The Mac calendaring app Fantastical 2 ($39.99) is fast, highly customizable, and responsive. It pulls in calendar appointments from other sources, such as iCloud and Google, and keeps them all tidy. Type into the smart appointment text field "remind…" and the app will automatically put the text that follows into a reminder instead of a calendar entry. Despite all these high points, Fantastical 2 ($39.99 at Apple.com) has a several limitations that stop it from being a truly productive app in your life. For starters, it works on Macs only with no Web app, Windows app, or Android version. The only companion app is for iPhone, and it costs an additional $2.99. Nevertheless, on the Mac at least, the app runs so smoothly it practically purrs. It could be a great addition to your Mac, if don't mind the price and accept that you won't get to use it anywhere else.
Price and Installation
The one-time $39.99 price of Fantastical 2 seems outrageously high considering every Mac already comes with Apple's own Calendar app preinstalled. Their icons look similar, but Fantastical 2 beats Calendar in features by a long shot.
You can try Fantastical 2, which requires OS X Yosemite 10.10, for two weeks for free if you install the trial app from the developer's website. Installing apps that don't come from the official Apple App Store takes a little configuration in your Mac's System Preferences, but it can be done. If you're interested in purchasing the software, you can get it directly from the developer or from the App Store.
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Design and Features
As you set up this calendar program, it asks for permission to access your Calendars, Reminders, Contacts, and location. While that information may sound like a lot, the more you put into Fantastical 2, the more you get back.
I had the app yank in all my Google Calendar data, which was already porting through the Apple Calendar. Between the lot of them, I have multiple color-coded events for personal events, work events, and my workout schedule. Fantastical 2 grabbed all the information and put it into one big desktop calendar quickly. Every subsequent time I shut down my machine and rebooted it later, even after making changes to my Google Calendar elsewhere, Fantastical synced the changes without my even noticing.
Alerts are highly customizable, which endeared this app to me. I can't stand default reminders at arbitrary 15-minute intervals, so I appreciated the fine control I had over the settings. Pop-up alerts, designed to blend in with Yosemite's aesthetics, were noticeable without being a nuisance.
Fantastical 2's interface looks an awful lot like Calendar's. The fonts are similar, and the overall layout absolutely mimics the native app. The largest area of the window in both apps shows an overview of the month, week, or day (your choice), and a left panel housing a smaller month view. Even the quick-add plus sign button looks identical and is in the same location.
Physical differences are minor. Apple's app displays a list of your calendars and their location (e.g., Google, iCloud), whereas Fantastical 2 tucks them away unless you select to Manage Calendars from a button at the bottom. Instead, the rest of its left rail shows upcoming appointments. You can customize it to show as many upcoming appointments as will fit on the screen, or, if that's overwhelming, just appointments in the current day and next day. If you have any reminders, Fantastical 2 will display them here, too.
Smart Features
One smart feature that sets Fantastical 2 apart is what happens when you use the quick event-creation button (the plus sign). Type an event into the field, and Fantastical 2 will add it—but, if you begin to write "reminder," then appropriate options and features for reminders appear instead. Reminders and calendar appointments are not the same thing, and I like that Fantastical 2 intuits which one to use.
Using voice input is similar. Fantastical 2 knows whether to create a calendar entry or reminder based on what you say.
Addresses in your calendar appointments display with a little map when you preview them. Click the preview, and a full Web page showing the location pops up using either Apple Maps or Google Maps if you override the default option. Maps were hit and miss in my testing, with Fantastical 2 doing its job sometimes but not always. I couldn't figure out what made the difference.
As mentioned, there's an iPhone app but no Web app or versions for other platforms. The desktop may seem great, but surely you'd want a way to manage your calendar if you were at a different computer or were an Android or Windows Phone user. The lack of a Web app is a pretty big problem for me. I use a variety of computers and mobile devices, and managing my calendar is not a facet of life that I can afford to limit to only particular machines.
Great on Mac, but Limited in Your Life
Smooth, fast, and smart, Fantastical 2 works very well on Macs, but it may be of limited usefulness in your life, because it doesn't have any apps for the Web, Windows, or Android. It's also expensive, and you'll end up paying extra to add the Fantastical 2 iPhone app on top of this otherwise Mac-limited experience. As much as I like all the functionality and design, Fantastical 2 isn't built for the modern multi-platform world.
Smooth, fast, and with quite a few smart features, the calendar app Fantastical 2 works very well on Macs, but it may be of limited use in your life, especially because it doesn't have any apps for Web, Windows, or Android.
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