Review: Easy Calendar – A name that says it all

Sometimes less is more; easy is almost always better; and simplicity reigns. This is so true of the powerful little app called Easy Calendar.

Let me be clear – I am a calendar lover. I have used desk calendars, wall calendars, Day Timers, Franklin Covey systems, Month-at-a-Glance, the 365 Daily Duct Tape daily calendars, and create-your-own-calendar calendars. You name it, I’ve probably tried it. So when I got the chance to carry a digital calendar that would sync with a desktop, I felt like I was in heaven. And I was pretty damn proud of it too. I just didn’t realize it was more complicated than it should have been.

When I came across a post by our friends at GearDiary mentioning Easy Calendar, I thought, “Hmm… that’s interesting.” When I went to their website and saw their video, I thought, “gee, I’d like to try that for a while.” After trying it for just a few minutes, I thought, “Holy Crap, I didn’t realize how limiting the native Calendar app is!”

I like a full month’s view in a calendar, yet seeing only a ‘dot’ to indicate an event did little to help (seriously, 20 dots in a month? Am I that important? NOT!). I despise the List viewing of events; I never use the Day view because I don’t have multiple small daily appointments. So when I saw a week’s view in Easy Calendar, I was a little disoriented until realizing I can see WHAT the events are IN a calendar ON my iPhone!

Now you may be thinking, “Big deal. There are other calendar apps that do that.” But where Easy Calendar reigns is that is complements the native Calendar app without replacing it. That means no settings to fidget with; no special entries required. Just a simple design idea that, according to the website,

To add an event using Easy Calendar,

• tap the day in the week view (1 tap)
• use the scroll wheel to enter the start time (default ending time is 1 hour later) or choose All-day
• enter the title
• tap Done (2 taps total)

• tap the existing event in the week’s view (1 tap)
• use the scroll wheel to change the start time
• modify the title
• tap Done (2 taps total)

Also according to Easy Calendar:

• tap the existing event in the week’s view (1 tap)
• tap the date field in the entry screen (2 tap)
• select a new date by swiping the week’s view to locate the correct week & tap the new day in the week view (3 taps)
• tap Done (4 taps total)

There is a feature that I think could be improved: I noticed that although I have four calendars to which I subscribe using Google (2 of which are my colleagues’), I only display two in the iPhone Calendar. Easy Calendar doesn’t recognize this and displays them all.

Regardless, in the future if I want to enter the iPhone’s native Calendar, I will first pass through something so much easier and more pleasant to use – Easy Calendar. It’s officially replaced the spot on the dock where Calendar used to live:

——-

Easy Calendar is currently available in the App Store for $3.99