A fantastical calendar

Fantastical was just released for iOS last week. Reviews are very positive overall, and it seems the blogosphere loves it. For those of you that don’t know, Fantastical allows you to enter your calendar events by just typing in normal text. For example, you can type: “Meet John at 2:30-4:30 on Sunday at the Office”, and it will be automatically parsed by the app to create an event with those details.

Besides this natural language input and the “day ticker” view (Five days are displayed horizontally at the top, while the events are listed below), it doesn’t have much else in terms of functions compared to other available apps. Well, depending on what functions you need, Fantastical might be sufficient.

But, what it seems no reviewer is mentioning is that you have to switch keyboards to type in numbers. Its really inconvenient to have to pull up the number keyboard just to enter in times isn’t it? Almost easier to just use an app with the standard scroll wheel selection…

I suppose this is not an issue with the Mac version (for obvious reasons). But it is really bugging the hell out of me. I hope that in future revisions, the team figures out a way to add in an extra row above the standard keypad to make entering numbers much easier.

For now, I would recommend either Week Calendar or Calvetica. Both have great calendar views, more functions, etc…and Calvetica has an interesting time input mechanism.

Photos from Flexibits.

Letterpress is not that great a game…yet

What is going on with this almost universal praise for Letterpress? In case you didn’t know, Letterpress is a word game with some similarities to Words with Friends and boggle, except you are also vying for control of territory.

There was a recent update (v1.1) which added some strongly requested features such as having a rematch with your opponents. But while the core gameplay is indeed appealing, its still missing some crucial elements:
– Stats. there are no statistics for win/loss, matches played, etc.
– No time limit for your opponent’s turns. What can thus happen is that your opponent takes an excruciatingly long time to move, or doesn’t take a turn at all, leaving your game in limbo. They really should implement a chess-like timer system, like Ascension. It can really speed the game up.
– No messaging or chat feature to communicate with your opponent.

The game is free (or just .99 with in-app purchase) so you might as well try it out. If the developer gets around to some of the points mentioned above, I think it would make a decent game into a really good game. A couple reviews below. Find more with a simple google search:

• Cult of Mac
• App Advice

Day One update for iOS brings the searchiness

If you are in the Apple ecosystem and you’re looking for a way to document all of life’s little events, check out Day One  by Bloom Built. They just released v1.9 of their iOS app that includes two long awaited features:

• Tags
• Search

This going to make a great digital journal even better! Although I use both the iOS and Mac apps, I’m going to focus on the iOS version since that’s the one I end up using more. So why is Day One my favorite digital journal? Its a little hard to explain, but its the overall user experience. You have all the basics; you can write entries, backdate entries, add photos, etc. Its got Dropbox or iCloud sync to keep all your devices updated. Its got the requisite timeline, photo, and month views. And it will even pull in the local weather (up to the past three days) and your location if you like.

But my favorite part is that the UI feels very fresh, clean and not cluttered like other journal apps. There aren’t any cute stamps or stickers to decorate your entries; you’re limited to marking your entries with “stars” (although you do have tags now). Since its a joy to use, you may find yourself making more entries on the go than you ever thought you would.

Its still lacking a function to pull in your social feeds (ie. Facebook, Twitter) and more importantly it doesn’t have a robust export function (no PDFs) or encryption, but the developer has these things on his radar and I’m really hope they come out soon in future updates.

If you are at all interested in journaling on your iOS device, check out Day One. Its an app I’ve used almost every day since I bought it.

— But if you prefer to do your journaling in a more traditional way, check out the Traveler’s Notebook by Midori. You should be able to get them at various stationary shops around the country or order them online. They are a very popular journal with an active community of enthusiasts who really enjoy customizing them and making them unique.

Why is that app so damn elegant?

When did this happen? When did “Elegant” become such an overused way to describe an iOS app? Or how about a “beautiful” interface? I know that Apple was touting their whole “it just works” mantra (i.e. sales pitch) for a while…and now I’ve seen it pop up in iOS app descriptions as well.

To App Developers:
Look, I understand how hard it can be to come up with compelling adjectives, but come on..put a little more creativity into it will you? You’ve just spent countless hours laboring over your app, giving it all the love and attention you possibly could. You made sure the icon was just right, you came up with a brilliant name, and of course the app itself works flawlessly. So why skimp out on the app description? Its just a suggestion, but why not spend a few minutes with thesaurus.com and find a super-excellent adjective!

* Reviewers are also guilty of this…I’m looking at you App Advice

iA Writer

For any of you that enjoy writing in a minimalist environment on your mac/iOS device, I’m sure you have already heard of iA Writer by Information Architects. They have a really great looking application that is a joy to use if you want to concentrate on distraction free writing. Per a recent post on the company’s blog about the latest update to the mac app:

I don’t know why it took us so long to find this obvious solution. However, given that no one else has done it, the simplicity of this solution is perhaps not as obvious as it seems in hindsight.

They’ve recently updated the app to include responsive design so be sure to check it out. The problem is, I’m still trying to figure out how to incorporate it into my workflow.

But that is more of an issue caused by my setup than a knock on the app itself. In fact, I have the same problems with other apps too.

So for what it is, it works very well. The problem for me is that I can’t use it when I want to. I work a regular 9-5 (well 8-7) day job like many people and use a company owned PC at the office. Thus, during the day I only have access to whatever I can do in a web browser. While I can do a bit of writing in Evernote, Simplenote, or even open a text editor and upload the file to Dropbox, I’m really not encouraged to spend my time at work doing this. So yes, I can add some blog ideas into Evernote and later copy them into iA Writer to finish them. But, its just an extra step. Once I start something in Evernote, its easier just to keep it there and finish off the piece.

If iA Writer ever directly integrated some kind of Evernote syncing, I would definitely be there. But as the developers have indicated they have other priorities they’re working on, I’m not holding out much hope.

Still, if you are a person that wants/needs a minimalist, distraction free writing tool and you have access to your mac when you want to write, this is one of the best looking (and useful) writing apps available.