Buzzy calendar apps are likely to make an enormous splash and disappear after some time. Typically they get acquired, typically the corporate pivots to one thing else. That’s not the case with Fantastical, a well-liked calendar app for macOS, iOS, and different Apple platforms. Initially launched as a Mac app in 2011, the staff 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 possibly can test your subsequent calendar occasions in your Apple Watch. You can too plan the following quarter in Fantastical on the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional in the event you want spatial computing to focus in your calendar.
On Tuesday, the corporate is releasing Fantastical on Home windows. And in the event you’re already utilizing Fantastical on a Mac, you’ll really feel proper at residence: It’s principally the identical app.
“We’ve been working on it for the last three years. It is everything. It is the last 13 years of Flexibits,” co-founder Michael Simmons informed TechCrunch. “In other words, as we’ve added new things to the Mac and iPhone in the last three years as we’ve developed this, we’ve also brought it to Windows.”
Fantastical allows you to add all of your present calendar accounts to a single app; it helps Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and iCloud accounts for example. After that, you possibly can see all of your private and work occasions in the identical calendar interface.
“We all use Apple products, and we love Apple products. But for the mission that we’re really trying to achieve, which is better productivity for everyone, fast and friendly apps for all, I think being on Apple ignores a large amount of users that are at work on Windows PCs,” Simmons mentioned. “And we know that the market for Windows PCs is a huge market.”
“And to be real, I always was like, ‘I’m not making a Windows app.’ I don’t use Windows. Why would I make a Windows app? But throughout the years, I realized it’s not about me using Windows, it’s about customers who can’t access Fantastical using Windows. And then I thought of Fantastical not as an Apple product, but as a product we make,” he mentioned.
In Fantastical, you too can create calendar units to point out and conceal particular calendars relying on what you’re in search of. 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 well-liked function amongst Fantastical customers is that you should use pure language to create an occasion. As an example, you possibly can sort “Lunch with Tim Cook 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 Prepare dinner within the invitee record.
For superior calendar customers, Fantastical additionally has a Calendly-like function known as Openings. You can too use Fantastical to create an occasion hyperlink with an RSVP function to your subsequent celebration.
And if in case you have a number of convention calls, Fantastical routinely detects convention name hyperlinks in calendar invitations and creates a be a part of button within the occasion record so to take part one click on.
All of those options can be found within the Home windows app. Going ahead, apps on all platforms will probably 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 residence and a Home windows laptop at work, they’ll have the ability 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’ll additionally use Fantastical on their PC.
Fantastical is free to obtain and use however it’s important to pay a premium subscription to unlock all options for Fantastical and make contact with 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 the moment prices $4.75 monthly when billed yearly.
Does it imply that Flexibits goes to launch an Android model subsequent? In all probability not. “I don’t think we would do Android. I feel that market doesn’t get what we’re doing,” Simmons mentioned.
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 now not out there on Android as Google now requires an costly safety audit from KPMG. Transmit, a file switch app for macOS, now not helps Google Drive for roughly the identical purpose.
