

Fantastical: A new calendar app for Mac launches - brianshumate
http://flexibits.com/fantastical

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tealtan
A lot of people who don't like it seem to be missing the point. When I want to
create an event, I don't want to launch iCal or navigate to Google Calendar, I
want to enter the event in as little time and as intuitively as possible.

Accessing the app from the menubar solves the issue of speed for me, and the
natural language processing lets it all feel intuitive and (dare I say)
"magical". It just understands what I'm saying.

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tealtan
And then when I want to actually review my day or week or month, I can pop
open iCal or whatever calendar system I use.

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d0m
It seems beautiful. Still, I am wondering: What's the difference between
Fantastical and the billion of others calendar. (And, I really don't mean it
in a harsh way as I'm really sad not to be able to try it since I'm on linux).

Is it the real-time sync with gcal? Or the smart event parsing..? The
prettiness of it?

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sunchild
I don't like iCal at all. It's too clumsy in almost every respect. The Lion
update looks like a step in the wrong direction, too. The only promising
feature is the natural language parsing, which IMO is an essential feature of
a calendar.

I'm not sure how I feel about Fantastical, since I've only had it installed
for 5 minutes. I've tried other iCal replacements like BusyCal, but they
didn't seem like enough of an improvement.

There's definitely a space for simple NLP calendar input on the desktop,
though.

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Groxx
What calendar software _do_ you like? I've been looking for a good one, but I
have yet to be really happy with any.

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sunchild
I'm really liking Fantastical now, after a few days.

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FrojoS
I use _QuickCal_ [1] together with _iCal_. Syncing with my Android works over
_Google Calendar_ but adding events is way faster with _QuickCal_ and a
keyboard for me [2]. I used Google's _'Quick add'_ function for a while but
got annoyed about the slow development [3] and the lack of functionality.
Also, nothing is as fast as a native app that you can start with a shortcut. I
can even switch between calendars in no time and it will tell me if my new
event conflicts with an existing one while I type.

At the moment, I find the greatest annoyance in broken syncs with Google. Its
so annoying, that I tend to use local _iCal_ calendars only now. When you have
a Mac Air in your pack, looking up and adding dates is often faster than with
the phone anyway. Longterm though, I'm seriously thinking about going for an
iPone and _MobileMe_ just to get rid of this annoyance.

 _Fantastical_ looks great and I will give the free trial a shot later. But on
first sight I can't see any obvious advantage over my current setup which was
only $1.

[1] <http://smellypuppy.com/quickcal-desktop/> $1 in the App Store [2] To be
fair, I'm using a cheap HTC Wildfire and it feels slower every day. [3] You
can't even add a reminder without using the Mouse! At least this was the case
till two months ago and it seemed like the dozens of request didn't have an
impact.

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ibejoeb
This is not intended to be a criticism of this specific app but more
articulation of the mindset that I'm sure I share with many others. I hope
this is interesting to the developers.

I probably won't give this app a serious shot because calendaring is something
that is so _intrinsically_ web that it's just not compelling otherwise.
Immediacy and ubiquity are really the necessary ingredients. I can't install
this, link my accounts, etc. I'd much rather hop on any old browser and be
done with it. Google does a really good job of it. There are probably a few
places to be improved, but it's definitely good. I'd like to see someone go
after those things, but I'm much rather seem them done on the web.

Surely there are people who'd prefer it your way, but I figured I'd let you
know where I'm coming from...

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Argorak
Is it? I do most on my organization on the train from and to work. So i cannot
use a fancy web app, because I am constantly switching cells and dropping in
and out of 3G land.

I would say that calendaring is the canonical example for the need to sync.
But web? No, not at all.

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smackfu
Practically speaking, I almost always enter calendar entries on my phone
nowadays. Still, the way it parses the entry in real-time and shows the result
is very smart. I expect Google Calendar to copy it immediately since they
already have the natural language parsing, but it can be a bit of a shot in
the dark whether it gives the right results.

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smackfu
Interesting that this is on the Mac App Store, mainly because I didn't think
that Apple ever introduced a proper API to add icons in the menu bar.

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stevanl
Very curious how the developer added the arrow to the Keychain request window?
Had no idea that could be done. Anyone know how that was done?

~~~
ksuther
10.5+ has API for accessing window info for other processes. A search for
"CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo" should return plenty of information.

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apinstein
Does this app have its own data store that it syncs with iCal or does it just
use the built-in calendar data store? I am always much more skeptical of
trusting yet another app to sync properly (no duplications, lags, etc). These
apps tend to make life harder since I have to deal with their issues rather
than just being a better interface to the same data.

I'd love to know.

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sovande
Just bought it and it looks great. However; it uses 70MB RAM which seems a bit
steep for this type of program. It is not possible to move its location in the
menu bar which is irritating. An alarm clock/countdown timer would also have
been nice, which is really what I need on my Mac.

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jonpaul
Your post comes off as complaining. 70 MB of RAM? I'll bet you have at least 1
GB. RAM is meant to be used. An alarm clock? Then download an alarm clock app
if that's what you want. Do you want a kitchen sink too?

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rwaliany
FYI, if the developer is reading this, please let me delete events from the
widget.

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ksuther
That and editing are now at the top of our list. Getting 1.0 out the door was
our #1 priority :)

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ynniv
Editing and deletion weren't $15 / 1.0 features?

I think that I see... You should clarify on the page that this views other
calendars, and does not have it's own storage. You say that it "works with
your favorite calendar application", but you mean that it "augments" or
"views" your favorite calendar application.

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glhaynes
IMO, "works with your favorite calendar application" is the clearest way to
express that concept.

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bugsy
OK, I'll try it out. iCal is definitely too much of a pain and riddled with
numerous serious bugs.

In addition to normal language entry and bug fixes, I also need cell phone
sync with phones other than iPhone.

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bugsy
follow up to previous post: OK, this is not what I thought it would be. It's a
menu bar widget that allows text entry and little else. The widget isn't
resizable so it only shows a few upcoming events at a time, 1-31 days, but you
have to use a slider to see most of them. There's no proper calendaring, I
can't go to a date for example. Seeing what is coming up next week is clumsy
enough that iCal is a better choice.

Too bad. Needs tons of work. As it is, it would be OK as a freebie, but even
as such I'd probably uninstall it after a while because of it taking up menu
bar space and not being very useful.

This is just my user usability and usefulness feedback. It is not a flame.
Downvote it anyway if you must, that's what is done. Polite criticism and
honest feedback is not tolerated on these boards, I am used to it.

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wmeredith
I've been looking forward to this. I'm downloading the trial right now. I'll
be interested to see how good the plain-language parsing is.

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pdenya
Same, just installed it and it looks great.

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ztay
"All your events are belong to us"

Got scared when i read this. Gotta be a mistype (second headline, middle of
page).

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ugh
It's a reference to an old meme:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us>

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defroost
I had a feeling it was some inside joke. Not sure about expressions like
these. If you're not familiar with the reference, it just looks like incorrect
grammar or a typo.

I do like the trend of having apps that can launch from the menu bar like
Alfred, Dropbox, Growl.

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emmett
I have wanted this app for ages. I just bought it, it works beautifully. Thank
you for building this.

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Vitaly
can't configure it to start weeks on sunday.

