Flexibits Launches Cardhop 2.0 Contacts Management App, Now Included With Fantastical Premium Subscription

[randolorian]

Except that Spark has horrible privacy practices (read the TOS) and basically sells all your information gathered out of your email.

Ever wonder why Amazon no longer includes an itemized list of your order when it sends email receipts via email?

 

[umbilical]

I like those apps but I'm in ProtonMail.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I know many here despise how Flexibits handled the transition to subscription but, in my opinion, their app does what Apple has failed to do all these years and that is have a great calendar app.

I like that I can easily make calendar appointments on my watch via natural speech. Try that with Apple's calendar and it is a jumbled mess.

I loaded the cardhop a good while back and never saw that it served a practical purpose for me. I appreciate the added benefit to the subscription model, even though I probably won't make use of it.

 

[Canyda]

I think apple prefers to keep their core apps as simple as possible and add maybe one of the power use features every couple of years as tent pole feature. Just like how Mail still lacks so many of the features third party apps have had for countless years.

I was literally about to post the same thing in this thread, so - yeah, you nailed it.

Ironic, then, that a company that allows developers to make BETTER APPS THAN THE PRE-INSTALLED APPLE APPS gets so much grief for being a monopoly, etc.

 

[Jakimo]

Love https://www.yourtempo.co/ for email 🙂

 

[nutmac]

I got CardHop when John Gruber sang its praises some years back. Never could really understand what was so great or useful about it though.

Can someone enlighten me?

Both Fantastical and Cardhop leverage 3 strengths: (1) UI design (subjective but many find them to be superior to Apple's), (2) natural language processing, and (3) fixes smaller but significant little quirks from Apple's built-in apps.

My reasons for preferring Cardhop over Contacts:

• On the iOS, Contacts app is just the Contacts tab from the Phone app, lacking Favorites and Recents tabs. You might as well just delete it and use Phones app as the contact management app (just be careful not to tap outside the "i" info button as that would trigger outbound call
• On the macOS, Contacts app is equally limited, no Favorites and Recents.
• Cardhop shows the portrait image next to each contact.
• Birthday tab.
• Multiple business cards with QR code for easy sharing.
• Widgets
• Menu bar macOS

 

[Drag'nGT]

Oh look, another subscription model. 🙄

 

[indros]

I also want to speak in favor of Fantastical premium. It is a lot to spend for a calendar, but as someone who is scheduling meetings for work all day on a Mac or iOS, the natural language parsing is invaluable. I also like their calendar "sets" that allows me to use different calendars for different settings or times of day, or to include specific other staff calendars that I work with. I've also enjoyed Cardhop as a far superior alternative to the MacOS contacts app.

 

[LogicalApex]

I know many here despise how Flexibits handled the transition to subscription but, in my opinion, their app does what Apple has failed to do all these years and that is have a great calendar app.

I like that I can easily make calendar appointments on my watch via natural speech. Try that with Apple's calendar and it is a jumbled mess.

I loaded the cardhop a good while back and never saw that it served a practical purpose for me. I appreciate the added benefit to the subscription model, even though I probably won't make use of it.

I am still very annoyed by how they handled that transition for sure…

But even outside of that. A family subscription to cover me and my wife would be $65 a year for a calendar app (and now a contacts app). CardHop has only had a handful of updates since it was released (I own it prior to today’s release) as it makes sense… What can you add to a Contacts app regularly? It is rolled into the sub to give it more value, but for people who already own it there is no real value add.

The $65/y is hard to swallow too when my Calendar & Contacts are all stored on my self-hosted email server...

I too like their natural language processing and a few other features, but that’s why I purchased the apps in the past...

What have they added to justify the high recurring price?

 

[Apple_Robert]

I am still very annoyed by how they handled that transition for sure…

But even outside of that. A family subscription to cover me and my wife would be $65 a year for a calendar app (and now a contacts app). CardHop has only had a handful of updates since it was released (I own it prior to today’s release) as it makes sense… What can you add to a Contacts app regularly? It is rolled into the sub to give it more value, but for people who already own it there is no real value add.

The $65/y is hard to swallow too when my Calendar & Contacts are all stored on my self-hosted email server...

I too like their natural language processing and a few other features, but that’s why I purchased the apps in the past...

What have they added to justify the high recurring price?

There have been improvements to the app on a regular basis. New features have been added but, from what I have seen, they have been geared towards the office / team conference environment. I haven't really seen anything for individuals I could make use of.

I agree with you. $65 a year does seem like a lot for two people. Is the app making a real difference in you and your wife's daily planning life? Is it making things noticeably easier and quicker? If it does but, you don't like the price tag, take a look at Calendar 366. It is a very good alternative especially if you have an Apple Watch.

Unless something changes, I may not sign up again when my year is up, unless I get it on sale, which has happened before. $40 a year isn't much but, I don't make a huge amount of calendar appointments on a regular basis.

 

[drumcat]

Except that Spark has horrible privacy practices (read the TOS) and basically sells all your information gathered out of your email.

And you have to give them your password (!)

 

[Abazigal]

For me, I used Cardhop for one very specific feature.

On my iPad and iPhone, I can't to get my google group contacts to sync to the gmail app. So I instead created those groups in Cardhop, then use it to compose emails to those groups of people when I want to.

On my Mac, I like that Fantastical and Cardhop have menu-bar shortcuts, which allow me to quickly access them without having to launch the respective apps first. Does this make them worth their annual subscription fee? I don't know, but at this point, I want things to work more than I want them to be cheap, and I guess I am a subscriber for another year at least.

 

[wanha]

Both Fantastical and Cardhop leverage 3 strengths: (1) UI design (subjective but many find them to be superior to Apple's), (2) natural language processing, and (3) fixes smaller but significant little quirks from Apple's built-in apps.

My reasons for preferring Cardhop over Contacts:

• On the iOS, Contacts app is just the Contacts tab from the Phone app, lacking Favorites and Recents tabs. You might as well just delete it and use Phones app as the contact management app (just be careful not to tap outside the "i" info button as that would trigger outbound call
• On the macOS, Contacts app is equally limited, no Favorites and Recents.
• Cardhop shows the portrait image next to each contact.
• Birthday tab.
• Multiple business cards with QR code for easy sharing.
• Widgets
• Menu bar macOS

Thanks for this, I'm starting to see the point of CardHop.

I've long been a fan of Fantastical, but never realized until your comment that there's also CardHop for MacOS.

Think I may need to check it out.

Thanks, brother.

 

[wanha]

I'm in the same boat. I liked it and sang its praises for a while, but eventually ended up reaching for Contacts more often than not. I don't even think I have it installed any more, despite buying it back in the day.

Likewise, I don't "get" Fantastical. I owned and liked Version 1, but was disappointed by both the new look and subscription pricing when it moved to version 2 (then 3), so moved on. I've since found I could get all the same functionality of the old version (which is all I ever wanted) for a one-time $15 fee from Calendar 366, which I now use religiously.

Chatology, also from Flexibits, was a godsend for a while as it provided a band-aid for sudden shortcomings in Messages, but Apple seems to have eliminated the need for it in recent MacOS updates.

Thanks for adding these. I'm actually a big fan of Fantastical (the free version with its natural language parsing works great for me), but CardHop has never made much sense.

I only just realized CardHop is also for MacOS. It might make more sense there than on iOS.

Appreciate your perspective!

 

[Bazza1]

I have both Fantastical and Cardhop on my iPhone, but there was no way I could justify the cost of Fantastical on my Mac - not as an one-off purchase, and certainly not as a subscription. Adding Cardhop for 'free' doesn't change my view on that.

I suppose, invariably, they will add email, in an effort to challenge Outlook - a product that has always had more hype than it deserves, and which has always been tied to an expensive bundle and, more recently, a subscription model for the app on 'real' computers. But that still doesn't mean a 'Premium' price should be paid for these Flexibits products.

 

[wanha]

I have both Fantastical and Cardhop on my iPhone, but there was no way I could justify the cost of Fantastical on my Mac - not as an one-off purchase, and certainly not as a subscription. Adding Cardhop for 'free' doesn't change my view on that.

I suppose, invariably, they will add email, in an effort to challenge Outlook - a product that has always had more hype than it deserves, and which has always been tied to an expensive bundle and, more recently, a subscription model for the app on 'real' computers. But that still doesn't mean a 'Premium' price should be paid for these Flexibits products.

I get what you're saying - subscriptions really do add up and it's hard to justify paying a monthly subscription for something as basic as a contact app that requires very little heavy lifting behind the scenes.

That said, I find both fantastical and Cardhop relatively useless on the iPhone. On the Mac, I see a lot more value in them, but not sure I'd ever consider paying $40/year for them. That just seems like a lot for what is mainly a slick UI.

 

[jagooch]

I came here searching for details on CardHop , which was recommended in the MPU forums. It sounded good, but requiring a subscription killed it. I recently went on a subscription cancellation spree, and am saving a lot of $$$ every month as a result.

I'm definitely not going back to having a subscription for every piece of software I use.