Comparative: Which calendar app will make you a more organized person?

I have one thing to make: I am much less organized than I would like. Since the first signs that a more organized life had to be opened (ie, the first homework in the early childhood education), I have resigned myself to the thought that no, I would be superior to everything. I would only rely on the power of my brain to manage my duties and fulfill my duties.

Needless to say, the strategy worked well for a few years, but soon the troves of adulthood sounded and things began to slow down: the demands became stronger, the consequences heavier and the commitments more frequent. With that, the need to use some kind of schedule It was becoming evident, but I resisted.

Then came the smartphone revolution, and things got simpler for me: there would no longer be a need to carry a calendar with me, and all my appointments and chores would be saved to a small device in my pocket or my computer. But still, I said, what would be the point, after all, of basing my whole life on a profane piece of glass and metal that might be being accessed by agents I wouldn't even know?

Well now I admit: maybe I could have been a little more productive in my life so far if I decided to organize it a little more. That's why I'm here: Over the past few weeks, I've undergone an extensive test with six of the top calendar apps available for the Apple ecosystem: Calendar (the native of Ma), Google Calendar, Outlook, Fantastical, Calendars and Newton.

My findings, documented below, try their best to separate my own needs (which ultimately vary from person to person) and instead make a more general assessment of each service's strengths and weaknesses so you can ponder, for yourself, which one fits your daily life best and thereby choose the most appropriate option or change from the one you have already chosen.

Let's go?

Calendar

It is impossible to begin this comparison without mentioning the iconic iOS / macOS Calendar, present on the company's computers since 2002 (until 2012 under the name iCal, good to remember) and on the mobile platform of Ma since its inception.


Calendar app iconScreenshot of Calendar appScreenshot of Calendar app

The Calendar is the quintessentially functional, relatively beautiful and simple service, but its real triumph is elsewhere: in its deep integration with the Apple ecosystem. Of all the applications presented here, it is naturally what is most present in its use. daily from macOS or iOS and their other apps and services (like Siri, Mail or Reminders). This is an important point for those who like to always have everything a touch away or, as Apple loves to say just works.

I love the idea of ​​the shared calendars you can connect to Apple's service, too. Take our calendar of : You can simply subscribe to it and follow up on any events you think are important. It also goes for family birthdays, events of your football team, company meetings all know everything at the same time.

No more, the Apple Calendar has no major attractions. Viewing modes (by month, week, or to-do list) are not out of the ordinary, and the service lacks a more intuitive way to record new events for each appointment, you must necessarily go to the corresponding screen to adjust name, day, time and additional settings. Also missing here are some of the extra gestures and tweaks to customize the experience and make it simpler for your usage pattern. It can get boring over time.

Google Calendar

Google is everywhere, so it is only natural that your calendar service is, too. That's why it's easy to recommend Google Calendar to anyone who's head-deep in the Mountain View giant's ecosystem, and I guarantee that your willingness to surrender your soul your business data will be beautifully rewarded.


Google Calendar app icon

How exactly? Well, Google Calendar is smart if you use the other services of the company. Have Gmail as your primary email account? Deep integration with artificial intelligence capabilities automatically scan invitations, appointments, airline or hotel reservations and more for immediate addition to your calendar. Do you use Google Docs often? The calendar fetches information from your documents and marks events with delivery dates, for example. almost magical!

Google Calendar still cares about your health and well-being, suggesting (if you want) to automatically go to the gym, for example, and it still connects with the Sade platform (Health) from Apple to indicate that you have completed that exercise session. The integration is so lacking and this is one of the only negative points of the app is widget for iOS.

Add to all this intelligence the fact that you can add events in one leap, both speaking and writing in natural language (“set lunch for tomorrow at 2 pm with Jlia”, for example and he will automatically recognize who Jlia is and add her contact ) and you have a very attractive and beautiful service yes, the viewing modes and the way Google takes images or motifs pertinent to each type of appointment is a visual delight and helps to make everything very organized. Great competitor, here as long as you use the services of the company.

Fantastical

If Fantastical has long been cited as the main calendar services not linked to software giants (ie, Google, Apple and Microsoft), because it has all the weapons to do so. First of all, I was surprised by its design and its ease of use: all the possible tools and features are available at basically a touch of distance and the app does what it proposes without taking too much of your time (which is great, since we're talking services that just want to better organize their time).


Fantastical 2 for iPhone app icon


Fantastical 2 for iPad app icon


Fantastical 2 app icon

I love the way the viewing modes look, both in the weekly version (with a date carousel at the top and the event list below) and in the monthly (which can be activated with a simple gesture of pulling the days on weekly viewing incidentally, the gestures here are fantastic). High contrast design, always with black and white elements for maximum highlight, another hit.

The advantages do not stop there: the fantastic Fantastical (forgive me for the redundancy, but inevitable) in your natural language processing and you can record appointments or reminders simply by writing quick intuitive animation commands showing the events being created in real time, from time to time. This is how you learn to use the full capabilities of this technology. Remember, unfortunately, that Fantastical (and natural language recognition) is not available in Portuguese only in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese.

Still, he's a competitor and I haven't even talked about all the aspects I like about him, like the widgets For iOS and MacOS, support for calendar accounts from platforms like Google and Apple, integration with the Apple Reminders app, or support for different calendars that are enabled or disabled depending on your location. Of course, this has a price: $ 10 on iPhone, $ 17 on iPad (yes, only separate apps) and $ 130 (!) On Mac, which can drive many users away. The advantages are tempting, however.

Calendars

Readdle is one of the most celebrated developers in the world iOS / macOS and Calendars is their vision of what a calendar service should look like. In some ways they attain this vision with praise; but in others, not so much.


Readdle Calendars app icon

Starting with what I don't like: the interface. Although it has an interesting weekly viewing mode that is perhaps easier to navigate than Fantastical, Calendars has a slightly more confusing organization than its main competitors, with events separated by color blocks in a way that is not very intuitive or propitious your mental organization. Nothing that makes the app unusable, but there are better options.

Apart from that and another problem that bothered me a little (the delay in changing the viewing modes), the application has several attractions! Natural language processing for price input for Fantastical (is very rudimentary, Portuguese support) and monthly viewing mode with block appointments enables a very intuitive drag-and-drop experience for reschedule appointments or copy them to your calendar.

The price of Calendars there is not very inviting ($ 23), but at least the universal app and works on iPhone and iPad without distinction. We don't have a Mac version either, which is a nice drawback for those who like to manage their calendar on their computer screen as well. Overall, my impressions are mixed.

Outlook

I wondered if I should include the Outlook calendar here for one simple reason: It is not an app in itself but a section within an app that exists for a number of other things – the main one of course managing your emails. However, given the surprising amount of functions it offers for an “subsection” of an app and the deep integration with Microsoft services, its inclusion was quickly guaranteed.


Microsoft Outlook app icon

The Outlook calendar section has several shadows of Sunrise, an app I have never used, but judging by the almost desperate reaction of users when it was bought and phagocytized by Microsoft, it would certainly have a very positive rating in this comparison here. The interface Microsoft adopts is clear and straightforward, with elegant animations that serve only to guide the user through that torrent of information and never leave any lost point very important in an application so full of corners.

You can import third-party calendar service accounts (like Google's), but Outlook shines even if you stay inside Microsoft's closed fence: the company's artificial intelligence system is very effective at capturing information in your emails and transforming it. automatically read them in an easy-to-read calendar, throwing cake at contacts, locations and appointments.

Despite this, a simpler system for adding events (all done manually, old fashion) and greater integration with the Apple ecosystem is missing here. Outlook does not take advantage of basically none of the advantages offered by Ma, such as Siri. We have at least one widget Special and an app for Apple Watch. Outlook of course free but is that enough?

Newton

In the end, I decided to leave the black sheep of the competitors. And the "black" here is almost not a figure of language, since Newton Calendar brings, unlike its competitors, an interface almost all dark.


Newton Calendar app icon

In my view, CloudMagic's calendar appeals to another audience for the apps listed above: people with a lighter, carefree approach to appointments and events, and who just want a way to take a look at what they have. ahead for the next few days without it pulling their hair out.

Proof of this is the extremely sparse interface, which features only one view mode (a list of your next appointments). Event input supports natural language, like its main competitors, but only in English; And one of the app's biggest triumphs in its integration with Newton Mail was shattered at the beginning of last month, when CloudMagic discontinued the email client.

Still, Newton Calendar has a special appeal to those who don't want much: its elegance and carefree attitude can attract users who have different priorities in this life. Not what I need, but will it work for you anyway? It's free, which allows a test on your part to see if the relationship works.

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Verdict

There is not much to run here: the Fantastical It's simply a better view of what a calendar app should look like, with its slim interface and more advanced features than its competitors.

Meantime, plot twistIt is not with him that I will stay, both for his salty price and for the lack of support for my language. Instead, I decided to give the chance Google Calendar, which I see as a clear runner-up and with some clear advantages over the champion, namely support for the Portuguese and its ubiquity (apart from Apple devices, it can be accessed on Android or the web). Besides being free, of course.

For users who want something more basic, the Newton also an option to consider, or you can even take a few weeks test with yourself Calendar Apple native to see if its simplicity appealing enough to your needs. There are options for all sides and you can test (almost) all of them right now just take the first step as I did. I hope to continue on the right track!