QuickAdvice: Fast Calendars + Helvetica = calvetica

calvetica by Nimble Studio ($2.99) is probably the fastest calendar you'll ever come across on the iPhone. What you get is what appears to be a simple red and gray themed calendar, using Helvetica as the font of choice (and let's face it, Helvetica just beautiful, elegant, and simple). But this surprisingly simple looking calendar also has one of the most gorgeous interfaces I've ever seen, as well as making your life a whole lot easier. The main philosophy behind Calvetica is that the other GTD apps such as OmniFocus, Things, Day Planners, etc., all have four fatal flaws. These are:

1. They require management 2. They require you to spend time to review what's there 3. They're all too slow 4. They all have bloat - Nimble Design Blog

What Calvetica does is bring you a simple calendar that makes it super fast to squeeze in a new event. In fact, adding a new event literally only takes two taps, maybe one extra if you need a different time other than an even hour. Go to your event time, tap it, and enter the event title. Hit Done, and you're literally done. That's all there is to it. If you need an hour plus 15, 30, or 45 minutes, the trick is to tap over the hour and then you can select the minutes you need. Then proceed to add the event in two taps. It also syncs with your default Calendar app on the iPhone, so if you have it set up to sync with MobileMe or Google Calendars or whatever else, everything you do in Calvetica will be synced accordingly. If you long tap an event, you will be given options to move the event or view/edit details. Editing the event details will allow you to change the event title, add any necessary notes, see what calendar it's being synced with (using MobileMe or Google Calendars, etc, it will be the default calendar), as well as an option to make it a recurring event. I was a bit surprised that there isn't a way to edit how long an event lasts, because when viewed back in the regular Calendar app, it only appears to last for one hour. Hopefully there will be a way to edit how long an event is in a future update. Another problem I encountered was not being able to find a way if you can change the calendar that the event will go on (if you have multiple calendars on your device), so this was a bit irksome, and hopefully adressed in future updates. If you go back to the day's listing of events, you can add an alarm to help notify you of the task at hand. You can select from up to 12 different times of when the notification will occur, starting at 5 minutes before the event all the way up to one month beforehand. If you have multiple notifications, you can view them all at once by simply going back to the main calendar page and viewing 'Notifications' at the bottom, which will also have a little badge of how many there are (also will appear on the app icon). Hitting 'Today' will take you to today's events, starting with the current time so you can see what lies ahead of you on the road of life. There isn't much in terms of settings for Calvetica, besides the one in the main device Settings that lets you configure what the default alarm is (30 minutes). It surely is sticking to the simple and fast setting. Calvetica is great for those last minute events that you get spontaneously, you know, the ones that you can't really plan for? Life is full of those, and Calvetica is now here to help you sort those out and get them done in a simple and efficient way. It's also fast and gorgeous looking. Did I mention that it uses Helvetica? That should be reason enough to go out and get this app. Right? I thought so. [gallery columns="4"]

Mentioned apps

Related articles