Yup. First thing I looked for. Saw it. Decided I would use the stock app again. I’m so done with this extortion that ruins all the joy I used to get out of apps. You guys have fun. I’ll enjoy my ‘coffee’.
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Going through the iOS version.
What’s the difference between calendars enabled via iOS in settings versus adding the calendar direct from Fantastical?
You’re right, I could continue using v3 with the same feature set (from the sounds of things). But the overall model change hints at the future for the app.
They’re not forcing me to update, but there wont be future improvements (that I would rather pay for upright) without subscribing.
Yes, technically that would be possible. But for me some sets consist of several calendars each. Going to settings each time and scrolling through the long lists making selection is a bit tedious. This is where the sets come in very handy.
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I don’t think that’s the case. But we don’t know.
It’s not just this though.
Apple consistently pushed the price of apps down in a race to the bottom initiative in the App Store from the beginning. You cannot buy an app for $49 in the iOS App Store, partly because of that. If devs could, they probably would.
There is no upgrade pricing through the iOS app store. And the Mac has seen better days.
I’m not sure what developers are supposed to do when Apple handicapped them from the beginning. Most people, not nerds, will never pay for an app. Ever. Despite what nerds think, we are not the majority and developers have a business to run.
I am subscribing because it is critical to my work. And I know how brutal having to subscribe to everything is. But I am not sure how to correct course because Apple’s enabled it’s users entitlement, and everyone is suffering because of that.
I am not an iOS developer, but I am a developer. I am also a user. It sucks that this is where we are. Just not sure where to go from here.
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Unsure about the US store but you can totally buy an app for $49 in NZ. I just looked up BusyCal and it is going for $89.99 here!
Yes on the Mac. Not so much for iOS, which was my point. More users on iOS which makes it an attractive platform.
I downloaded the iPad version which is a separate app, and I cannot get trough the setup process and use the free version without creating a “free flexbit account”.
Why on earth should I do that to use the free version of the app? Is the forced subscription to the newsletter (to which I’m already subscribed, by the way) so valuable?
I’ ve been using Fantastical 2 for iOS for years and absolutely love its aesthetics and functionality (natural language parser is soooo useful).
Like some MPUers, I’d gladly buy a one-time purchase for a third version, but would never consider buying a subscription for it. I guess it isn’t worth it for me.
I’m glad that I’m still able to use the main functionalities of the app, but I’m sorry that I don’t have a chance to reward their excellent work, through buying it.
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This is why I avoid the Mac AppStore if possible. As soon as this popped up, I turned off autoupdate and re-downloaded version 2.5.15 from the flexbits website for safe keeping. I won’t be upgrading or subscribing.
So, I upgraded to Fantastical 3 on my MBP and my iPhone earlier.
macOS - looks the same, functionality-wise, as far as I can tell anyway, to F2, just with a refreshed look and feel.
iOS - again, refreshed look and feel compared with F2. Native connections to mail services (O365, Exchange, Google, etc.) instead of piggy-backing onto iOS’s calendar. And that’s about it. New functions on iOS to bring it inline with the macOS version, such as calendar sets, are only available if you subscribe.
As for the watchOS version - It doesn’t work at all, it just shows the sync icon continuously. I’ve tried reinstalling the watch app but it makes no difference.
All of the clients I have worked with in the last 3 or 4 years are using Office 365, which prevents the use of anything other than Outlook Mobile on iOS due to security controls. Therefore, it is very unlikely that I will be subscribing to an app that I am not going to be able to make use of.
The only thing I’ve noticed is that you can “propose” events with it added direct to Fantastical and you can’t with calendars enabled via iOS.
Yep. They will for sure loose lots in revenue with this model. It’s not a service that we have to pay for subscription for the cost involved unlike weather apps where they have to pay to get access to display the data. If Fantastical gives the option of upgrade to V3, I will buy in a heartbeat.
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It seems they are creating a proprietary set of tools that are accessed on top of your synced calendars. That is what you are paying for with the subscription. The basic functionality of fantastical for most prior to this is still in essence available on the free tier (disappointing considering what I paid a couple years ago). The only thing I am not clear on is Apple Watch sync. If that doesn’t work on the free tier I will be really disappointed.
I don’t presume to know your knowledge or of business generally, but do you really think they would enter a losing business model. And if so, they must of been loser far worse under the old model. I don’t like it but what other logic is there.
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I’ve been using Fantastical for five or six years, at least, but now that I’m forced to articulate what I prefer about it over Calendar, the only differences I can think of are pretty minor:
- When typing in a new event, Fantastical makes it easier to assign an event to a non-default calendar by putting a slash in front of the calendar name.
- Fantastical does a better job of displaying the color of each event’s calendar in Month view, which is the only view I use. On the Mac, the dot is bigger in Fantastical. On the phone, Fantastical shows a colored dot for each event on each day. iPhone Calendar just shows one gray dot on any day that has one or more events.
I know I’m in the minority here, but subscriptions don’t bother me at all. In this case, though, I don’t have a good enough reason to subscribe. I use Fantastical every day, but my needs are pretty simple. I only have one calendar set that I don’t ever need to adjust.
Except for the slash, I can do everything just as easily in Calendar. And Calendar has better AppleScript support. Plus I do kind of miss having the date in the Calendar icon on my iPhone home screen. The Fantastical icon badge kludge never cut it for me.
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There are far more users who love this tool and would upgrade for supporting the developers. Honestly it’s a great calendar app. I still love this and would want to purchase it. For individual needs it does not warrant a subscription model. Global teammates and time zones etc in a enterprise setup are covered by enterprise solutions like Outlook.
If they had followed the strategy of Omnigroup by giving the option of subscription for those who need and upgrade for those who don’t need web syncs it would have totally made sense. Best of both worlds.
Now though I want to upgrade I am holding back. 
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The one thing that Stock calendar has that Fantastical (including V3) does not, is to show the Day calendar in a visual view (see image below). I hate the list view where it is hard to see conflicting entries. A visual view is so simple but Fantastical refuse to implement it (I contacted the developer before). This caused me to use Fantastical just for entry (love the natural language) but aside from that, I’m use stock calendar for checking my schedule. Going into subscription is going to push me further away from Fantastical.
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