There is such a proliferation of calendar apps on the App Store, it is hard to find the best. I have probably used about ten different ones on a daily basis in recent years – I know what I am talking about.
My web app shrib.com is wildly popular with its ease of use, its no-BS approach, and its speed. It is all about being efficient. I like apps with the same attributes. The calendar that fits into this picture is «appoint«.
My very favorite feature of the app is how I can create new appointments within a single text line.
I know most others like Fantastical have similar ways to create appointments – but they suck! They usually make the entry even more complicated than if there were all kinds of buttons and wheels (like in the native calendar app).
«appoint» uses all the data available on your phone (contacts, existing calendar entries etc.) for auto-complete. It will auto-complete the name of other attendees to your event, it will auto-complete locations with locations of existing events.
It will even auto-complete entire events (all fields). So if you have yet another appointment with your dentist (ouch!), you’ll just tap on the date, start typing «dent…», and the entire past event with location and all will be auto-completed.
I believe the text interface used by the developer has a much bigger potential. Consider the same easy entry combined with speech recognition and the upcoming Apple Watch!
Recently, I ran across this article which supports my thesis well. Even though the last 30 years gave rise to the graphical user interface, there is still a huge potential in text interfaces.
How do you like appoint? What other calendar is even better?
Hi, I take notes since 5 years & I totally agree that text interfaces have a huge potential.
I like appoint.
Good post & website !
Have you discovered apps with smart text interfaces recently, Rian?
One quite good, but too-feature-full for its own good is the task keeping application rememberthemilk.com – I used it for 2 years, but then stopped because I felt I am better off with something simpler. But the way they allow enter tasks on a single line is great – with dates, times, tags, all you want.
Thanks for the hint, Roberts. I remember I used rememberthemilk almost 10 years ago. But there wasn’t much at the time. Obviously, it is something different than a calendar app.