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Track your big events with Widget Countdown
There are big events in life. Some we can't wait for, others we dread. It's easy to put them on the calendar, but thats not as immediately clear as seeing just how many days or hours remain until something happens. Widget Countdown puts your big events front and center where it's easy to keep track of them. The app is US$0.99 and requires iOS 8.0 or later and is compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This app is optimized for iPhone 5. When initially presented with Widget Countdown my first reaction was, "I don't need yet another calendar." I get by with the built in iOS and Mac OS Calendar, even though I'm not terribly excited with them. I do like and use Fantastical for fast access and creating events and reminders. But, Widget Countdown isn't a calendar. It's not even about counting widgets. This app about setting up and displaying future events. A most importantly, it can display these events within the Notification Center. The app itself is beautifully and thoughtfully designed. It's very easy to create new events directly from your existing calendar events or to manually create them within the app. You can give each event a name, specify a date and/or time, and select a background picture. The app lets you search online for pictures from 500px or Flickr with a keyword search. The result it very nice. It would make a great lock screen, if Apple permitted such a thing (it does not). I find that I don't often launch the app to review my upcoming events. Instead I pull the Notification Center down from the top of the screen and find them displayed there (after adding them by editing which apps to display there). That's the really useful feature of this app. It's just the text, that's enough and what makes this app terrific. I find that limiting the number of things that I include in the countdown to make it easier to think about upcoming events. Add 20 items and the list becomes unweildy. But limit yourself to just four or five events and it's much easier to deal with. When using the app itself you can flick up on the displayed days to reveal the hours remaining. You can also send the image of the event countdown via any of the system services, including Mail, Messages, social media apps, etc. Unfortunately the app adds a commercial message to your image as well, but you can delete that. I still find this practice annoying and tacky, especially for a paid app. Note to app developers and publishers: don't beg for positive reviews with popups in your apps and don't tack on advertisements in messages. If you want to keep track of the big upcoming events in your life, I do like Widget Countdown, especially for the Notification Center access. Don't let that next birthday or anniversary sneak up on you.
Google Calendar gets smarter and prettier
As part of the Google's continued push forward with Lollipop, Calendar is getting a major (and long-overdue) upgrade. Obviously that includes a Material Design facelift (which we can only assume will come to the web app eventually), but it also includes a metric ton of new features. The most impressive is its ability to mine your inbox for valuable information and automatically create appointments for you. Rather than suggest an event when you open your flight itinerary in Gmail, the new Google Calendar will just pull in that information -- including your flight number and check-in time. Best of all, those events are automatically updated, say if your flight is delayed or your pottery class is canceled. Assists are an other effort to save you time by suggesting locations, people or even events titles based on your behavior. As an example, Google says if you frequently go running with your friend Peter in Central park, typing "r-u-n" should automatically suggest "Running with Peter in Central Park" complete with a link to the location on the map and contact for Peter.
Fantastical 2 for iPhone, iPad goes iOS 8-only
iOS 8 is still fresh out of the oven, but one of the most popular calendar apps on the App Store is going all-in on the latest release. Fantastical 2 for iPhone and iPad scores a new update today, complete with widget functionality for the Notification Center and a new landscape layout option for iPhone 6 Plus users. Also included in the update is the ability to create events from within other extension-enabled apps using the Fantastical extension. It's not often you see a super popular app devote itself entirely to a new version of iOS within just a couple of months of release, and for an app that costs several dollars it's rarer still. Of course, since the majority of the update's new features are only possible thanks to iOS 8, anyone who refuses to update to the latest version of iOS can simply stick with their existing version of Fantastical 2 and continue using it as they would anyway. [via MacRumors]
Never forget important events with Birthday Board Premium
Let's be honest with ourselves. We'd forget 90% of our loved ones' birthdays if it wasn't for Facebook. If you are like me and you don't check Facebook every day, you're probably still forgetting 50% them. Birthday Board Premium, US$1.99 in the App Store for iOS 6 or later, leaves you no excuse to forget them ever again. Birthday Board takes its design cues from the wooden perpetual calendars that are all the rage on Etsy right now. I've always found those to be clunky and a bit useless, but this, this is awesome. It could not be any simpler to use. All you do is import birthdays from Facebook or your contacts. You can add birthdays manually, as well. If you'd like, create additional boards to track events like weddings or anniversaries. You can also make boards for specific birthdays – one for family, one for coworkers, etc. Set reminders, up to a week before the event, so that you know when a birthday is coming up. There are different sound options for these alerts, which is nice. I also like that you can set the reminder to go off at a specific time of day. I never remember things if I'm reminded in the morning, but setting a reminder around lunchtime ensures that I'll take a moment to send a note or make a phone call. Birthday Board makes wishing someone a happy birthday a breeze. When you click on an event symbol, a pop-up appears with more information. This links you to the person's Facebook page so that you can write on their wall or create an e-card or video message. It also tells you the person's astrological sign. If their birthday isn't for a while, click on the hourglass in the center to see a countdown of how many days are left until the event. There are a lot of customization options available. You have 5 different themes (flat, photos and glass are pictured above) and six different color options for each. I'm crazy about this feature because anything that allows me to color-code is fantastic. I've set different themes and colors for my various event boards. Add more customization with the six different badge shape options and use different badges for family members, friends, coworkers or classmates. There is a free version available with in-app purchases, but I suggest going for the full version of Birthday Board.
Qwingle is a calendar app built for families and teens
Qwingle, which requires iOS 7 and is available on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, is a family focused calendar app that might be just the thing you need to manage back to school schedules. First off, this app is designed to be basic, fun and visually appealing. Its main focus is tracking social events. Think of Qwingle like one of those family planning wall calendars with cute stickers and brightly colored labels. If you are a visual person, like me, you'll appreciate the color-coded categories and icons, as a lot of calendars don't have this. There's an option to filter events by category, as well. As far as contact management goes, you can sort your contacts into groups. There are suggested group names, but it's possible to edit them based on your needs. The default groups will clue you in on the type of person who would get the most out of Qwingle. There are some interesting social features. There's a status update option, similar to standard social networks. You can share these updates, as well as events, on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. People in a group can comment and like an event or status within Qwingle. All of this combined with the option to upload photos to events and status updates, makes the app function like a social diary. If you want an event to be visible to only yourself or a specific group, set it to private. Only those invited will see it. A few other things to note: When you add an event location, Qwingle links you to directions and a weather forecast. Plus, there are special offers for nearby restaurants, theaters, accommodations and other attractions. A big drawback here is that your contacts must also use the app. Because of this, only a very specific subset of people will use it. There will be a lot of individuals who won't want to bother with another calendar. That being said, Qwingle is great for busy families who need to stay in touch and keep track of each other's schedules. Since it's back to school season, managing everyone's time while you get back into the groove of things is a juggling act. The social features allow you to communicate with your kids when you change your schedule. Likewise, they can let you know their afterschool plans. Sure you can text, but it's nice having schedules and related conversations all in one place. Even if you have another calendar app like Tempo to keep track of your professional life, adding a family focused calendar to your productivity arsenal might be useful in maintaining your sanity. The app will also appeal to teens and college age kids who want organize and share their plans with a select group of friends. Qwingle can become something of an exclusive inner circle secret. The social sharing aspect is an added bonus. For the average person, Qwingle doesn't give you any reason to use it. But that's okay. It's not built for everyone. It's for a very specific demographic. Yet, even within the sphere of family centric calendars, Qwingle's social features likely aren't enough to make it more attractive than other options, like Cozi. Still, Qwingle is free, so it's worth the test drive, especially during the back to school rush.
Gmail now recognizes email addresses from non-Latin alphabets
Since the beginning of time -- or at least since email was invented -- most email services have required the use of non-accented characters from the Latin alphabet for each individual's address. It's inconvenient for those who don't natively use that alphabet, which means that more than half of the world's population have been frustrated. Here comes Google to the rescue: Gmail (and soon to be Calendar, we're told) now recognizes email addresses that have accented characters or use non-Latin alphabets, so you'll be able to send and receive correspondence to these types of addresses as much as you want, and soon Gmail will let you create non-Latin accounts to call your own.
Sunrise's social calendar app reaches the Mac
Sunrise has quickly become the calendar app of choice for some people, and for good reason. Besides its straightforward interface and support for all your social networks, it's one of the few truly multi-platform schedulers you can find -- as of this May, it can run on Android, iOS and the web. It hasn't had a native desktop app, however, and the company is rectifying that by launching Sunrise for Mac. Not surprisingly, it's more than just the iPad app writ large. In addition to all the advantages that come with more screen real estate, you get both a mouse-friendly interface and native OS X notifications; there's also a complete offline mode if you need to review your itinerary on a flight without WiFi.
Google Now tests calendar event suggestions based on Gmail convos
Google knows many, many things about you, perhaps even that you can be a bit forgetful sometimes. To help you remember your plans, the company has started testing a feature that takes possible events from Gmail or other Google services and turns them into Google Now cards. For instance, if it infers that you're planning a day out based on an email thread, the new feature will automatically turn it into a card and will ask if you'd like to add the event to your calendar. It's really not that much different from Now pulling flight or hotel reservation info from your Gmail account. According to Android Police (who first reported its existence), you can choose whether to continue getting event suggestions on Google Now's settings page. So, when you do get the feature, you can switch it off if it starts feeling creepy and turn it back on if that calendar's looking suspiciously empty.
Google Glass now displays your iPhone's text messages
On the heels of last week's KitKat update, Google Glass nabbed up two more notable improvements today. First, iOS users can now have their text messages displayed on Glass, after a quick toggle of the Bluetooth settings. Here's the catch: "due to some limitations with iOS," you wont be able to reply to those messages directly from the headset. There's also a new Calendar Glassware that situates an agenda to the left of the home screen. Tapping a card in that timeline will allow you edit title, time, location and even RSVP. If you'd rather just skip those festivities altogether, you can delete events or hide them from view. Both of the new features are said to be rolling out to early adopters "in the next few days," so keep your eyes peeled.
Here's a look at the future of Google Calendar for Android
See those images above? Those could become a familiar sight in the future if you religiously use Google's Calendar app for Android. This crisper, cleaner Google Calendar was recently spotted by Geek.com (which also spilled the deets on a test version of Gmail) on a phone loaded with unreleased features. If you notice, the new interface gets rid of the app's busy grids and lines, relying instead on blocks of color to distinguish one entry from the other. What's more intriguing, however, is a new feature called daily agenda, which automatically emails you the day's full schedule. Since the updated calendar will also come with Google+ integration, or so the source claims, daily agenda emails will also include birthdays, giving you no excuse to forget anybody's special day. Other than these changes, you'll also reportedly see a parallax scrolling effect while flipping through months. Of course, the final product could be wildly different from what we're seeing here. We might have to wait a few more months to find out, though -- Geek.com believes Google will launch the redesigned calendar at the I/O conference in June.
PS Vita gets more apps on its home screen and a memory card manager
With the amount of rad digitally distributed games in the PlayStation Vita's library, your system's home screen could be getting a little crowded. Well, after downloading the handheld's latest firmware update, you'll have a lot more room for all of those high-res bubbles. Another 400 of them to be exact, as software version 3.10 allows a total of 500 apps and games on the touch-based UI. What's more, Joystiq noticed the patch adds a memory card management feature that separates saved data based on what type of content created it. Bizarrely enough, the portable PlayStation didn't have an auto setting for daylight savings time before this either. Sony has also included a calendar app that syncs with your Google account, as well as a voice messaging system for sending quick soundbites to your Vita or PS4 owning-pals. Just try keep 'em PG-rated, okay?
iOS 7 video tip: Tweaking the Calendar time picker
TUAW reader Rob Kellogg sent us this nifty tip we hadn't seen before. When you're entering event start and end times in the iOS 7 Calendar app, the minutes in the time picker usually flow by one by one, which can make time entry relatively slow. With this simple trick, you can change the picker to show the minutes in 5-minute increments instead.
Peek is a very pretty calendar for iPhone
If Peek Calendar by Square Mountains (US$1.99) were a camera it'd be a Holga. If it were jeans they'd be raw and if the app were a beer, you'd find a blue ribbon on the label. Peek is so hipster it hurts. But we're taking about a calendar, not jeans or beer. Calendars are the workhorses of the productivity world. I depend on my calendar, as many of you do. I'm happy to use a pretty one, but when form supersedes function, you've got a problem. Arguably, Peek's marquee feature is its look. The app uses big, bold colors and three main views: list, month and event specific. To move from week to month view, scroll down. Keep going to move through previous months. Once there, tap any day to review its events. Unfortunately the only way to return to the present day is to scroll back in the opposite direction. It would be nice to tap the top of the screen to jump back. Week view has its own quirks, including some I really like. The app uses one color for the current day, and another for all the others. Additionally, each quarter, or block of three months, is colored consistently. There's also a sort of "status bar" on the right-hand side of each day. The longer it is, the more you've got scheduled. Tap any day and its events "unfold" from beneath it. Day-long events are listed first, then time-specific appointments. Tap any day view specifics, like start and stop time. There's a very nice alarm feature that lets you simply tap one of several clock faces, each displaying a unit of time (5 minutes, 15 minutes, one day and so on). Below that you'll find any location information, repeat options and a list of available calendars (you can assign it to any with a tap). Another nice feature lets you "peek" at an event's details. Swipe it slightly to the right and its details are revealed from behind it. That's nice too, but Peek leaves me unsatisfied. As you can see, there's a lot of tapping involved. Compare Peek's default look with that of Fantastical, which I use daily. There's so much more information available at a glance, that typically one look tells me all I need to know. Peek is pretty and bold, but there's so much swiping and tapping to be done before my day is fully revealed. Many of you will love it, especially those in favor of progressive design. While I think Peek is beautiful, it's less functional than I need a mission-critical app to be.
The best alternatives to Google's own Android apps
As Android has evolved, Google's worked increasingly hard to keep users locked into its ecosystem. The search giant creates new apps, retains users by giving them a thoroughly decent out-of-the-box experience and then charges device makers for a license to embed them on their phones and tablets. Its constant iteration has helped it stay ahead of the pack for some of its services, but many fall short, leaving users to find something better. The official Gmail app: it's fine, really it is, but if you want unified inbox support, productivity features or the ability to pull emails from more than one place, you're left wanting. This sort of limitation can be found across Google's stable of apps, from messaging to the calendar and camera interface. We've trawled Google Play to find software alternatives that -- dare we say it -- do a better job, at least with certain tasks. So please, whip out your phone and give them a go.
Google Calendar now helps you remember holidays in 30 more countries
If you've ever made the faux pas of contacting foreign coworkers while they're out celebrating national holidays, you'll appreciate the latest update to Google Calendar. The service now accounts for special occasions in 30 more countries, including Argentina and Switzerland. It also covers a larger range of holidays, and you'll see their dates further in advance. Google may not patch up any damaged international relations with its Calendar update, but it'll at least help you avoid future incidents.
Staccal 2 is an easy-to-use calendar with a ton of customization options
Staccal 2 hit the App Store this week, bringing with it a plethora of calendar layout options that'll make even the most fervent tweaker happy. It also supports reminders, allowing you to keep track of those along with your calendar events. Staccal pulls in the event information from the calendars that are configured on your phone. This makes for an easy install as you don't have to enter any login information to set up your calendars manually. Once you open the app and authorize the linking of your calendars, you are ready to roll. The selling point of Staccal is its customizations. It doesn't have advanced features like natural-language input that are present in its competitors, but it does allow you to set up your calendar views to best meet your workflow. There are six different possible layouts accessible from the main screen and you can change which ones you want to display. When you start switching them around, you'll find there are 12 different calendar views from which you can choose. Once you select your layouts, you can further customize them -- you can change the calendars that show, adjust the font size and modify the gestures for the cells. Besides Calendar views, Staccal allows you to change themes, which swaps out the colors that border your calendars. Once, you've selected your six layouts, you switch between layouts of your views quickly and easily by tapping on them. Switching is smooth with no lag, even when you have calendars that are filled with events. Once you get used to Staccal, the UI is easy enough to navigate. There are items I found challenging, the most difficult being the small event blocks in the default week and day view. Though the narrow cells allow you to see several hours on your screen at a time, they make it difficult to select events and pull up event details because they are so small. Staccal is a decent calendar app for users who spend more time looking at their calendar than trying to manage it on their device. I appreciated the diversity of views, even if I was bothered by the smaller cells when selecting event details. You can check out Staccal 2 from the iOS App Store for US$0.99.
Social calendar app Sunrise finally comes to iPad
Launching on iPhone in February 2013, Sunrise changed our perception of calendar apps with its ability to provide more context to daily events. By connecting to Google, iCloud, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare accounts, Sunrise can intelligently integrate appointments, birthdays and even checkins into its slick calendar UI, giving users a complete picture of what they've done in the past and the things they need to do in the future. Despite its iPhone-only availability, the free app has grown to become one of the most popular third-party iOS calendar apps, consistently ranking in the App Store's top 100 productivity apps in the final quarter of last year. Almost a year on, Sunrise developers Pierre Valade and Jeremy Le Van have decided it's finally time to bring the stylish calendar app to iPad, complete with visualization and synchronization improvements.
Any.DO's Cal app vies for your attention on Google Play (video)
While a ton of calendar apps already populate Google Play, we bet Any.DO fans will still be happy to hear that Cal has finally made its way to Android-land. The software retains most of its iOS counterpart's features, including built-in access to Google Maps and Uber. However, this version comes with tighter Any.DO integration (just like what we wished for when we tested out the iOS iteration), allowing users to place their to-do items into the appropriate dates on the calendar. The new app also brings an Android widget and a landscape mode in tow. Finally, it instantly syncs with Google Calendar, making it that much harder to forget about that meeting you'd rather avoid.
Google Calendar updated with Maps location autocomplete and improved events searching
In case the run through the end of the year has you struggling to keep track of all the festivities, Google updated its Calendar with some helpful new features to maintain order. First, when you create an event, the process is now a bit quicker thanks to autocomplete predictions from Maps which then allows invitees to quickly access directions from that trusty link we all rely on. Searching in Calendar has also been improved as digging for reminders about important dinners or by keying in contacts will instantly show the most pressing items -- kind of like Gmail's search box. Finally, guest lists for events automatically update for groups, keeping both relevant info in and unwanted details out of your planner. No longer getting those cluttering updates on the lunch you'll miss while visiting Nana is always a welcome improvement, if you ask us.
The Repopulation improves housing and inquiries in November
November is a time to go home, see your family, and quite possibly remember why it was you left home and avoid seeing your family for the rest of the year. The result is that it makes a lot of sense for The Repopulation to focus on things like hearth and home over the month of November. A status update for the last month has just come out, and it includes the usual array of incremental improvements along with some big new features. For example, the game has a new UI for placing structures within houses and nations, allowing objects to be rotated and scaled as the placer desires -- and there's the option to save the rotation and scale settings for easy cut-and-paste placement. A new calendar system was also introduced, and the inquiry system has been expanded to allow players a chance at tracing the source of an NPC's problems via the Diplomacy skill. Players looking forward to the sandbox title should take a look at the full rundown of November updates.
