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Using Calendar's 'travel time' feature in Mavericks
One of OS X Mavericks' coolest features is the addition of a travel time calculator in Calendar. You may not know exactly how it works, or even know it exists, but rest assured: It's there waiting for you. Simply open the calendar application and open an event. Regardless of whether it's a pre-existing event or not, simply look for the "Add Location" info box below the event title. When you click this box, your Mac will tell you the computer would like to access your current location. This allows the travel time calculator to know how far you are from your location. You'll have to weigh any privacy concerns you might have against your desire to use this feature. Once you've allowed your location to be known, type in the address of your meeting/concert/BBQ. You'll see Calendar make suggestions. Even if you type in the address perfectly, you have to select one of Apple's suggestions for this feature to work currently. In the event box, click on the date of your event. It'll look like this. Once you click that button, a new list of options will appear, allowing you to customize when the event starts and ends, if it repeats and, of course, travel time. Click on travel time and, based on your distance from the location, Calendar will let you know how long your route will take to walk or drive. Now, knowing how long it will take you to get to your impending destination, Calendar can alert you not only 30 minutes before you need to leave, but also give you a reminder exactly when you need to leave. Simply set your alert to the handily titled "When I need to leave" option. Our friends MacObserver have written a handy tutorial that will answer any of your more complicated questions about the process. You can find that right over here.
Fantastical 2 re-designed and re-engineered for iOS 7
I've been using the new version of Fantastical for a few weeks now, and if you liked the first version, you're going to love the new version. Fantastical has always been designed for ease of use and worked like a dream, but Fantastical 2 builds on those strengths and takes advantage of some key iOS 7 capabilities that anyone who uses their calendar daily will appreciate. Perhaps the biggest example of a key iOS 7 tech: background refreshing. With Fantastical 2, you won't need to take a trip to Apple's calendar any more. Fanastical will simply update automatically even if you don't launch Fantastical. I'm constantly adding items to my calendar at my computer (using Fantastical for Mac, but sometimes I'm accepting invites to my Google calendar). Having the app automatically refresh without me doing anything extra is a huge time saver. Then there are some design refreshes, like text size (controlled by iOS 7 Dynamic Text), a week view in landscape mode (super handy, especially on Mondays) and for larger 4-inch iDevices, there's an extended keyboard with handy buttons for calendar-specific symbols. The reason I bought the first Fantastical, however, is the parser. Being able to type in plain English, as though talking to an assistant, was magical and Fantastical did it before Siri was around to listen. In version 2, the parser has been beefed up. Since reminders are now fully integrated in 2, you can set an appointment or reminder by just using those terms. Even better, you can use "task" or "todo" in your phrasing and Fantastical will put your item in the right place. Plus, repeating events are easier to input so you could say something like "third Wednesday of each month" or "every two weeks" and Fantastical will figure it out. But my favorite is being able to say when a calendar item should alert you -- because the default is rarely adequate for me. Calendar apps litter the App Store, and we're unfortunately in a world where users gripe (often loudly) about having to "buy this app again." So first of all Flexibits is making Fantastical 2 US$2.99 for a limited time, and it will go up to $4.99 afterward. Second of all, even at full price we're talking about less than the price of most toys. This is not a toy, it's a tool. Tools aren't free to make and they shouldn't be free to steal. Let me explain. Flexibits is not made of volunteer designers and coders. It is a business. When you go to a business to buy something, you pay money for the value it provides to you. Sounds simple, but if the launch of Tweetbot 3 taught me anything, it's that people do not understand this simple concept. Developers work hard to redesign and add new features to apps, especially when Apple introduces a ton of new capabilities in an OS. iOS 7 added a lot of new capabilities. Tweetbot 3 took advantage mostly of those whiz-bang visual features (blurring, physics, etc.). Fantastical 2 takes advantage of a few new design techniques, but really pours it on with functionality. If you start typing into the parser with German, it'll understand. If you use Reminders, they work great. If you don't open Fantastical 2 for a couple of days, your calendar is still in sync. Features like those don't grow in groves of hot dog trees in the land of Dairy Queen. They require people to show up to work and make them happen. Fantastical 2 may look like its predecessor, but the value you will derive from the new version if you're using iOS 7 is completely worth it. Plus, if you're cheap or using an older iOS, guess what? Fantastical version 1 still works. This isn't planned obsolescence, this is simple math and basic business. Buy Fantastical 2 -- it will make dealing with appointments, calendars and reminders so much easier it's worth far more than what they are charging for it. Note that it is designed for iPhone. Full PR below. Show full PR text Flexibits Releases Fantastical 2 for iPhone, Completely Redesigned and Reimagined for iOS 7 DANVILLE, California - October 30, 2013 - Flexibits today introduced Fantastical 2 for iPhone, an all-new app exclusively for iOS 7, building on their award-winning calendar app. Completely redesigned for iOS 7, Fantastical 2 for iPhone includes many new features including reminders, an improved parser, a new light theme, a week view in landscape mode, background app refresh, TextExpander support, birthday reminders/greetings, and much more. Reminders are fully featured and allow users see their events and dated reminders together in the main list. Reminders can be added directly from their Reminders list or new event screen - a simple flip of the item switch will toggle between events and reminders. Users can even set dates, times, and geofences (when I arrive/when I leave) to their reminders. The parser improvements in Fantastical 2 for iPhone are significant, including the ability to create reminders by starting sentences with "reminder", "todo", "task", or "remind me to." Also new are expanded, expressive repeating events such as third Thursday of every month, every weekend, last weekday of the month, and more. Plus, users can now add alerts with phrases such as "remind me tomorrow at 3PM", "alert 1 hour before", or "alarm 3PM." Fantastical 2 takes full advantage of iOS 7, including support for Background App Refresh, Dynamic Type, and 64-bit support for the iPhone 5s. Background App Refresh ensures events, reminders, and alerts are up to date even when Fantastical isn't open. Support for Dynamic Type ensures Fantastical shows text larger or smaller, depending on the user's preferred text size. Also new (and exclusive to devices with 4" screens) is an extended keyboard when creating new events or reminders, providing instant access to numbers and symbols for dates and times. "We wanted to make an iOS 7 iPhone calendar app worthy of the name Fantastical," said Michael Simmons, Co-Founder of Flexibits. "With its beautiful iOS 7 design and functionality, we're confident users are going to be love Fantastical 2 for iPhone." With Fantastical 2 for iPhone, users will quickly and easily create, view, and search all of their events and reminders. The advanced natural language engine is extremely expressive, enabling users to enter event or reminder details in their own style. For example, users can enter sentences such as "Lunch with Elon at 123 Main Street on Tuesday" and Fantastical 2 for iPhone translates the sentence into an event and adds it to their calendar. And with support for reminders, users can enter sentences such as "todo Pick up dry cleaning" and the user will have a reminder, ready to check off. Fantastical 2 for iPhone is localized in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, letting users enter events in their preferred language. Best of all, Fantastical automagically detects the entered language for an event or reminder regardless of the system's language setting. On devices supporting dictation, events or reminders can be created simply by speaking. With its powerful natural language event and reminder creation, DayTicker, calendar, beautiful week view, event list, and much, much more, Fantastical 2 for iPhone is the fastest and friendliest calendar app for iOS 7. Pricing & Availability Download Fantastical 2 for iPhone on the App Store for a limited-time price of $2.99 (US). The standard price will be $4.99 (US). Fantastical 2 requires iOS 7. For further information, please visit: http://flexibits.com/fantastical-iphone To download Fantastical 2 for iPhone on the App Store, please visit: http://flexibits.com/fantastical-iphone/download Flexibits creates apps that are enjoyable and flexible. Apps that make your life better. Apps that remove frustration. With many years of experience working on many popular apps, our hope is that our experience and passion comes through in everything we do. Flexibits: Flexible bits. ............................................................................................................................ Press Contact: Michael Simmons Flexibits pr@flexibits.com Download the Flexibits Press Kit here: http://flexibits.com/flexibits_press_kit.zip
Fantastical 2 for iPhone wants to be your all-in-one calendar and reminder app
From its humble beginnings on OS X, Fantastical's contextual input changed the way plenty of people set appointments and reminders. When it arrived on the iPhone last November, the app became the first calendar software to reach number one on the App Store. Almost a year later, and Flexibits is looking to build on that success with Fantastical 2, a $2.99 upgrade that offers a new design and plenty of iOS 7 specific features.
Any.DO's Cal app scores Uber, Waze and Google Maps integration (updated)
The stock iOS calendar works just fine for basic scheduling, but if you religiously use Uber, Waze or Google Maps, Any.DO's Cal could be worth checking out. An update to the popular productivity outfit's brainchild brings integration with the three aforementioned services, which means you can now call a cab via Uber without leaving Cal, so long as you're in an area where the town cars roam. You'll also be able to navigate your way using Waze and Google Maps without having to launch them. As a nice bonus, Any.DO is introducing a new gifting feature that lets you buy straight from Amazon or Gifts.com from within the app itself. Cal is still nowhere to be seen on Google Play, but iOS users can score the refreshed application at the source. Update (10/08/13): The folks at Any.DO have informed us that you can't access Uber without leaving Cal after all. There's actually an Uber link within the calendar that launches the request-a-ride app. The amended press release is attached after the break if you'd like to know more.
Lego calendar uses bricks to organize your office, makes productivity adorable
Vitamins Design wanted an organizational calendar that was "big and visible," so it did what any company would do: it turned to Lego. Using the plastic bricks, Vitamins was able to create a three-month calendar that provides near-instant visual feedback about which employee is scheduled to work on what project and when. Sounds simple enough, right? Here's where it gets interesting: Take a picture of the quarterly chronicle with any smartphone, send the image to a special email address and the block placement will be translated to its Google Calendar equivalent. Even better, the sync software was written using open-source code, and Vitamins plans to make it available online. The company says it'll work with any cloud-based calendar too -- not just Mountain View's. Sounds great, as long as no one's making late-night barefoot runs to the office kitchen.
iOS 7: The Calendar app re-imagined
Apple made sweeping changes in iOS 7 and left few stones unturned in the core system apps that ship in the OS. Another app that saw some profound changes is the Calendar app, which was the recipeint of a significant visual overhaul. UI Gone is the grey-blue look in the iOS 6 version of the Calendar. Replacing it is a bleached white UI that is accented only by the black text, red navigation elements and color markers highlighting important dates. Though striking, it is minimalist to the max and my be jarring to users expecting the color splash that graces the iOS7 homescreen. The layout is easy to figure out with the calendar in the middle and controls at the top and bottom. The top controls allow you to switch from a day view, month view and year view. There's also a search button and a "+" button to add a new event. The bottom lets you jump to the current date, select which calendars to view and and an inbox to view your invitations. Year, Month, Week and List Views The year view lets you see the 12-month calendar (shown at the top) and is useful for only cursory looks at the dates ahead of you and those behind. Tapping a month in the year will open the month view. The month view (also shown at the top) lets you see the most information in one location, but it gives you more of an overview of your agenda instead of the details. This is a significant change from iOS 6, which showed you the daily event details below the month. The current day is marked in red, while days with events are marked with grey circles. You can easily scroll from month to month by swiping up or down. When you tap on a day, you are brought to the day in the day view. The best view in the iOS 7 Calendar is the day view (shown below) which shows your daily schedule as well as the next seven days in a top navigation bar. A red dot highlights the current date when you are viewing it, while a black dot marks the date the you are viewing. You can tap or scroll to another day and your hourly schedule will appear underneath that day. There's also a week view (shown below) that is only accessible when you turn your phone in the landscape orientation. Each event is highlighted in your schedule and includes the name of the event, so you can easily see what you have to do. You also can swipe up and down to view your daily schedule and swipe left or right to change the weeks. Unlike iOS 6, which had a dedicated button for an agenda-style list view, the list view in iOS 7 is hidden. As noted by Steve Sande, you can see a list of your appointments by tapping on the Search icon at the top and searching for all events. You can see it in action in the video at the bottom of this post. Event Creation The create an event, you must tap on the red "+" symbol at the top right corner of the screen. This symbol is available in the day, month or year view. Still present is the ability to long tap on the screen to add an event, which was present in earlier versions of the calendar. Event creation is similar to iOS 6 with the same fields present in both versions of the OS. The layout in iOS 7 is slightly different with a stylish wheel-selector for the starting and ending dates/times, as shown below. Conclusion The Calendar app has been overhauled to match the minimalist design of iOS 7. As a result, a few key features like the month detail view. It's a toss up as to whether all the changes are bad or good -- a few features have been removed, but the clean look makes its easy to view your daily appointments and navigate the app. Like the other core apps, the Calendar is great for meeting your basic needs. If you want a bit more, check out Calendars 5 from Readdle or CalenMob. Update: Updated to clarify the long-press to add an event is still available.
iOS 7 video tip: How to view list mode in Calendar
Earlier today while Doc Rock and I were rockin' the TUAW TV Live show, I noticed a post by our editor-in-chief Victor Agreda, Jr. in which he bemoaned the fact that he could no longer get into list view for his calendar. Doc and I both figured that there had to be a way to do that, so we quickly started punching buttons on our iPhones to see where the list view was hiding. Doc suggested buying Readdle's Calendars5 app to get a list view, but I found the free answer before we told Victor to spend five bucks. The answer? Click on the search icon in the Calendar app, AKA The Magnifying Glass. It does a "search all" of your calendars and displays the results in a long list. You can also, of course, narrow down the list results by typing in a search criteria like "TUAW TV". The short video below (which can be expanded to full screen), demonstrates how the calendar list mode appears with a simple tap.
Readdle ships Calendars 5, smart calendar for iOS
Calendars 5 (US$6.99, available now at an introductory price of $4.99) was released today by Readdle, Inc. We'll have a full review of the new app soon, but suffice it to say that Calendars 5 is billed as a "smart calendar that understands human language and supports tasks and iOS reminders." Check out the video below for an idea of how the natural language processing of Calendars 5 works, and be sure to grab the app while it's on sale.
Time to make holiday gifts with Picture Collage Maker for Mac
Now that summer is winding down and school and holidays are on the horizon, it's time to put all those photographs you took to good use. Instead of sending your creations to family and friends via email, where they will undoubtedly never see the light of day, or printing them one-by-one to adorn your walls or be hidden away in albums in your bookshelves, why not create something on your Mac that you can display or give as a gift? Picture Collage Maker from PearlMountain Technology Co., Ltd provides over 140 customizable templates ranging from holiday, family and seasonal themes to simple group templates for photos. You use to create calendars, cards, scrapbook pages, albums or a compilation of photos suitable for any occasion. If you cannot find a template you like, the PearlMountain Store offers more designs in 10 categories for US$1.99 each. The basic program is 30% off for a limited time in the Mac App Store and the $19.99 price tag makes it a bargain. You can also download the free Picture Collage Maker Lite with 40 templates to try the program before you buy. Even if you've never created a scrapbook page, card, or print of your photos, Picture Collage Maker makes it very easy. The welcome screen links you to a whole set of tutorials that should answer all your questions. Pearl Mountain's video introduction to Picture Collage Maker shows you in detail how easy it is to create a collage in a 4-minute YouTube video. If you are on the fence about buying Picture Collage Maker, this video tells you almost everything you need to help make that decision. My frustrations section below tells you the rest. The templates are customizable in just about every way imaginable. Photo size or shape can be edited with masks, background textures, borders, shading, text, and clipart. The program is limited only by the fact that you cannot create scenes. That's actually what drove me to try this program. I wanted to create a winter into spring scene of a series of wildlife images I had photographed. I need to be able to use masks and gradients to create what I envisioned. Picture Collage Maker includes mask and frame templates, but there is no way to merge or edit elements of your photos. While creating a few collages I had some issues with moving photos to the foreground and background. This was not a deal breaker, but the only commands are up and down arrows that appear when you click on a photo and that did not allow for much customization, such as placing a photo corner behind one shot and a corner in front of another photo. The top toolbar includes a Calendar button that lets you choose how many and which month(s) to display, which is a good feature. I didn't find any other features that excited me. You can see a calendar I created in the slideshow at the bottom of this review. One word of caution: Edit! You need to make sure your photographs appear the way you want them to look before placing them into a layout, because you cannot do much editing within the program. The Effect panel under the Photo category on the right lets you apply various color effects, but the lateral thumbnails made it clumsy to navigate. The small toolbar with four icons over the left column lets you display your photos, mask selections, frames, and clip art. The clip art section is divided into seven categories: Alphabet & numbers, calendar, cartoon, flower, greeting, love, and mark. The oddly named Mark clip art includes text bubbles, pushpins, and paperclips. You cannot search or mark favorites in the clip art section and each item appears in a list. Needless to say, scrolling through the different clip art sections is unnecessarily time consuming and tedious -– very unMac-like. Frustrations There are inconsistent elements in Picture Collage Maker. For one, the options in the Size popup menu include a mixture of inches, millimeters, and pixels without any conversion between them. When you add a photo to your collage, a thumbnail appears in the left column. One telltale sign that this program is ported over from the PC is that you cannot resize that column, and therefore the full name of your photo file fails to appear. You can resize the thumbnails with a slider, but long photo names are still truncated. When you insert text, you can choose your font family and style, but you cannot see what the typeface looks like. You can open a Font Panel from inside the program, but that isn't very useful either. I used Apple's Font Book to help me choose my fonts. You can choose any color in which to create your text, but I found no way to duplicate that color in separate text boxes. Minimally, I expected to see the RGB values, but could not find those noted in any of the color picker palettes. PearlMountain Technology buries information about compatible picture formats in the Other category on the Support page. Common formats such as JPEG, PNG, BMP, GIF are listed and they note that RAW files are incompatible, but they never mention Adobe or other formats. From trial and error I found that the program does accept PSD (Adobe Photoshop) files. Picture Collage Maker includes a button for automatically uploading your creations to Facebook. This feature works well, but if you want to edit the parameters, such as who can see your creation, you must do so from within Facebook. It would be nice if the developers also added a button for Flickr and some of the other photo display websites as well. Final Thought I tested Picture Collage Maker 2.0 in Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) and Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) and it worked flawlessly under both operating systems. The problem is that the program is fundamentally flawed by its obvious port from a PC program and does not contain the kinds of interface elements that would make the program more fun to use. If you need or want to create a different types of products with your photos, Picture Collage Maker offers many options and is easy to use. For the $20 reduced price, I don't think you'll be horribly disappointed and you can create fun projects, even if you stumble over some of the frustrating elements of the app. The Slideshow below shows you the opening screen, a collage in progress, and a small poster and calendar I made. Specifications OS X 10.6 or above At least 512 MB physical RAM 1 GHz or above Intel processor Languages: English, German, Japanese, Chinese(Simplified), Chinese(Traditional).
BusyCal adds long-anticipated Exchange compatibility
It's a big day for Exchange users; one of the best Mac calendar applications, BusyCal, has just been updated to support Microsoft's enterprise collaboration technology. Version 2.5 is available in the Mac App Store now, as a free upgrade for existing users or US$29.99 for new licensees. The new version supports Office 365, full sharing privileges, public calendars, free / busy time, tasks and more. Of course, the new build is still compatible with both iCloud and Google Calendar hosted scheduling. Mac users who work with Microsoft Exchange calendars may sometimes feel like they just have to make the best of a challenging situation. Microsoft's own Office client, Outlook 2011, works well, but doesn't necessarily deliver that "born on Mac" experience we crave; Apple's Calendar (formerly iCal) may feel right, but compatibility hiccups can drag down your calendar productivity. Even the popular Fantastical app relies on one of those full-featured calendars for syncing. Back in the day, the original BusyCal application (up through version 1.6) worked with Sync Services and iCal / Calendar to deliver Exchange functionality to happy users. Unfortunately, as Apple's underlying synchronization technology was deprecated (not to mention being creaky and buggy for quite a while), BusyMac founders John Chaffee and Dave Riggle made the tough choice in BusyCal 2 to abandon Sync Services and restructure the app around the supportable cloud calendaring technologies. A number of features had to be left on the editing floor in that change, including publishing calendars local-to-Google and crossover LAN sync with cloud calendars. (I was personally irked about that shift, as I was apparently one of a small number of BusyCal 1.x customers successfully using the product to replicate my work Exchange calendar to a Google calendar so that my spouse would be able to track my comings and goings.) Chaffee and Riggle have been working on Mac calendar apps for a long time; they were behind the remarkably capable Now Up-to-Date networked scheduling app that debuted on Mac OS 7 in the early 1990s. It's great to see their current product still evolving and responding to the needs of the Mac community. You can read more about BusyCal, and get a full rundown of using the app for sharing and collaboration, in the free BusyCal Take Control e-book by Joe Kissel.
Google Calendar for Android gets cross-device notification sync
The simplest updates are sometimes the best. See the latest update to Google Calendar for Android as an example: the release adds notification syncing between Android devices, saving the trouble of clearing multiple alerts while hopping from tablet to phone and back. That's the only major addition, but it could represent a big time saver for anyone with a busy schedule. If you're in that camp, you can grab the new Calendar now through Google Play.
PSA: Windows Phones to lose Google Sync activation on August 1st
Windows Phone users who want to use Google Sync for contact and calendar integration had better act quickly: today is the last day that they can link their handsets to the service before Google pulls the plug. From August 1st onwards, Google Sync will only work on a given Windows Phone if it's already configured. The GDR 2 upgrade keeps syncing alive through CalDAV and CardDAV support, although many users could go without that support for some time -- to date, Americans can only see the OS refresh on the HTC 8XT, Lumia 520, Lumia 925 and Lumia 1020. If you're not in that group and miss the Google Sync deadline, you'll just have to sit tight while Microsoft finishes rolling out the GDR 2 update this summer.
Sleek new Cal app from Any.DO spices up your iOS calendar
With months still to go before the official release of iOS 7, there's one built-in app replacement category that's found a sweet spot -- the calendar. If you're not a fan of Apple's default appointment management approach, you have a slew of alternatives to choose from. Fantastical, Sunrise and Calendars+ all deliver UI enhancements and quick entry savvy; Cue, Tempo, Donna and the Google Now elements of the Google Search app focus more on delivering "smart assistant" functionality. These next-gen applications use a bit of anticipatory computing to suss out what you're likely to want to know next, much as Apple's upcoming iOS 7 "Today" feature is supposed to do. (Developers building tools that behave like a human assistant may need to be particularly careful about their "gendered" branding.) The field may be crowded, but Cal, the latest entrant, has a leg up: millions of users are already happy with a sister application. Israeli entrepreneur Omer Perchik and his team at Any.DO started off with their eponymous app, a slick and sensible to-do manager for iOS, Android and Chrome. Any.DO has proven to be a hit, with its "have a great day" attitude, easy task entry and a solid synchronization story to the Chrome plugin; I particularly like the way the plugin puts a next-action field right into the context of a Gmail message, encouraging you to write down what you have to do. Cal, which spent the spring in private beta, is the datebook pairing for Any.DO's task list. With lovely photo theming and easy Facebook or email sign-up, you can quickly show any of your iOS calendar items (synced natively with Google Calendar or Exchange) with lots of context: who are you meeting, where are you going and more. Each invited contact can be messaged, called or emailed with a single tap, or you can check the location map to know where you're headed. Right now you'll get birthday reminders if you link to Facebook, but some additional social integrations will be coming soon. Aside from the ample visual glitz (and audible glitz; the app plays a brief music video in the background on first launch, which may take some users by surprise), there's an interface concept that delivers some different information than most other calendar apps. Cal includes your free time as "gaps" on your calendar, which are directly addressable for creating appointments. "We believe [the gaps] are key to help you have a good day," says Perchik. "Used intelligently, these 'gaps' are true opportunities to help you find the perfect balance between work and play." If the Cal and Any.DO interfaces seem surprisingly iOS 7-ready, that's a happy alignment. Perchik told Mashable that he was "humbled" to note the similarities between his apps and the new direction for Apple's mobile OS when it was revealed at WWDC. Cal is a free download in the App Store for iPhone or iPod touch. An Android version is planned soon (but apparently not soon enough for this cranky band of Facebook commenters).
With Cal, Any.DO hopes to bring its productivity magic to calendars (hands-on)
When Any.DO -- the brains behind the popular iOS to-do app -- announced Cal for iOS last month, we had high hopes for its take on calendar functionality. Starting today, Cal will be available for download in the App Store, but we had a chance to play with it early to see what it was all about. The app marks the company's initial foray into a full-blown suite of productivity apps (as teased in their press release below), which will include, at some indeterminate point in the future, Any.DO's own e-mail app. Any.DO is determined to hit a home run with its life-management line, but does Cal live up to the hype? Read on to find out. %Gallery-193598%
Any.DO announces Cal, promises a suite of connected life management apps (video)
It's only been a few hours since we wrote about Any.DO getting redesigned with a fresh new look and logo. The company's also been teasing "a new way to manage your day" on its website. Well it all makes perfect sense now -- Any.DO just announced Cal, a new calendar for the iPhone. The app seeks to change the way we interact with our calendar through location, contact and social integration. Of course it works seamlessly with Any.DO and features the same beautiful and simple design. Cal is still in beta but will be launching later this summer -- better yet, the company's promising a "suite of connected life management apps." Hit the break for the promo video and PR, and try to guess which app will come next (hint: we think it's email).
Google Calendar for Android adds color highlighting, date and time picker tweaks
Admittedly, this one's a bit of a snooze, but if you find yourself adding events through Google's Calendar app on Android, you might give a hoot about these tweaks. First up is a new color tool, which lets you highlight specific appointments and change the color of your entire calendar. Judging by the screenshot above, there are two dozen hues up for grabs, so you're bound to find one that's to your liking. There's also a new date and time picker -- functionality hasn't changed much, but it looks different now. More rounded and playful, you might say. There's an analog clock, dials and all, for picking the time, and a fairly basic date listing for choosing the date. You can also select the correct time zone by typing in a city name -- the app takes care of the rest. You'll need Android 4.1 or higher to take advantage, so if you haven't yet pulled the trigger on that new handset purchase, you might want to set a date. Using the boring previous-gen Calendar app, of course.
Gmail lets us directly add time references as Google Calendar events, finally
As tightly integrated as Google's many services can be, the company has been dancing around a glaring omission: why couldn't we add times mentioned in Gmail messages as Google Calendar events? Logic is at last taking hold in Mountain View, however. Starting this week for those using US English, Google is rolling out a Gmail web update that automatically underlines dates and times; click on one and it will pop up a box to quickly add a calendar event scheduled for that time, with an option to edit basic details first. It's such a simple addition, but it could mean the world for those of us waiting for Gmail to catch up with our native email apps.
A temporary fix to the gold sellers' spam invitations
WoW Insider has received notifications to our tip line, as well as noted a particular problem coming up on the forums. The gold seller spam invitations in our calendars appear to have returned. They were gone, as a forum thread notes, for some time, almost 2 years, and all of a sudden they have returned. There seems to have been a breakthrough among the gold sellers, allowing their bots to once again spam players' calendars with events advertizing their ill-gotten wares. We're not exactly sure just how they're doing it, but MVP Shammoz and Community Manager Eldtyara have been hard at work notifying the devs of the issue, as well as digging up a couple of solutions. The first solution, as confirmed by Shammoz, is, rather than right-clicking the event and picking Ignore from the drop down menu, typing /ignore into chat. This appears to remove all the invitations from your calendar, rather than just the one you right-clicked on. The other option is to run a script, which several players have asserted has solved the problem, as can be seen in the forum thread which shares it. Running a script simply involves pasting it into your chat and hitting enter, and the script itself is below:
Horizon Calendar for iOS keeps improving with unique features
The iOS Calendar app is pretty basic, but for a lot of people, it gets the job done. If you're left wanting more, take a look at Horizon Calendar, which is US$1.99 in the App Store. We've taken a look at an earlier version of the app before, and this next generation, released today, adds more features and improves the GUI. Horizon Calendar is part calendar, part weather app. It pulls your current calendar info from your iOS device and stays synced to the cloud. The app arranges your info into a very nice set of screens that is easy on the eyes and well-organized. Weather is the other big feature of Horizon Calendar, so as you plan an event occurring within the next two weeks, you'll see a weather forecast. That's pretty handy, especially as better weather starts to roll in. If the event is in another location, you'll get the forecast for that area instead. The app also features natural language event creation. If I say "Set up a 2PM meeting Friday in Chicago with James" the app adds the event details without my having to fill in fields. Even better, when I look at the event, I see a weather forecast for Chicago for this Friday. That goes a bit beyond what Siri can do when creating events. Also new to this latest version is intelligent lookup. If I have a lunch meeting at the Olive Garden restaurant, for example, the app will assume that I mean the closest Olive Garden just as I start typing 'Oli..'. and fill in the location. It would be nice to use that info as a link to my favorite navigation program, although the app currently doesn't have that capability. %Gallery-186830% Horizon Calendar is impressive, and I'll have no trouble replacing my iOS Calendar with Horizon Calendar. If you are in a business environment based on Microsoft Exchange, you can't create or accept meetings, so be aware of that limitation. Horizon Calendar is optimized for the iPhone 5 and requires iOS 6 or later.
Status Board updated with bugfixes, performance improvements
Panic's well-received Status Board app has been updated to version 1.1, and as you might imagine, it's mostly a bugfix update. The biggest issue fixed was probably a bug with sending standard video out, but that should be all taken care of according to Panic (sending HD video out still requires an in-app purchase). The Calendar List panel also deals with resizing much better, and there are now options for either Celsius or Farenheit listings for each Weather panel you have showing. If you're enjoying Status Board, you may also want to check out our five surprising uses for the app, or take a look at some of the other widgets users have been putting together for the service. Status Board is wonderfully designed, but the app itself is really just a container. It's up to you to fill it up with whatever you'd like to be updated about. If you haven't gotten Status Board for your iPad yet, you can grab it from the App Store for US$9.99. That's a premium price, but Panic clearly put a lot of work into this one-of-a-kind utility.
