I have been using Fantastical 2 over the past week. It is one of the most popular third-party calendar apps available in the iOS and macOS App Stores. It is also available on the Apple Watch.
When it comes to the app in the beginning stages, I do like how it syncs with the default Apple Calendar app. It’s good so that you can get back to where you started in the Fantastical app and still have all of your calendar dates and events in Fantastical.
Another item that is nice is that reminders can all go in on one app. This is good so that you can make calendar dates and reminders. When creating the event or reminder, there is a tab that you can press which is similar to the ones you would see in the Settings app and that allows you determine whether your item will be a calendar date or reminder. It’s that simple.
Where the iOS version goes wrong is that the layout is not as good as what everyone else says. Whether it’s the month view or week view, it does not look right to me. I will say that the month view looks better than the week view, but that’s just me.
The widget is good when it comes to customization, whether it shows your month-long calendar view, week view, or day view, that can come in handy for those who just want to view everything from the widget in Notification Center.
Now, I’m the kind of person that does not mind spending money on apps, but for what it does and offers, I don’t think that it is worth the $4.99 cost. To me, it does not do enough to justify that cost.
When it comes to the Apple Watch version, I used the small complication. Although it took me a couple days to get the everyday date, other than that, the complication works the way it should.
The only thing I would add to it is the day on top of the number date. This is something that the Apple Calendar app offers for the Apple Watch, but with my Apple Watch, I need to see that date because there are times where during busy days, I can forget what day it is. That might sound stupid, but it happens to the best of us.
As for the functionality, I like being able to see my calendar date and reminders. But, a big issue that I ran into is that my Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Series 1, was not able to create events or reminders from the app. This is crucial for Apple Watch power users. It could be that my Apple Watch is much older than the newest ones out there, but regardless, if I am paying for an app, I better be able to get full functionality out of it.
Lastly, and this is more with all of the apps, the costs are ridiculous for this app! The fact that I can pay $4.99 for the iPhone version of this app and not get an iPad version with that is quite a shame, in my opinion. In fact, the iPad app costs $9.99 itself. On top of all of that, the Mac version alone is $49.99!
Yes, the app has a good design and I am all for third-party apps, but Fantastical 2 simply asks for too much money out of the consumers. Â For those that are just wanting to use it on their iPhone and maybe the Apple Watch, it’s okay and will get the job done. If you’re wanting the app on your iPhone, iPad and all of your other Apple devices, then no, I would not recommend it. It’s too much money for what you get out of it.
Overall, for the iPhone app, it’s going to get 2.5/4 stars because it does have some good qualities to it, but it still does have the faults like I mentioned earlier. The Apple Watch version is getting 2/4 stars since the design and complication for the app are good but the functionality is not as good and needs to work for older versions of the Apple Watch.
iPhone rating: 2.5/4 stars
Apple Watch rating: 2/4 stars
