I didn’t really want to dig this behemoth of a thread up from the grave, but I just want to share my thoughts on the new Fantastical a year or so in.
I have had a premium subscription the past year, and despite some bugs in the beginning, I have really enjoyed the new fantastical on a premium level. It surely is the most full-featured calendar app out there for all your “calendaring” needs, and boy do they have great and fast support on premium!
However, I won’t be subscribing for another year of Fantastical Premium. I just don’t use all the features enough to warrant it. While I love Fantastical and have used it since the beginning almost, I’m not in the market for another calendar app just to see what’s out there.
I bet, I will still stick with Fantasical on the basic version, but I want to hear suggestions for other apps - bear in mind that I’m using an iPhone and iPad only. The most likely candidate is of course BusyCal, but any others?
While not necessarily a calendar app, I do want to give a shout out to CalPaste, which Katie on MPU first got me hooked on. Fantastical Premium has the same feature, but I will have to go back to CalPaste when I get off it.
Anyway, alternative calendar app to Fantastical? Even though none will come close to it, I’m sure of that
I use all of the premium features as my job uses Google Workspace and the integration with Google Meet and Fantastical is second to none.
I sign into my work account and when there’s a meeting all I have to do is hit Join and the meeting immediately opens in Chrome, BOOM, I’m there, no friction.
I use calendar sets and taking some of @MacSparky 's courses and trying to understand block scheduling Fantastical is perfect for this. I have too much going on for a simple calendar.
At the end of the day though, you don’t need to subscribe to every app.
My company blocked Fantastical about a year ago. I have a reminder set up every 50 days to check whether that’s changed. Every time I check, Fantastical is still blocked, and I am sad.
I’m using Busycal, the native calendar apps, and Dato but I do not like them as well.
Everything is just a little easier in Fantastical.
I’ve requested my company IT to allow Fantastical but to no avail. I can install the app via the MAS and add my iCloud calendars but not my 365 account. I love using Fantastical that I take my time copy/pasting any new events on my Outlook manually. Not ideal, but I rely on having multiple set of calendars on Fantastical.
My company also (recently) blocked login to Office 365 from Fantasitcal (after I’d previously been able to use it!) However, I was able to subscribe to my Outlook calendar, which is not ideal - I still have to use Outlook to make or accept events. But, since I use multiple calendars (I also have 2 calendars and another subscribed calendar that are essential to everyday functioning), it does avoid having to copy events and it is reasonably up-to-date in real time.
Lucky you. In my case they blocked both non-managed devices and applications, so I can no longer open Office365 in native apps on my Mac. Can only access through a browser, which doesn’t support local subscriptions in Fantastical.
At least in iOS, I can see my key calendars in one place in Outlook, but it doesn’t do the shared iCloud family calendar (which Fantastical does). I can understand the MDM security and separation in place for email, but find it daft they don’t allow third-party calendar applications.
So I now live the Outlook in a browser for client work and Fantastical for the rest kind of life… , which is still better than having to carry 2 laptops around
Ugh. For others who might be looking for a similar solution, I found the calendar links under Settings—>Calendar—> shared calendars in Outlook Web Access.
Thanks for your reply.
