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Fantastical Calendar App Expands to Windows

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Popular calendar app Fantastical is expanding beyond the Apple ecosystem for the first time, bringing the full Fantastical experience to Windows. Support for Windows has been a top-requested feature for quite some time, primarily from Apple users who have the need to use Windows for work, software availability, or other reasons, so Flexibits has spent the past three years building Fantastical for Windows from the ground up for a fully native experience.

fantastical-windows.jpg

While Apple's Calendar app has improved significantly in recent years, multi-award-winning Fantastical has remained popular as a third-party option due to its support for natural language parsing, the ability to manage tasks and reminders from Google Tasks, Microsoft 365, and Todoist, scheduling features like Openings that let you open up calendar time slots for others to book and Proposals that let organizers poll potential attendees to determine the best time for an event, glanceable weather information tied to event location, and more.


Fantastical for Windows arrives as part of Fantastical 4.0, which is available for free with limited features across Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro. A Flexibits Premium subscription priced at $6.99 per month or $56.99 per year (a 14-day free trial is available) is required to unlock all features, and the new Windows app is covered under that same subscription with no increase in pricing. Flexibits Premium for Families offers up to five family members full access to Fantastical across all platforms for $10.49 per month or $89.99 per year.

Also included in a Flexibits Premium subscription is full feature unlock for Cardhop, a Contacts app alternative that works across Apple's platforms with natural language parsing, widgets, Shortcuts support, simple contact card sharing, business card scanning, and more.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Flexibits. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Article Link: Fantastical Calendar App Expands to Windows
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/10/29/fantastical-windows/
GeoStructural said:
This is a $10.5 per month subscription… what am I missing here? Is there so much this app can do that is not already possible in the stock Calendar app or the plethora of free ones available? All of them sync across devices too.
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Natural languages easier to type in when creating an event or appointment and the widget so much better than apples I would not go back to the default calendar
 
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I am one of the idiots that pays yearly sub.
Though I am not using it 100%, I tried to get back to Mac OS Native calendar and couldn't.

Fantastical has a few things that I can't live without - natural language is one of them.

I don't fancy subs - I make fast purge of the useless ones, but this + DayOne, are 2 subs I keep since years and don't see myself parting soon.
 
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It’s a great app and I happily paid for it when it was $36/year. When they bumped the price I canceled. I miss some features, but for the subscription to make sense, you really need to exploit all the functionality like scheduling and bookings. I just used it as an excellent calendar, but it’s overpriced for just that.

If you can exploit the features then get it. It’s great software from a great developer.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
I assume this subscription is useful for some folks

I just can't imagine paying a subscription for a calendar App, but to each everyones own
Click to expand...
Almost every dev/company is slowly moving everything to the subscription model. I can see what but it's not for me unless it's so good I have to have that particular app.
Might try the free version for Windows though.
EDIT:
So it was apparently supposed to be available from Flexibits, OR, the Microsoft Store but in the space of about 10 mins it's changed to M$ Store only. I'll pass.
 
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I quit using Fantastical after Apple integrated iTasks with iCalendar. I was very happy because Fantastical is a pain in the butt.
 
I bought (bought!) Fantastical a decade ago and have been a faithful user ever since, but lately it's become more of a headache. Widgets not updating, dark/light theme not changing with the system, all kinds of weird problems in the interface.

I'm fortunately grandfathered into some Premium features (again, I bought the app as a one time purchase! Imagine that!) so I haven't been bled by the awful subscription model they've fallen for, but even so I've started shifting back to Apple's built-in calendar. It's not as power user friendly but at this stage of my life all I need is "just works".
 
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I’ve been using this business app for managing my time, and while it’s quite useful, I still think the subscription fee is a bit steep for what it provides.

If anyone has of any other natural language calendar or scheduling apps that are similar, please let me know. I really miss the days when apps were one-time fees, even if they were a bit pricey.
 
It's not so crazy to pay for a calendar app. If you had a paper calendar, you have to buy a new one every year.

The price is a bit steep though considering a $60/year calendar budget would get you a damn fine calendar.

I subscribed for a while too but it's just not better enough than the stock app for that kind of money. Now that Reminders are integrated with Calendars that's all I need.
 
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Tried Fantastical, but ultimately was turned off by the software rental model. I did appreciate the polish it has, but the power user calendar app I settled on is BusyCal. It's the only one I've found that lets you really customize the view. I have mine set up at work to show several weeks (excluding weekends) in Week View. There are great filters that let you quickly see a relevant set of calendars together, even customizing the view for that filter. It doesn't quite have the UI polish that Fantastical has, but I appreciate the fact that it's a purchase and not a rental.
 
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ignatius345 said:
Tried Fantastical, but ultimately was turned off by the software rental model. I did appreciate the polish it has, but the power user calendar app I settled on is BusyCal. It's the only one I've found that lets you really customize the view. I have mine set up at work to show several weeks (excluding weekends) in Week View. There are great filters that let you quickly see a relevant set of calendars together, even customizing the view for that filter. It doesn't quite have the UI polish that Fantastical has, but I appreciate the fact that it's a purchase and not a rental.
Click to expand...
Have both and I like different things from each app.
 
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You guys realize there are a ton of business related apps out there that are far more expensive than $60/year, right? If you don't have a need for it obviously any price is too much, but if you do Fantastical is great. I personally wouldn't want to go back to the regular Calendar app because the input alone would slow me down.

Also, you can get it for 20% off pretty regularly and the subscription includes CardHop, which is also quite useful if you deal with your contacts a lot.
 
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GeoStructural said:
This is a $10.5 per month subscription… what am I missing here? Is there so much this app can do that is not already possible in the stock Calendar app or the plethora of free ones available? All of them sync across devices too.
Click to expand...

There are three reasons I've stuck with Fantastical:

1. The natural language parsing for event creation is THE way to go vs populating countless fields in your typical calendar app.

2. The menubar functionality is so good that I almost never have to launch the full app

3. It automatically integrates with all of my calendars on the Mac

That said, I don't pay the subscription myself. I use the basic version + I have some added grandfathered features that I received for purchasing Fantastical 2 (or 3 or whatever the version number was at the time)
 
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Glad they’ve finally got this out… between this and Spark, I can easily hop between MacOS and Windows and still use the same core apps I need! Natural language entry is an absolute godsend really.

I had a few months without this, and realised how much it just gets out of the way and does what it needs to and what I want it to do, without any friction. Windows was sorely lacking until they’ve ported it.

Disclosure: I’ve been a beta tester for this release, and have submitted quite a few issues and suggestions, and the devs have been fantastic(al)! (Sorry, couldn’t resist). Quick to respond and extremely helpful in resolving any issues. Seriously though, it’s an essential app for me.
 
Since the app needs a paid subscription, i moved away from it to a single buy app "calendar 366"
 
The problem with this is Outlook and who is the market for this application? All those people use macOS.
 
For years I was a heavy Fantastical user, even payed the subscription for 1 year when they started the subscription model and then in 2023 decided to cancel and stop using it because I realized it was so much money and moved to the regular calendar.
 
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