Buzzy calendar apps are likely to make a giant splash and disappear after some time. Typically they get acquired, generally the corporate pivots to one thing else. That’s not the case with Fantastical, a preferred calendar app for macOS, iOS, and different Apple platforms. Initially launched as a Mac app in 2011, the workforce behind Fantastical has made the app higher, replace after replace.
Over the previous 13 years, Flexibits, the corporate behind Fantastical, additionally launched its calendar app on different Apple platforms. You may examine your subsequent calendar occasions in your Apple Watch. You can even plan the following quarter in Fantastical on the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional for those who want spatial computing to focus in your calendar.
On Tuesday, the corporate is releasing Fantastical on Home windows. And for those who’re already utilizing Fantastical on a Mac, you’ll really feel proper at dwelling: It’s principally the identical app.
“We’ve been engaged on it for the final three years. It’s every little thing. It’s the final 13 years of Flexibits,” co-founder Michael Simmons instructed TechCrunch. “In different phrases, as we’ve added new issues to the Mac and iPhone within the final three years as we’ve developed this, we’ve additionally introduced it to Home windows.”
Fantastical allows you to add all of your current calendar accounts to a single app; it helps Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and iCloud accounts as an illustration. After that, you possibly can see all of your private and work occasions in the identical calendar interface.
“All of us use Apple merchandise, and we love Apple merchandise. However for the mission that we’re actually attempting to realize, which is healthier productiveness for everybody, quick and pleasant apps for all, I feel being on Apple ignores a considerable amount of customers which might be at work on Home windows PCs,” Simmons stated. “And we all know that the marketplace for Home windows PCs is a large market.”
“And to be actual, I all the time was like, ‘I’m not making a Home windows app.’ I don’t use Home windows. Why would I make a Home windows app? However all through the years, I noticed it’s not about me utilizing Home windows, it’s about clients who can’t entry Fantastical utilizing Home windows. After which I considered Fantastical not as an Apple product, however as a product we make,” he stated.
In Fantastical, it’s also possible to create calendar units to point out and conceal particular calendars relying on what you’re searching for. Fantastical gives a number of well-designed views, together with the “DayTicker” view, which helps you to see an infinite river of occasions with a small scrolling calendar on the high.
A preferred function amongst Fantastical customers is that you need to use pure language to create an occasion. As an example, you possibly can kind “Lunch with Tim Cook dinner on Tuesday at Caffè Macs on Apple’s campus”. The app will parse that request and create a one-hour occasion round lunchtime on Tuesday with “Caffè Macs on Apple’s campus” because the occasion location and Tim Cook dinner within the invitee checklist.
For superior calendar customers, Fantastical additionally has a Calendly-like function referred to as Openings. You can even use Fantastical to create an occasion hyperlink with an RSVP function in your subsequent celebration.
And if in case you have numerous convention calls, Fantastical routinely detects convention name hyperlinks in calendar invitations and creates a be a part of button within the occasion checklist with the intention to take part one click on.
All of those options can be found within the Home windows app. Going ahead, apps on all platforms can be up to date on the identical time in order that the corporate can retain function parity throughout all platforms.
As some folks use a Mac at dwelling and a Home windows laptop at work, they’ll be capable to use the identical app on each computer systems now. Some Fantastical customers additionally began with the iOS app. However they’ve a Home windows laptop computer. Now, they will additionally use Fantastical on their PC.
Fantastical is free to obtain and use however it’s a must to pay a premium subscription to unlock all options for Fantastical and phone administration app Cardhop, one other app from Flexibits. The premium subscription unlocks entry to premium options throughout all platforms, together with Home windows. The value isn’t altering with Tuesday’s launch; Flexibits Premium at present prices $4.75 per thirty days when billed yearly.
Does it imply that Flexibits goes to launch an Android model subsequent? Most likely not. “I don’t assume we’d do Android. I really feel that market doesn’t get what we’re doing,” Simmons stated.
Within the final couple of months, a number of indie app makers have complained about Google’s relationship with indie builders. As an example, iA Author, a Markdown doc editor, is not out there on Android as Google now requires an costly safety audit from KPMG. Transmit, a file switch app for macOS, not helps Google Drive for roughly the identical motive.
