A few years ago, I made the switch from Apple Calendar to Sunrise. As an Apple fanboy, this was a big deal for me and the main reason for switching was due to all the awesome integrations that Sunrise offers. I love that you can have your tasks from Asana or Todoist sync with the calendar and display them on top of your appointments. Sunrise then came out with the awesome “Meet” feature which allows you to quickly send someone your available times and schedule appointments.
Unfortunately, Sunrise was purchased by Microsoft in 2015 and now the app is now shutting down. It’s a real blow to a lot of people who have come to rely on this awesome tool.
So, what now? Which calendar should you use in place of Sunrise?
To be honest, I didn’t spend that long looking around. I’d rather just find something that works and move on.
One of the best alternatives that you’ll hear people mention is Fantastical. I used the 21-day free trial to give Fantastical a go and here’s what I found:
The good:
- It’s a beautifully designed app and looks great!
- Calendar sets allow you to have different calendar categories under a parent. For example, you could have sets for Work and Home with different calendars for each.
- Add events using natural language e.g. “Meeting 3pm alert 1 hour”.
- It integrates well with the Apple ecosystem and will even pull in your Apple Reminders.
The bad:
- Lack of integration with third-party apps like Asana and Todoist. I even asked if the Flexibits who make Fantastical have any plans to add integrations, but no luck.
- It’s quite expensive ($49.99 Mac + $4.99 for iPhone). I don’t mind paying for software, but I really can’t justify the price when it doesn’t offer enough additional value compared to the default Apple Calendar. Yes, it’s well designed and they’ve done a great job on the app, but I can’t rationalise the purchase in my head. This is the main reason I had to pass on Fantastical.
Fantastical is a great alternative to Sunrise and I'd definitely recommend giving it a go to see if you like it.
I’m now back using Apple Calendar… And even though I’m a little disappointed, it’s actually not that bad. First off, Apple Calendar has improved since I used it last. I really like the travel alert times and natural language has also made its way onto Apple Calendar.
Okay, so it lacks the integrations that I’ve come to love, but what are you gonna do? It’s not a big deal and at the end of the day, the calendar does what I need; I can schedule blocks of time to show when I’m going to work on specific tasks. It would be nice to see tasks on here as well, but it’s not the end of the world.
So that’s where I’m at now. It’s funny, I moved from Apple to Sunrise, gave Fantastical a go and now I've come full circle back to Apple. Sunrise was great while it lasted, but I guess good things often come to an end…