Continuing our rubric of the most useful applications for iPhone and iPad, I decided to take a review today ... a calendar. Because, whatever one may say, this is certainly something that everyone uses. And since many are unhappy with the pre-installed calendar on the iPhone, I decided to look for some more convenient option, so to speak, 2 in 1: both a calendar and a task manager at the same time.

Actually, it didn't take long to find it. Because so many laudatory reviews, like Fantastical, is unlikely to have collected at least one other calendar. It's no joke, when its second version was launched for sale, it broke into first place (and held it for a long time) in the top paid programs in the American App Store. Do you know who she threw off the podium of leaders? Yes, yes, the Angry Birds Star Wars II themselves. 🙂 . But seriously, of course, not this fact made me write about Fantastical today. And the one that experts and users, without saying a word, call this application the most beautiful and convenient calendar and organizer for the iPhone of all.

Let's see why Fantastical deserved such flattering epithets.

one). Fantastical integrates with all calendars and “reminders” installed on your smartphone, so after installing the application, you do not have to suffer and re-enter all your meetings and events into the program - everything will automatically be placed on the desired dates.

2). Perhaps the main thing that distinguishes Fantastical from a regular calendar is that it combines 2 functions at once - you can view and manage events directly from the calendar, as well as from Reminders. Hooray, hooray and hooray, there is no more need to "jump" between two programs at the same time. In Fantastical, "events" and reminders are conveniently combined into one list. But the biggest and most delicious "bun" is the ability of the application to recognize the time and date in the text. Actually, for this very function it was called a "smart calendar". Just imagine how much time it saves: when creating an event or a reminder, you no longer need to manually fill in 10 fields. You can simply write: "Meet Petya tomorrow at noon." And Fantastical will find the date and time in this phrase and put it in the calendar. This miracle also works for recurring events. For example, "training in the gym every Wednesday at 17.00." And voila - every Wednesday of the month there will be a fitness reminder. The application also supports word forms such as "remind me at 4 o'clock" and "reminder one hour before". In addition, the program can read not only text and time, but also the type of task: it can be a “to-do list”, “reminder”, “event” and so on.

With Fantastical, creating a to-do list takes seconds.
The laziest do not even need to write anything - just dictate, and the application will understand itself

The application is also equipped with the function of intelligent recognition of live speech. But there is no support for the Russian language in it. But it’s good that in order to create an “event” or “reminder” it is not necessary to speak English at the upper intermediate level 🙂. Knowing a couple of phrases to create voice commands from the category "lunch tomorrow at 12 pm" will be enough.

3). The app is really very easy to use. I would say that the developers have thought of Fantastical's user interface very well. The task of simultaneously displaying events for a day or a week / month is simply brilliantly solved. The user does not need to "poke" on all the dates of the calendar to get a detailed layout. In Fantastical, the screen is divided into 2 parts: at the top - calendar numbers with events and reminders, and at the bottom of the display - a list of all the tasks for the coming days. The days of the month are represented as an endless horizontal scroll bar. To switch to the display of the calendar month, just drag the days “down”, the same action works in the opposite direction. Events in the "monthly" form are marked with small circles, the color of which means the category - family, work, etc. Another interesting solution is that the “date feed” does not display all the days of the month, but only those for which you have something planned - you can easily view all important dates, ignoring the “empty days”. However, if someone prefers to see the calendar in its entirety, and not in a “truncated” form, then the “Show All Empty Days” option is provided in the program settings. In the settings, you can also choose a color "theme" (light or dark), specify the interval of standard mentions, and much more.

Other important "usefulness" awaits users in the specific events section. For example, a map, if the event is tied to a specific address. By the "reminder" itself, you can set up "geofencing" - that is, the reminder will work not at a certain time, but at the moment when you find yourself in the right place. In my opinion, a very convenient feature, given our crazy pace of life, traffic jams and more. The time of arrival at a given point may be broken, but everything is accurate with the place. I came to the store - here's a list of products for you, as an option.

In addition, Fantastical 2 allows you to quickly call, send an e-mail or message to the participants of the event scheduled on the calendar. There is also a “Birthday” option: you can “tap” on “birthday”, see contact information and send a birthday greeting.

four). Fantastical has a handy search engine. This is useful for those who like to plan everything and everything, and then get confused in their own plans. You can search for events by name, location, invitations, select a combination of several search items.

To be honest, it's hard for me to think of what else one could want from a simple calendar. Well, except to dream that such a charm would also be free. But in this case, I would probably agree that Fantastical 2 is worth the money. To date, the App Store offers the program for 299 rubles. But you can try to catch it on sale. If my memory serves me right, there were discounts on this calendar on Black Friday as well.

Your iPhone is your assistant and savior in a variety of situations. Those who are in the “ecosystem” will understand. I dug up a unique application for iOS in the App Store - which complements the OS with a chic planning tool - an organizer (or a diary, as you like) LeaderTask!

What can LeaderTask do?

Among all similar organizer apps for iPhone in App Store there is no such product that would provide an unlimited number of possibilities on a free basis. And LeaderTask is more than capable of this:

1. Make huge to-do lists of work and personal tasks mixed up.
2. Thanks to labels and colors, you will not get confused either in the priority of tasks, or in their “belonging” to one of the spheres of life.
3. Turn your dreams into goals and then make them come true with the help of LeaderTask projects. It's so easy - step by step to paint the path to achieve your dreams!
4. Use unique time management tools: Gantt Chart , Kanban board , GTD Assistant etc.
5. Work from anywhere and control your company right on the screen of your iPhone organizer!
6. Make lists of your employees, distribute orders and control their execution.
7. Keep all documents and files in one place - in one project, in one task.
8. All data is stored in the cloud! Even more secure than iCloud.

And this is only a small part of LeaderTask options. Take your iPhone in hand and download the LeaderTask diary right now! You can always display on the chart what things await you on the selected day - making an appointment is even more convenient and easier than usual.

Are you forgetful? Will fix it!

Thanks to the unique reminder system in LeaderTask you can never forget about anything important - the application will send you a reminder of the upcoming business exactly as many minutes before the start as you set yourself. With the help of the service you can achieve more in less time!

And what is the basis of a successful person? Of course, planning. Let's talk about this aspect of time management now.

Planning in LeaderTask

With the LeaderTask diary on iPhone, you can always display all your tasks for the coming day. But besides, you can plan the day, week, month and even years ahead!

Enter all tasks in “ Unsorted”, and then distribute them according to the corresponding dates. When planning, it is important to consider several rules:

1. No more than 1 important task per day!
2. The duration of each task should not exceed 1 hour. If it still exceeds, then break this task into subtasks.

Design and interface LeaderTask for 2018

Speaking about the application for the "apple", it would be foolish not to mention the design. And here is another praise for the developers - the software is made in the best traditions of Apple: minimalistic, beautiful and catchy.

The same can be said about the interface. With great potential LeaderTask, each action is performed literally in two taps - so convenient and simple that he himself has already transferred all the cases from the built-in iOS calendar to LeaderTask.

Summing up, I would like to note: I tried a lot of organizers for iPhone, but LeaderTask really “sunk” into my soul. Mainly because of the synchronization and the appearance of my to-do list on my work computer, on my iPad and on my home Mac.

LeaderTask is implemented on such platforms from Cupertino as iOS, MacOS X, watchOS. In addition, you can download the program for other software. For example, for the flagship Windows or a great Android program. Or even work in a browser, because quite recently developers have introduced a web version of the service!

Try this very worthy product! The cost of a paid license is much lower than the market average, but you don’t need to buy anything right away - there is an excellent free version for trial and 7-day full trial.

Surprisingly, in the AppStore (app store for iOS) there are practically no high-quality tools for maintaining full-fledged daily notes. Theoretically - yes, but practically - alas. That is, the programs themselves are present, but it is inconvenient to work with them for various reasons. Either the graphics are annoying, then there is no functionality, then the stability is not encouraging. Of course, it is difficult to find an ideal in general, and not only in the AppStore, but sometimes something close to it comes across, just close, and in a very approximate approximation. But this “something” is still better than outright nonsense, therefore, for lack of a better one, we choose it.

I wrote such a long and confusing introduction solely in order to take and express one simple thought right now. An ideal (yes, even just a good one) diary for iPad does not exist. I anticipate a torrent of angry objections, so I modestly add "in my opinion." And now the phrase will sound like this: “In my opinion, there is no ideal (and even just good) diary for iOS.” Here. Does not exist. I do not find the reasons and explanations for such a mysterious phenomenon, so I just take it for granted, and I strongly recommend that you do it. Solely in order to make it easier to perceive this particular review of this particular application Daily Notes.

The app only works on the iPad (in the sense that it doesn't work on the iPhone/iPod Touch), costs quite a lot in the AppStore, $4.99, and in my memory survived only one single major update, after which it became officially known as Daily Notes +ToDo. What does this “there” have to do with it, we will talk a little later, but for now a little about the main functionality. So, the appearance of the application resembles the spread of an expensive leather diary, for which, in my opinion, this appearance should be given if not “unsuccessful”, then “ud” for sure. I don't understand the tendency to draw interfaces for the iPad in the spirit of real notebooks, diaries, etc.

It’s like this: if the skin is real, then it’s real, which you can touch and, sorry, smell. Then it's good and cool. And when it is drawn, even if it is the skin of a deep-sea midnight iguana, it is not impressive at all. And annoying. Show your imagination, gentlemen, developers, come up with something interesting and in the spirit of an electronic device, which is a tablet! It is a pity, but the creators of the Daily Notes did not show such a fantasy. As a result, we have a "leather" interface", on the left side of the screen we have a calendar (you can go to any day of your choice), on the right - leaflets for notes. That's also funny.

Why are these leaves such an idiotic color (there are actually several colors to choose from, but all as one is quite idiotic)? Do you like to write notes on soft green pages? How about soft pink? Or pale blue? Well, for the last two options, I can still imagine, so to speak, the target audience, but for the rest, not so much. It's weird, but we have to move on. So, we stopped at the pages for records. For each day, you can keep an unlimited number of entries, each will be located on one page, and these pages can be scrolled back and forth using the arrows at the bottom of the screen. It is strange that the application does not implement the method of paging, which is familiar to other software products, by swiping or clicking on the lower right corner of the page. Strange, but not critical.

We figured out the pages, let's move on to the actual notes. To create a note, click on the appropriate area of ​​the page (with the inscription Title) and enter the name of the note. You can do without a name, in principle. To enter the text of the note, move to the main field of the page and write whatever your heart desires.

If just text is not enough for you, you can add a photo or picture from the tablet's photo gallery to the note, for this you need to poke into the icon with the image of a picture with a rope at the bottom of the screen. Pictures are not added to the body of the note, but to a separate field at the bottom, where they are displayed as preview icons.

Move on. In the application, you can create various notebooks, they are displayed on the screen as tabs. Clicked on the tab - went to the corresponding notebook. Simple and convenient. Adding tabs is carried out in the application settings, to enter them you need to click on the gear icon in the upper right corner of the screen. Here you can choose one of the idiotic colors for the pages in each individual notebook, as well as the type and size of the font, and other distinctive features.

Here you can also set up synchronization with the Dropbox service, turn on / off the display of "Tasks" (here it is, the same ToDo), password request mode and some other little things.

Now about "Tasks" or ToDo. When any day is displayed on the screen (it doesn’t matter if there are notes for this day or not), you can click on the tab on the left with the inscription “Tasks” and add yourself a task with a reminder. For any day and any hour. Well, for example, you are looking through notes from a week ago, and suddenly you remembered that you didn’t do something so important there. We pull the tab, create a task, indicate the deadline for its completion, as well as the date and time of a reminder of it - oops, you're done. Such a reminder for the iPad will always come in handy. The only problem is that this function is not suitable for maintaining a full list of tasks, and if you already use some kind of advanced task manager, then now you will use two - one advanced, and the second in the Daily Notes application. Wouldn't get confused.

About security. The creators of the application have provided the ability to password-protect the entrance to the program, but the implementation of the login process itself causes a smile, and an unkind one at that. If you set the password to enter the program, then when you start the application, a rather large digital block appears on the screen, poking into which you enter a four-digit password with your finger.

The joke here is that if someone at the time of entering is standing close to you, then seeing which buttons you are pressing will not be a problem for him at all. Do you know why? But because the location of the buttons on this digital block exactly matches that on the keyboards of ordinary mobile phones, with which we all more or less closely communicated in our lives. It is enough to follow out of the corner of your eye to which places in the digital block the finger of the person entering the password is moving - and all the secrecy has gone to dust. Verified by repeated experiments. I can advise the developers to make this number block a little smaller and paler, and also make the arrangement of numbers on it change every time the application is launched.

Ufff .. What else would you like to tell. Probably, there is nothing more, and that's enough for today in general. Ah, well, how! And about the conclusions, I forgot! The conclusions are simple. For all its shortcomings, the Daily Notes seems to be the one and only diary for iPad suitable for everyday work. The rest are worse. So there is no alternative. Therefore, I recommend. So what to do…

Reading 3 min.

Keep notes "in the margins", save unexpected ideas and make to-do lists on the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, developers from Apple have long been offering either in the "Notes" section, which provides blank sheets for keeping records, or in "Reminders", crossed with calendar and events.

Both options cope with the accumulation of information in no time - and even without too much fuss. But sometimes there is a lack of experimentation and chaos. Therefore, it's time to explore the offers available in the App Store and choose alternative tools suitable for saving ideas and building tasks:

Personal diary

Curiously designed virtual booklet designed to collect emerging thoughts and ideas, save songs and poems, add images and photos. You should not perceive the "Personal Diary" as some kind of diary, where the next tasks for the day or week fit in.

Quite the opposite - the developers suggest looking into the booklet two or three times a day, choosing the current mood with emoticons, and then - superficially, or as detailed as possible, describe the events that have occurred, the problems that have arisen and the controversial situations.

Paper

The diary is something between a book for saving sketches and a test of a virtual pen, and a working environment where any experiments with text, forms and ideas are available. Application developers from FiftyThree offer to open the main menu, and then click on the plus sign - a button that generates a new page.

How to proceed further depends on each participant. Someone will want to immediately fill a snow-white sheet with text, someone - with diagrams and tables, images and short sketches about life. You can work with Paper in any direction and in any way you like.

Well, if you like some of the created things, it is easy to combine the painted or scribbled sheets into a diary, arrange them beautifully and pass them on to friends - let them get acquainted!

Microsoft OneNote

A freely distributed part of Microsoft's office suite designed to record thoughts, discoveries, and deeds. As in the case of Paper, you can interact with OneNote using separate pages and blocks containing useful information. And yet - here you can draw, plan parties and in a cooperative mode to conduct projects with friends and relatives, opening access to data to everyone.

However, the main idea of ​​Microsoft OneNote is not even in the handling of digital sheets or access, but in synchronization. Texts, figures, tables and separate sections with formulas and calculations borrowed from Excel are transferred from iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to a computer and vice versa in no time. Never before has working with documents been so easy!

Evernote

A multifunctional diary that can organize the added information and in no time transfer the added music, images, videos and individual web pages offline for work without access to the network.

Access to the Evernote application is free, but you will have to pay for additional functionality.

The shortcomings of the diary include a strange technical implementation - crashes, errors in the built-in dictionary, missing spell check - those things that community members asked to fix a couple of years ago are still in place!

Trello

An iPhone tool that has absorbed the best ideas and tools inherent in time management. It's easy to make to-do lists for the next hour, week, month, and decade.

It is convenient to close completed tasks and mark with notifications those things that no one has figured out so far, and also, as in the case of Evernote, you can save any multimedia and use it at your favorite moment.

The Things task organizer, which is one of the most expensive and popular in the App Store, dropped its price to zero in honor of Thanksgiving Day. This holiday is celebrated only in the US and Canada, however, the discount is available in all regions of the App Store and not taking advantage of it means missing out on a great chance to save $20.

Things is an organizer that differs from its competitors primarily in its ease of use. The application does not have dozens of extra menus and sections that the user would have to change after adding each new task. At the same time, the functionality of Things is not inferior to other organizers due to a perfectly designed interface.

The secret to the success of Things is not only the talent of the developers, but also the level of support. Updates for the application have been released traditionally often, for several years now. The creators monitor user feedback, trying to bring the most popular requests to life as quickly as possible.

Despite all its advantages, Things often scared off users with its price. Not everyone is ready to pay $20 for an organizer, even if it is almost perfect. All the more valuable today's discount - you can download Things for free, and given that there are no in-app purchases, nothing can overshadow the use of the organizer in the future.

The iPhone and iPad versions of Things will be free to download until November 28, after which the $20 app price will return to its place.