So more than 50% of their customers should cancel for them to actually feel the pain?
(Otherwise they still profit from this move - though maybe not enough to cover real inflation numbers)
I finally got a chance to go through this sheet to look at competitors with which I was unfamiliar. I can see why Flexibits thinks they can pull off a price increase. The upstart that fills in the most green, Amie, for example, only supports Google accounts. Most others have been around awhile, havenât significantly changed and likely been found undesirable in the past when Fantastical was originally chosen. Some are now more willing to compromise to save money, of course, but without an exciting alternative, probably not enough to make the increase unsuccessful. Curious about othersâ take on the list.
They may still be making a profit on existing customers. But I think it will be hard to win new customers with these prices.
This thread has inspired me to give Busycal a try again. Itâs part of Setapp, which I have. My Flexibits Premium account runs through July, so that gives me some time to see if this sticks.
Iâve been giving a few apps a try over the past days as my Flexibits Premium expires in a week and I have no intention of renewing it. Still considering whether to stay with the free version of Fantastical; I will decide when I see exactly what I lose with no Premium.
As BusyCal was on sale until the New Yearâs Eve, I bought that. On the Mac, I think BusyCal will entirely replace Fantastical for me. Fantastical may look a bit nicer but in terms of the menu bar app, the natural language input and most of the features, these two are on par.
Sadly BusyCal on iOS is rather basic, and on the iPad does not support keyboard shortcuts at all, so on mobile BusyCal needs a major update.
I think I will use Readdleâs Calendars on iOS/iPadOS. It has the natural language input and as I have the âCalendars 5â version which was a one-time purchase (the app with the yellow icon), thereâs no subscription there (thereâs also a version of Calendars with subscription). The subscription version (the app with the blue icon) gets you the Mac app as well, but BusyCal is still more powerful on the Mac (Calendars has no menu bar app for example).
Just got the invite to beta test Amie yesterday so Iâm giving that a go as well on iOS and the Mac (thereâs no iPad optimised version yet).
Most on this forum remember when software cost A LOT MORE than it does today. And then there was the race to the bottom brought on by Appleâs app stores and prices plummeted. Below sustainable levels. So many apps have moved to subscriptions or have raised there price tags, yet still do not approach the prices of yesteryear. Prices go up and down. They stick if people pay.
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I tried Fantastical 5 or so years ago. Lots of features even back then. And Iâve used BusyCal, Readdleâs Calendar, and Apple Calendar. BusyCal worked best for me at the time. Calendar & Tasks together and the integration with BusyContacts were just what I needed for a couple of big projects.
As I recall I thought Readdleâs calendar looked good but it didnât have integration with contacts. Fantastical is a quality product but I didnât need most of its features and wasnât a fan of the design. As I recall you couldnât turn off the sidebar and it took up too much room on a 13in screen.
I would guess most people get along just fine with Apple Calendar. Iâve seen some users add a second local calendar and use all day events on it as tasks.
I agree most just need Calendar when looking at the whole population. People willing to pay for a calendar probably have more going on, or are in a situation where removing friction from schedule management pays for itself.
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Basically the only thing missing from Appleâs default app is calendar sets. Everything else is icing on the cake.
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I still know those times well. I must have paid between 20 and 50 euros per app for software for my Palm Treo back then. But they werenât subscriptions, just for two years of Fantastical we are now already at 140 euros. In addition, it is now - compared to the past - rather a mass business, there are significantly more customers, so that lower prices do not necessarily lead to less revenue. And finally, of course, there is also a competitive environment for the whole thing. If you move completely outside of this in terms of price, I think it will be difficult to win new customers.
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And perhaps more importantly, the hardware upgrade cycle wasnât moving as quickly. There just wasnât the external pressure several decades ago.
The Apple IIe was released in 1983. I know that whole computer labs worth of them were still in service a decade later. Not because the IIe was a powerhouse of a computer, but because it was an isolated machine in somebodyâs home or a school computer lab that was utilitarian. Fire up AppleWorks, type your stuff, print it out. And you didnât get AppleWorks updates every month. You probably didnât get them at all.
These days the odds of somebody having a device thatâs more than a few years old is much lower, and the useful lifespan of any given piece of software is proportionally shorter.
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The price increase for Fantastical is too much. Iâve been using it for 3 years because I need to see multiple time zones in the events. BusyCal offers this and it works great. $50 for the app with 18 months of updates and then $30 for another 18 months of updates.
The initial purchase lasts 18 months - rounding to $25/year for the first 2 years.
If you update regularly after year 2, thats $60 for 3 years of updates. $20 a year. Not bad at all.
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Theyâve said on social media that theyâve held the current price for a very long time, as if thatâs some noble stance theyâve upheld. $50+ a year (CAD) was already crazy IMO. Theyâre just adding to the crazy now. Itâs a calendar.
If I worked in a Mac environment and used openings and all the bells and whistles, and lived in the calendar â maybe. MAYBE.
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Checking back after a week or two going back to Busycal, and I can say I donât miss Fantastical. Busycal is pretty darn close to it, and better in some ways (smart calendars, or whatever they call it, are like calendar sets but more powerful).
I had the iOS version of Busycal before it went subscription, and had both a license to the Mac version, and have it on Setapp. I rarely if ever used the proposals/openings feature (I forget the name) in Fantastical, so donât miss that, but I have someone else to do my scheduling for me, and Office 365 offers a similar feature that I can use if I want.
I never really liked the iOS version of Fantastical. My favorite calendar view is the one offered by apps like WeekCal, that shows the week in a grid. Busycal doesnât have that either, unfortunately.
Ironically, I may in the long run miss Cardhop the most. I rarely used it, but when I did, it was very handy.
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I think I paid a one-time $40 for GEOS suite of productivity apps on my c64 and it never asked for more money. Can you imagine if Berkley had asked for even $1 a month? As I stated earlier, I donât use any of Fantasticalâs âadvancedâ features, I only subscribed to support the developer, not a village. I canceled when the price was increased.
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Yes, but how many Apps did you had on your systems in those days?
This is not comparable, because there are way more Apps today, who want to get their pice from the cake, but there are also way more customer today, who could pay for the cake.
But this works only for everybody, if the developers do not try to charge way more, than the app might be worth for the users.
I really like Fantastical, but in the end, it is just one calendar app among I would assume several hundreds you could get today. And the app Cardhop is a catastrophically mess in my opinion, I am forced to keep alive with my subscription for Fantastical.
I have time now until November to renew, but I do not see the renewal at this moment which is pretty sad, as I just convinced my wife to use fantastical too, and now I have to convince here about an new calendar app again.
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It took me a few weeks to get everything settled down, but hereâs what Iâm using instead of Fantastical:
Mac: BusyCal
My Mac is mostly for setting up each dayâs schedule and long-range planning. Since I time-block my days on the calendar, I miss having the current event displayed in the menu bar (it kept me on track). But Iâd only recently discovered that feature, so itâs not a big problem. BusyCalâs âsmart filtersâ perfectly replace Fantasticalâs calendar groups, and thatâs a key feature for me.
iPhone: Timepage and Calendar
My iPhone is mainly for notifications and adding new events. I like the daily summary from Timepage, the look of the app, and the home screen widgets. Entering a new item is not the best as it requires scrolling and taps. Itâs not terrible, but not great. BusyCal is terrible for entering new events because when adjusting the time, it reverts to the day view (instead of list), which requires grabbing handles to adjust the time. I find it impossible capture and drag a handle. So I use the stock Calendar app for that.
Apple Watch: Timepage
I like the look of it, and Busycal doesnât have a watch app.
iPad: rarely use the calendar here, except for widgets
It seems a bit ridiculous to use 3 apps to replace 1, but thatâs where I have landed. If I didnât already use SetApp subscription to pay for BusyCal, Iâd face a difficult choice because Fantastical is cheaper than BusyCal+Timepage. Iâd probably keep Timepage and figure out how to switch between calendar sets in Calendar using some kind of Keyboard Maestro magic.
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After being a subscriber since they initially launched subscriptions, my family have also decided not to renew. It has been a bitter sweet for me but at this point, I have continued using Fantastical for free with v2 unlocked due to prior purchase.
I also have a theory as to why Flexibits may be doing this⌠if interested:
Btw, i have been keeping an eye on Timeage. How beautiful is that appâŚgorgeous
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I like to be able to see multiple time zones in my events. BusyCal does this on Mac but iOS is not working as Iâd like.
I checked their docs and am seeing that there is a Time Zone Override, but that makes it so that my calendar shows the alternate time zone as default (makes sense). I have to click into the details to see both time zones.
Am I correct in thinking that BusyCal iOS wonât let me see both time zones in the calendar view?
Count me in as someone who was pretty shocked by the amount of the increase. $5-7 I probably would have ignored the message, but Iâm canceling today. There are so many features that I never use anyway. Could I just pay a few dollars to see the âjoinâ button in line with my calendar on mac 
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