For instance, you can see a week view without having to rotate your phone to landscape, a month view with events details and a year view to quickly jump to another date. That full-screen vertical view is a great addition. In addition to dark mode, you can now swipe up and down on the top area to switch from the default DayTicker view to a month view and to a full-screen vertical view.
While the interface of the Mac app hasn’t changed much, the iPhone app is getting a nice design update.
You still have to subscribe to unlock the full feature set. If you’ve been using Fantastical 2 in the past, you’ll keep all Fantastical 2 features, with a few additions. Now, you can subscribe for $4.99 per month or $39.99 per year to unlock apps on all platforms. The Mac app used to cost $49.99, the iPhone app used to cost $9.99 and the iPad app used to cost $4.99.
The free version doesn’t support adding tasks, adding events using the natural language parsing engine, etc. All apps are free with basic features and you have to subscribe to unlock everything. Now that Fantastical is a unified platform, Flexibits is also switching to a unified pricing model. “Think about it as one app and one platform that’s called Fantastical,” Flexibits co-founder Michael Simmons told me.
You’ll find the same feature set, the same interface and the same calendar-syncing engine in all those apps. The main difference with Fantastical 2 is that the app is now exactly the same across all platforms. I’ve been using the app on my Mac, iPhone and iPad for a week. New features include event proposals, interesting calendars, new calendar views and weather forecasts. Not being a fan of sports or the stock market, this feature wasn’t very handy in my case, but it’s a neat addition and hopefully more diverse content will be added over time.Flexibits, the company behind popular calendar app Fantastical, is releasing Fantastical 3.0 on all platforms today - macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS. Powered by SchedJoules, this feature makes it easy to search for items of interest across five categories: Holidays, Sports, Regular, TV, and Finance. There’s a new way to subscribe to events called Interesting Calendars. (Free users are limited to a single non-syncing calendar set.) FlexibitsĪt long last, Fantastical 3 now displays a 10-day weather forecast (three days for the free version) powered by AccuWeather. The ability to create calendars with only events and tasks from specific accounts and quickly switch between them has always been super convenient, but at long last, sets created on the Mac sync to mobile devices as well, and vice-versa. A favorite is unlimited synced calendar sets. New dealįor those willing to hop aboard the Premium bandwagon, Fantastical includes plenty of new goodies worthy of the investment.
For Mac users, that means having access to crucial features like full-screen view, but it’s also one heck of a bargain, because that initial investment will keep paying dividends like UI refinements and compatibility updates for years to come.
Simply install Fantastical 3 and the new app detects the previous version, unlocking everything you already own. The good news is that existing Fantastical 2 users won’t miss a beat. I think the cost is fair and totally worth it, but considering the previous standalone macOS app worked for five years on a one-time payment of $50, the cost of subscribing is sure to alienate some users.
Syncing data between devices requires signing up for a free Flexibits account, which helps eliminate issues like the occasional duplicate event from different services.Ĭalendar sets can finally be synced from Fantastical for macOS to the iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad, or vice-versa.īut unity comes at a price-in this case, $5 per month or $40 annually for a Premium subscription, required to unlock all features including full access to the mobile app. That includes Fantastical’s legendary natural language parser, which converts phrases like “Brunch with Aunt Marcia at 9:30AM next Tuesday at Scramblers” into new events with a single tap, and is now smarter with repeating events. Now there’s effectively a single app across four platforms, and basic features like adding or deleting events from accounts and receiving notifications are absolutely free. The previous business model was always frustrating and a little confusing, because how many people want to own a favorite app on only one platform? The big news with Fantastical 3 is that you no longer have to purchase separate versions for macOS, iPhone, and iPad. Apple’s built-in Calendar app can’t hold a candle to Fantastical 3 for macOS, but you’ll need a premium subscription to see the big picture, like the full-screen Month view.