Since this is the dedicated forum of OF people, I thought it worth asking, particularly as I’m coming to the end of a BusyCal trial. I like Busy Contacts, but I’m not sure about BusyCal, or Fantastical for that matter.
So I’m hoping if I as the community, I might pick up the pros and cons for any of them - or if it’s worth just sticking with the native cal app?
Thanks in advance.
I’ve tried most of the others, and I remain “all-in” on the native OS X Calendar app, but my calendaring needs are also relatively simple – I rarely schedule group appointments or deal with invites… Collaboration is handled through shared team calendars, and everything else is just me.
I like the clean, simple approach of the native OS X and iOS Calendar apps, while at the same time they’ve added new features that the others haven’t caught up yet, such as travel time support which actually uses Maps data to look up driving or walking times, and the fact that the entire experience is more tightly integrated into iOS, and will likely be even moreso in iOS 9.
Again, though, my needs are pretty simple. If I lived in my calendar more, or needed to deal with more meetings with random people (rather than a core team), I might look at something like Sunrise or Fantastical for the features those offer in that regard – Sunrise’s new web-based meeting finding feature is particularly appealing, but I have no use for it in my world.
On the Mac I continue to use the OS X Calendar app because it does everything I need.
However on the iPhone I use Fantastical. I find the iOS Calendar app a bit quirky and non-intuitive, e.g. switching between views is confusing. And the view I prefer the most - month at the top with a list of today’s calendar items below - is not compact enough on the iPhone. Fantastical’s equivalent view is more compact so I can see more items at a glance on busy days.
In addition, Fantastical can easily duplicate calendar items (via tap and hold) which makes scheduling a series of appointments really easy.
OS X Calendar app on the Mac. Week Cal on iOS works best for me.
I’m 3+ months in to using Fantastical on the MAC (I’ve used the iOS version for years) and I have to say, I like it a lot. It is still new, so they are still adding features, but it is off to a great start. Among other features, you can drag and drop a task right out of OmniFocus and into a timeslot in Fantastical. The name of the task becomes the name of the event, and there is a link back to OF in the notes field. Brilliant. I also like the inline integration of iCloud Reminders into Fantastical. I use OF for 99% of my tasks, but sometimes “buy milk” just needs a Reminder.
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Hi!
Good question!
I use busy cal, mostly because the UI gives me a good oversight of the day and I think it is really easy to navigate within. So these is my main planning calendar.
I also have fantastical for fast entries and when I want to see my calendar fast.
I use Week Cal on my iPhone and Week Cal HD on my iPad.
I used to use OS X Calendar but I liked the weather and moon calendar that is built inside BusyCal. My side jobs requires me to always check the weather outside. BusyCal uses the background in the day cell to show weather and moon cycles. It has a URL link to view more detailed weather info in your web browser.
I think Week Cal also has an in-app purchase to get weather forecast as well.
If weather isn’t important then OS X Calendar and iOS Calendar are adequate.
I am curious in seeing Fantastical evolve. The natural language input sounds interesting.
On iOS I am a sold “Informant”- user (previously Pocket Informant). It provides the only legible month interface on the iphone and you can adjust the sweet heck out of it.
The counterpart, Desktop Informant, is currently available and not yet up to speed with its iOS counterpart, but, looking good as a perspective. Fantastical 2 is to playful for me, I always lose oversight. Busycal has been my longtime favorite but will sooner or later be replaced by DI.
I use Sunrise on iOS despite its lack of OmniFocus integration sheerly because of aesthetics (and because I don’t really need/want to cross-populate my calendar with my Omni tasks) and I use Fantastical on iOS running only in the menu bar because of the at-glance availability. I use Google sync as a backend – I’d substitute iCloud for this but I’m all-in on Gmail and have been since it was released – and have experienced zero issues.
I actually view my calendar through OmniFocus’s Forecast perspective more than a dedicated app though, as I find myself in OmniFocus much more than my calendar app (both on iOS and OS X).
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I also love Informant. The only reason I purchased OF was because Informant had put out that they wouldn’t be making an Apple Watch app. I love the way Informant does projects, but I’m really starting to get the hang of OF so I’m stinking with it for projects and using Informant for my calendar and simple tasks.
I amended this note in light of the new fantastical design. Fantastical is amazing, reminds me a lot like OMNIFOCUS in a lot of ways. Only draw back (iPhone and iPad) is the lack of day view. I like the “ticker” view but it’s hard to visually see the day unfold
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Another voice for Fantastical here, on iOS and OS X. Really nice interface, good sync, natural language input, etc.
I am using OS-X calendar on my iMac.
I have tried a few calendar apps on iOS and am using Week Calendar on my iPhone. But I think the standard iOS calendar has improved a lot lately.
Informant all the way.
I really appreciate all the replies here. Thanks for pitching in. I haven’t made a decision yet, but the driving force behind this for me was a better contacts app - one that could handle groups etc. Busy Contacts is looking good in that regard, unless I’m missing something, and since they pitch integration with a calendar, I was/am wondering if it’s worth it. With El Capitan coming out too, I can’t see if Apple’s going to do something that negates the issue. Again, the community’s input is helpful.
I use BusyCal because among other things it is faster to navigate and edit than OSX Calendar
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OS X: iCal.
iPhone and iPad: Readdle Calendars. They have a lite version so you can get a feel for the interface.
I’d love to use Fantastical on OSX but my work calendar is on Exchange and try as I might I cannot get my Mac to sync the events (Google suggests I’m not alone in tis :-( )
As a result I use either Outlook or BusyCal - BusyCal is fast and powerful but looks a bit less swish than pretty much everything else. Not the end of the world.
On iOS I use Fantastical.
Also on iOS my ‘little secret’ app is Today : http://lightpillar.com/today.html
It has prime location on my iPhone home screen and gives me the fastest view of what’s coming up. Worth a look.
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Adding my vote in for Fantastical (both Mac and iOS) as my calendar app of choice. The new availability features in the latest version are a HUGE time saver for scheduling meetings (much more useful than Google’s find a time option).
That being said, when I need a bit more power, I turn to BusyCal. It’s main use is a filter that only shows dates in the last pay period, which I use when confirming my employees’ timesheets against when they actually worked.
I’ve stuck with Calendar.app for two reasons:
1 - I like the thought of using Apple products as much as possible where the relationship with the OS is as close as this
2 - I really believe in making OF do as much as it can… only actual appointments which aren’t tasks go in Calendar
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