry you knew it was coming!) Today widget. None of the other contenders offer that functionality. If the menubar is not your thing, then a quick three finger swipe can bring up the Today window for a look at what’s coming. Basically, Fantastical makes working with your calendar and your reminders an experience.
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It’s the best option for fitting in with macOS. IOS Counterparts Although not essential to the experience on macOS, any desktop application that has counterparts on iOS (or Android) extends the overall experience. Is complete in this area, as is Apple’s Calendar app.
However, the same smart design touches that make Fantastical the preferred option on macOS also give it the edge with the iOS versions. We’ve written in detail about the in a separate review. Read more about that. Once again, Fantastical comes out ahead in our comparison. Free Productivity Guide: Download our simple guide to productivity to help you improve your workflows and be more focused with your time and attention.
Other Candidates BusyCal Probably the most feature complete option we considered, is the best choice for those who value function over form. It certainly gives you all the features you could want. Where it lacks for yours truly is the aesthetics: it looks and feels a little like corporate software. I used BusyCal several years back when there were less options available to replace Apple’s (you can almost smell the faux leather). Today, BusyCal is greatly improved, even to the point where it competes feature-by-feature with Fantastical.
A good example is the menubar functionality. Although BusyCal started as a full desktop app, in contrast with Fantastical’s progression from menubar utility to full app, it includes a nice menubar option that allows for quick calendar entry. It even uses Fantastical-like language processing. Where it falls short of our choice is the overall look and feel. Outlook One consideration a review of this type requires is how to approach.
Do you compare the calendar function only? Because it’s a full-fledged application that covers multiple categories (email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and notes) with a price tag to match, you have to decide if the additional functionality should factor in to the comparison. For this review, it did not. If an all-in-one approach is your preference, then Outlook is certainly a potential good fit for you. But, when considering calendar-specific features on their own, Fantastical is a much better overall experience than what the calendar portion of Outlook has to offer. Another issue to weigh is the cost.
Is Outlook good enough to overcome the larger price tag? Not in this author’s mind.
If fitting in with Exchange is a must have or if you already subscribe to Office 365, then Outlook merits serious consideration. For anyone else, the other options are all a better fit.
Calendar Last, and certainly least, Apple’s own Calendar must be considered. It’s free, it’s installed on every Mac, and it has improved over the years (the Scott Forstall faux leather years, to be specific).
For the most casual user, it can certainly fit the bill. Where does it lack compared to Fantastical? Well, it does not have a menubar option.
As mentioned under ease of use, this is a must have for yours truly. The oddest part of Calendar is its lack of integration with other iCloud items. Want to interact with your Reminders in your calendar app? Then Calendar is not for you.
Same for the Calendar Today widget. Because Apple separates Reminders into its own app, you cannot see these tasks (even if they are time-based) in the view of your day.
You’d have to keep both apps open. Once again, the completeness of Fantastical surpasses the contender. Get Back Hours Per Week Discover how to improve your workflows and get more focus with this free, in-depth guide to productivity. Why this over other options With our full comparison, while there is feature parity for the most part, none of the options can compete with Fantastical in terms of overall design and ease of use. BusyCal comes close feature-wise, but is lacking the grace of a more well-designed application. And while Apple’s Calendar has the benefit of already being on your machine, it falls short in terms of usability.
Is the king of the hill. You need look no further!