Ondrej Holzman On iPhone and Mac, Fantastical has long been one of the most popular calendars, and now its fans can rejoice - Fantastical is finally available for iPad. The circle has closed and we can state that Fantastical also offers a great experience on the iPad...
Fantastical first appeared from the Flexibits development team almost three years ago when it was released for the Mac and became a hit, especially thanks to its lightning-fast event input with smart text recognition. On the iPhone, Flexibits confirmed that they can develop quality applications for mobile devices as well, but they took their time with the iPad version. However, this is not just a flipped version from the iPhone, and the developers must have spent a lot of time figuring out how to put all the elements together so that Fantastical continues to be a very easy and fast calendar to use.
Anyone who has ever worked with Fantastical on the iPhone will be in a familiar environment on the iPad. Here, Fantastical offers three previews of your events and tasks on the main screen. On the left is an "endless" list of all embedded events, on the right is a monthly view of the calendar, and at the top is the characteristic Fantastical DayTicker. It can be transformed into a weekly view with a swipe down, and another swipe expands the view to the entire screen. This is the difference against the iPhone, where the weekly view can only be displayed in landscape.
However, everything else works the same, and the important thing is that when you look at Fantastical on the iPad, you immediately have an overview of everything important - upcoming events and their location in the calendar. You move between months in the monthly overview on the right by vertical scrolling, which corresponds to the left panel, one page then scrolls depending on the other, depending on where you are in the calendar. Those who use the weekly report will appreciate its easy recall. The only problem I've run into using it is when you want to go away from the weekly view. Unlike the iPhone, the same swipe downwards does not work here, but you have to – as the arrow indicates – swipe upwards, which unfortunately very often interferes with the launch of the Control Center.
It's also important to mention that it doesn't matter if you're using your iPad in landscape or portrait mode, Fantastical will always look the same. This is nice from a user point of view, that you don't have to rotate the iPad for a certain type of display, for example. The user can make a more significant impact on the appearance of Fantastical just by activating the light theme, which some will welcome compared to the original black color due to better readability.
Entering new events is a traditional strength of Fantastical. You can quickly call up the text field for creating an event by holding your finger on the selected date in the monthly report or by clicking on the plus button. Thanks to the smart parser, you can write everything in one line, and Fantastical itself will evaluate the name of the event, the place, date and time of the event. Nowadays, however, Fantastical is far from alone in supporting this convenience. However, comments can also be entered just as quickly, just switch the button on the left. You can then easily call up reminders by dragging your finger from the left edge of the display. The same gesture also works on the other side, where it will trigger a very effective search. But both gestures can replace the "physical" buttons present in the top panel.
An important part of the new Fantastical for iPad is also its price. Flexibits has chosen a stand-alone application model, and those who already own the iPhone application must purchase the tablet version again. It is currently on sale, but still costs nine euros (later over 13 euros), which is not the least. Many will surely be considering whether investing in Fantastical for iPad is worth it.
Personally, as a big fan of Fantastical, I didn't hesitate too much. I use the calendar practically every day, and if one fits you, it makes no sense to look for an alternative solution, even if you could save a few crowns. I now have a calendar on all three devices with the same capabilities, quick event entry and a clear event listing, which is what I need. That's why I'm not afraid to invest, especially when I know that Flexibits cares about their customers and the application is not coming to an end anytime soon. However, it is clear that some will be fine with the built-in calendar on the iPad, while Fantastical, for example, can only be used on the iPhone. On the iPad, they mainly just look at the filled calendar, which was a practice I also practiced before the arrival of Fantastical on the iPad.
Of course, there is also a large group of users who are not comfortable with Fantastical for various reasons. It's definitely not a perfect calendar, you can't even create one, because every person has different habits and different needs, but if you still haven't found your ideal calendar and your requirements are simplicity and speed, then give Fantastical a try.
[app url=”https://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/id830708155?mt=8″]
Excellent organizer, I use it on my iPhone. However, the price for the iPad seems a bit inflated to me.
Great for iPhone, I use it. But thanks to the price for the iPad, I'll stick with the native calendar. Because I appreciate writing the most on the iPhone anyway. That price seems like a bit of a steal to me - and not that it would be a problem to pay around 220 for something, but such a single-purpose application as a calendar... we'll see when it appears in some event :-)
The price of 31 euros for calendars is fantastic.