Agenda is a fast, tidy calendar app for iPhone

Agenda (US$1.99), from Washington, DC developers savvy apps, is a calendar app for the iPhone that's legible, fast, bursting with Multi-Touch support and reminiscent of the desktop organizers we used before apps replaced archaic paper. Nearly every function is a swipe away, and even the icon displays the current date. Here's my look at Agenda for iPhone.

UI

Black text on a field of white. That's Agenda. As some apps get "cutesy" and try to resemble real-world objects, (I'm looking at you, Calendar for iPad), the folks at savvy apps went in the opposite direction. Agenda features year, month, week, day and event views. A colored dot indicates an event's parent calendar while the tools – navigation buttons, edit/create button and settings button – remain consistent across all views. Best of all, nearly everything you'll want to do, aside from enter event details, can be accomplished with one hand. Heck, with one thumb.

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Use

A calendar must satisfy two main tasks: record information and display it. Here's a look at how Agenda handles both. To enter a new event, tap the "+" button in the lower right-hand corner. The Add Event screen appears, which should be familiar to anyone who's use Apple's Calendar app. In fact, it's identical. Populate the title field, start/end time, repeat field, etc. as appropriate and then tap Done in the upper right. The sheet disappears, and your event is added to the calendar.

Agenda's only real advantage in event creation is that the button is always available. With Apple's Calendar app, the new event button disappears while in single event view.

Of course, Agenda shines when displaying information, making great use of swipes and taps. By default, Agenda presents a list view. Each day in the list features the date, pending appointments and their respective start times. Swipe up and down to scroll through the list and tap the top of the screen to return to the current day. As you enter a new month, its name is briefly displayed.

Here's where it gets fun. Swipe right once from the list view to produce month view. A gray bar highlights the current week, and the current date is in red. Every day with pending appointments displays a dot(s) corresponding to the parent calendar's color. While in month view, swipe up and down to move from month to month, and tap any day to see its events in detail.

Next, swipe right again to enter yearly view, which presents a nice overview of the whole year. Again, tap any month to jump to it.

Back to list view. Swipe left once to enter daily view. A mini calendar appears in the upper left while the date appears in the upper right. Below a divider is a color-coded list of what's due on that day. Swipe up or down on that list to move from day to day, or tap any item to see its details. Here's what's really cool: while in this event-specific view, swipe up and down to scroll through that day's individual events. Any phone number or address is tappable from event view, so you can place a call or jump to a map.

Conclusion

Agenda isn't the app for rapid event creation. However, those interested in a speedy, efficient and good-looking way to move through their events ought to consider Agenda. The fact that you can do almost everything with the swipe of a thumb is very nice indeed. Old eyes like mine appreciate the legibility, and I can't help but love the speed. Good work, savvy apps. Agenda is very well done.