Busy calendar apps tend to create a lot of buzz and then disappear after a while. Sometimes the company is acquired, and sometimes the company pivots to another business. That's not the case with Fantastical, a popular calendar app for macOS, iOS, and other Apple platforms. Originally released as a Mac app in 2011, the team behind Fantastical has improved the app with each update.
Over the past 13 years, Flexibits, which runs Fantastical, has also released calendar apps on other Apple platforms. See the following calendar events on your Apple Watch. If you need spatial computing to focus on your calendar, you can also plan for the next quarter with Fantastical in Apple Vision Pro.
The company will release Fantastical on Windows on Tuesday. If you're already using Fantastical on your Mac, you'll be up and running quickly. It's basically the same app.
“We've been working on this for the last three years, and that's it. This is the last 13 years of Flexibits,” co-founder Michael Simmons told TechCrunch. “In other words, just as we've been building this over the past three years by adding new features to the Mac and iPhone, we're bringing it to Windows.”
Fantastical allows you to add all your existing calendar accounts into one app. For example, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and iCloud accounts are supported. You'll then be able to see all your personal and work events in the same calendar interface.
“We all use Apple products, we all love Apple products, but what we're really trying to accomplish is the mission we're trying to accomplish, which is to make things more productive for everyone, faster and friendlier for everyone. When it comes to app availability, I think using Apple ignores a large number of users who work on Windows PCs,” Simmons said. “And we also know that the market for Windows PCs is huge.”
“To tell you the truth, I always thought, 'I don't make Windows apps.' I don't use Windows. Why would I make Windows apps? But after all these years… Over time, I realized that this wasn't an issue for me using Windows, but rather for customers who couldn't access Fantastical using Windows, and not because Fantastical was an Apple product. “I thought of it as a product to make,” he said.
Fantastical also lets you create calendar sets that show or hide specific calendars depending on what you're looking for. Fantastical offers some well-designed views, including a “DayTicker” view that lets you view an endless river of events with a small scrolling calendar at the top.
A popular feature among Fantastical users is the ability to create events using natural language. For example, you can type “Lunch with Tim Cook at Caffè Macs on the Apple campus on Tuesday.” The app parses the request and creates a one-hour event around lunchtime on Tuesday with Cafe Mac on Apple's campus as the event location and Tim Cook on the invite list.
Image credit: Flexibit
For advanced calendar users, Fantastical also has a Calendly-like feature called Openings. You can also use Fantastical to create an event link with RSVP functionality for your next birthday party.
And if you have a lot of conference calls, Fantastical automatically detects the conference link in your calendar invitation and creates a join button in your event list so you can join with one click.
All of these features are available in the Windows app. From now on, apps on all platforms will be updated at the same time, allowing the company to maintain feature parity across all platforms.
Some people may use a Mac at home and a Windows computer at work, and now they can use the same apps on both computers. Some Fantastical users started with the iOS app. But they have Windows laptops. Now you can also use Fantastical on your PC.
Fantastical is free to download and use, but to unlock all the features of Fantastical and contact management app Cardhop (another app from Flexibits), you'll need to pay a premium subscription. A premium subscription gives you access to premium features on all platforms, including Windows. Prices remain unchanged with Tuesday's release. Flexibits Premium currently costs $4.75 per month when billed annually.
Does this mean Flexibits will release an Android version next? Probably not. “I don't think we're going to develop Android. We feel the market doesn't understand what we're doing,” Simmons said.
In recent months, multiple indie app makers have complained about Google's relationship with indie developers. For example, iA Writer, a Markdown document editor, is no longer available on Android because Google currently requires an expensive security audit from KPMG. Transmit, a file transfer app for macOS, no longer supports Google Drive for much the same reason.
Image credit: Flexibit
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