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Fantastical shines on the iPad's display
Fantastical from Flexibits has been my go-to calendar on the Mac and iPhone for a long time now. This week the company released an iPad version (US$9.99) that takes advantage of the device's big display. The app isn't simply larger on the iPad. The developers clearly sat down and considered how the additional room could affect Fantastical's functioning. The results are quite nice. The biggest "wow moment" is the dashboard. The iPhone version provides either a week view or a monthly view (the so-called "Day Ticker") plus a running list of upcoming events. It's tidy, handy and definitely mobile. On the iPad, the Dashboard is much more feature-rich. For starters, the Day Ticker displays three additional days. Also, you get month and daily view simultaneously, which is very handy. A reminders list appears on the list. Having all three on screen at once is something the iPhone app can't do and it's a very nice feature on the iPad. Similar to what you find on the iPhone and Mac apps, as you swipe through the Day Ticker, the corresponding events and appointments appear in a vertical list below. I like this quite a bit and it looks great on the iPad. But the Day Ticker has two more tricks up its sleeve! Pull down part way to reveal an expanded six-day view. Keep pulling and you'll get a full-screen weekly view. The best part is that you can move appointments around via drag-and-drop. Another change is that Flexibits decided to avoid popovers in Fantastical for iPad. Instead, these panels slide in from the side. It's a bit jarring at first, but they're quite legible and leave a bit of the background visible. You get used to them after a while and they start to make sense. Long-time Fantastical users will find that beloved features like natural language support and cute animations are intact. As I've said, Fantastical is my preferred calendar on the iPhone and Mac. It's very nice to see the iPad get in on the action, especially with such a nice iteration of the app.
Chatology for Mac lets you easily search Message histories
Flexibits has released Chatology for Mac (US$19.99), which lets you search your Messages chat history with great ease and success. Its looks will make it familiar to just about anyone who's used a Mac within the last ten years and and its integration with Messages is just lovely. Say goodbye to Apple's chat search. Looks Chatology is similar to iTunes, iPhoto and others as it has a list on the left and related details on the right. Again, it will be super familiar to most Mac owners, so you'll be up and running in no time. Click any name on the right to view the associated chat logs in clear, legible text. Conversations, images and links are a mere click away. Finally, you can opt to see your conversations as balloons or boxes (I prefer balloons). %Gallery-191695% Use Chatology finds the chat logs stored on your Mac at launch and displays each conversation according to the person on the other end. Click any name in the leftmost column to see your full history with that person in the center column, sorted by date. You'll also see the conversation's start time and duration. You can refine your history by viewing logs from today, within the last seven days, the last 30 or within the last year. Once you've selected a particular history to scour, you can view the full conversation, just images or just links. While testing this app, I was able to find two images I remembered seeing in chat but failed to drag out. It was crazy easy to find them: I just pulled up the conversation, clicked "images" and there it was. There's a search box, too. Simply type in the term you're after and there it is. Here's what I love about Chatology. There's a preference to enable Messages integration. When enabled, you'll be brought right to Chatology when you hit Command-F in Messages. It's like launching über-search mode. Finally, you can export any conversation as a plain text file, use Quick Look to view images and delete a chat log, all from the app. Conclusion Those who have lots of conversations in chat, especially those that might include desirable reference information, will do well to install Chatology. Likewise, it's a good choice for users who are not satisfied with the search feature in Messages. Chatology for Mac is available now for US$19.99 from the Flexibits Store. It requires Mac OS X 10.7.5 or later. Please note that Chatology for Mac will only be available from the Flexibits Store. It will not available from the Mac App Store. Unfortunately, Apple's policies won't allow an app like Chatology on the Mac App Store. Pick it up now and get searching.
Fantastical 1.3 adds reminders, bug fixes
Flexibits has released an update to its Fantastical menu-bar calendar tool. Fantastical 1.3 adds support for both iOS and iCal reminders. That's a feature I've been waiting for. You can choose which calendar's reminders Fantastical should display, and they're color-coded to match the parent calendar. Reminders appear just above appointments and can be edited with a double-click. As you would expect, you can create reminders as easily as appointments, using natural language. "Remind me to write about Fantastical today" created just the reminder I wanted. This update also includes various bug fixes and is free for registered users.
Fantastical 1.2.2 available, prepares for Mountain Lion's Gatekeeper
Fantastical by Flexibits has been updated to version 1.2.2 to address, among other things, Gatekeeper support in Apple's forthcoming Mountain Lion. Fantastical is a fantastic tool for the Mac that I've been using for quite a while (here's our comparison of Fantastical and Today). It lives unobtrusively in your Menu Bar and offers fast, natural language creation of calendar events. You can also use it to edit existing appointments, browse what you've got scheduled and sync with iCal, BusyCal, Entourage, or Outlook. Version 1.2.2 prepares the app for Gatekeeper, allows for vertical resizing of the event list (Lion only) and adds notes to search results, which I appreciate. There's more, of course, and you'll find the full release notes here. Fantastical requires Mac OS X 10.6+ and is available for $19.99. This is a free update for existing users.
Fantastical 1.1 offers editing, notes, full iCloud support
Fantastical by Flexibits has been updated to version 1.1, which offers a slew of new features. Users can now edit events and notes within Fantastical, and changes are immediately synchronized with iCloud. There's a lot to like about this new version, including behind-the-scenes bug fixes that make the whole experience more enjoyable. Here's what's new in Fantastical 1.1. At last, you can edit events within Fantastical! This is the feature I've been waiting for, and I'm glad to report it works. To edit an existing event, simply double-click its listing in Fantastical. An edit window pops up, ready to accept your changes. You can edit notes in the same way. The other major change is full iCloud integration and near-immediate synchronization of data. Previously, Fantastical required you to launch iCal (or have it running hidden) for sync with a MobileMe calendar. Now that's changed, thanks to iCloud and Fantastical's CalDAV integration. In my testing, events created in Fantastical showed up on my iPad by the time I launched the calendar app. Several smaller changes further improve the Fantastical experience. For example, new events now automatically set the start date to the selected date on the calendar, with is a nice time saver. Multiple all-day events are grouped by calendar and sorted by event name, and Outlook events are color-coded by category. Fantastical has been one of my favorites since I first reviewed it in May. It's out of the way when I don't need it, and quick when I do. Now that I can use it to edit tasks and notes, I probably won't look at iCal very much at all. Fantastical 1.1 is available now from the Mac App Store for US$19.99.
Manage multiple cameras with Cameras
Flexibits has just released Cameras, an application designed to manage multiple camera hookups on your Mac. With Cameras, you can direct which programs launch when you connect any number of photo-related devices to your computer; including digital cameras, the iPhone or a digital media reader. Cameras installs a preference pane in System Preferences. The first time you connect a new device to your Mac and start to sync it, the device will show up in the preference panel. From there, you can choose what that individual camera does when connected. It's a simple, great application for managing different cameras and keeps unwanted programs from opening when you connect them and works well when multiple devices are developed. Cameras is a free download and requires OS X. 10.4.11 or later.
