Holitapp US Makes Keeping Track Of American Holidays Easy
Holitapp US ($0.99) by Tapp3 Media is an app to help you keep track of American holidays.
Do you ever find yourself wondering when the next time you'll get a nice, long weekend is? Ever realize that it's awfully quiet outside because it's a holiday that you didn't even remember or know about? With Holitapp US, those days can be over!
The first thing you'll notice about Holitapp is the beautifully crafted interface. I found that the dark gray and blue go well together, and everything looks pixel-icious.
Holitapp will ask you for your location first, because in some states, there will be holidays that are specific to that state and no other. I don't believe I live in such a state, so I don't see any "state-specific" holidays in my app.
Once you get the location set up, it's time to go into the holiday listing. I love this part about the app in particular, because to me, it looks amazing. You will see dates on the left in blue tabs, and the corresponding holiday to the right in an off-white color. There are silver "rings" in the middle that look like they're holding both sides together. The entire thing resembles one of those fancy planners that you can buy in the store, which is a nice touch.
Along with the holiday that the date corresponds to, you'll see what day of the week the holiday falls on underneath the name. Tapping on any holiday will result in a countdown view, which will track the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the day. There will be options to share a holiday by Facebook or Twitter, Star it, or set an alert (by default, one week and one day before the holiday).
The best thing about Holitapp is that you are able to add in your own "holidays" as well. I found some days missing, like Halloween (it's still technically a holiday), so I added that in, along with other dates, like birthdays and anniversaries. When you're adding a new date, you can have an alert to go with it and even include a description of the day.
In the Holiday List, dates that you've added in yourself will appear darker than the preset dates. These items will also have a star, along with any other holidays that you've added to your favorites. These days can be filtered by tapping on that star button at the top of the app. To go back to the main Holiday List, you just tap it again.
I like Holitapp US, but it's also missing a few things that I hope to see in the future. A big gripe is that I can't edit a day I entered in myself. I would have to delete it and enter it again. This can be annoying if I make a typo (thanks, iPhone autocorrect) or want to add a description of it later. There is only a Delete button, which I think should be Edit, and then have an option to delete in the editing view.
You can only see the holidays for the current year, which would make planning stuff for next year's holidays impossible with this app. Perhaps offering users a way to swipe to the next or previous years would be helpful. Because of this caveat, I'm not sure if the dates I enter (anniversary, birthdays) will be carried over to next year, because there isn't any indication of it doing so, from what I've seen.
Holitapp US is a beautiful app that makes keeping track of the year's holidays easy. But there still needs to be some work done with the functionality to make this app the best there is.
If you just want a way to keep track of the holidays, then pick this up for a dollar. If you want more functionality, then I'd suggest holding off for now, but keep this app on your watch list.
If you're Canadian, there is the original Holitapp available in the App Store. Unfortunately, there aren't any versions for other countries yet.
