Fantastical 2 for Mac
Fantastical 2 (App Store) is a big update, though the change list doesn’t seem to be documented yet.
- It’s now a full calendar application, with a main window rather than just the Mini Window that comes down from the menu bar. As expected, I am finding it more friction-free than Apple’s interface. I also prefer it to BusyCal’s.
- The left side of the Full Calendar Window window shows the list of upcoming events, which is much more useful than the sidebar in Apple’s Calendar application.
- Instead of sidebar checkboxes to toggle the visibility of individual calendars, there’s now a pop-up menu with keyboard shortcuts to toggle calendar sets. This is probably my second-favorite new feature, and it’s essential because the Full Calendar Window and the Mini Window always show the same set of calendars. I had been used to seeing an abbreviated set in Fantastical 1’s Mini Window and a more complete set in Apple Calendar’s big window.
- My favorite new feature is that the natural language engine can now create alerts, e.g. type “alert 15” or “alert 1d” to create an alert 15 minutes or 1 day before the event. Now I can really create most events without any clicking.
- I was initially disappointed that the Mini Window has lower data density than before, but it’s possible to restore the old font size in the preferences.
- The Mini Window and Full Calendar Window are part of the same application. That is, there’s no separate helper/background application for running the menu bar status item. This is taking some time to get used to because my instinct is to quit to close the Full Calendar Window, but I want the status item to keep running. Also, it feels weird to have an active icon in the Dock with no windows open, but I don’t want to hide the Dock icon, either, because then the Full Calendar Window would have no Dock icon or menu bar.
- Apple Calendar is still needed to create and manage calendars and their sharing options.
- There’s no support, as far as I can tell, for shared calendar notifications. This is actually kind of nice because I like to receive change notifications via e-mail. Apple Calendar offers no way to turn off the in-app notifications that I’ve already read in Mail. The best I can do is Option-click to dismiss them all at once. So it’s nice that Fantastical doesn’t have a notification inbox that needs constant servicing.
- The bigger window comes with a big price increase. I bought version 1.x for $10 in 2012. Version 2 is $50, currently on sale for $40. There is no special upgrade discount. Since Apple still hasn’t gotten its act together, I think it’s worth it, but I could see people who only want to use the Mini Window being disappointed.
Update (2015-03-25): It looks like Fantastical 2 uses YapDatabase and SQLite’s FTS module for searching. I expect this means it will be immune to the many searching problems that I experienced with Apple Calendar, which I think relied on Spotlight. It also now supports axis searches, e.g. “title:foo location:bar notes:baz”.
Update (2015-03-28): Joe Cieplinski:
I always watch Michael Simmons very closely when he’s launching a new product. The guy never fails to get great press coverage. And it’s not by chance.
[…]
It’s brilliant. And it obviously works. But only because it’s genuine. And only because he’s willing to put in that time. That incredible amount of time. Not coding. Not designing. (That’s all getting done, too.) But good old-fashioned marketing.
2 Comments RSS · Twitter
I love the new version of the app and I was ready to pay the significant price increase, but…
The app doesn't support Exchange or Google delegation.
That means I cannot use it with shared calendars and resource booking. That's a serious limitation in the corporate/academic environment where Exchange is still widely used :-\
[…] for. I just want something basic with an interface that doesn’t get in my way, a sort of Fantastacts. As Moren points out, it doesn’t fix one of the most frustrating parts of […]
