TouchBase Calendar Is Great For Quickly Contacting Others
TouchBase Calendar: 1-Touch SMS, Calling & Maps for your Calendar ($0.99) by Tomo is a “smart calendar” for your iPhone.
There is no shortage of calendar apps for your iPhone, but how about one that stands out? That’s what you get with TouchBase, which caters more to letting friends and family know your whereabouts for a scheduled event, rather than just being another calendar.
TouchBase Calendar will pull in your calendar data from the default Calendar app. So if you don’t have that set up, you’ll want to do that. Unfortunately, there is no other option of just logging in to something like Google Calendar from the app – all the data is linked with the default Calendar. Maybe in the future, a separate log in option can be added.
By default, TouchBase will show you the next event on your calendar. The event detail screen will show you the time until the event, where it is, and any other attendees. However, the real usefulness of TouchBase is when there are actually other people you’re meeting at an event.
There are five different tabs underneath the original event details: SMS, Call, Email, Details, and Map. For the first three, you can easily send a message to other attendees, as long as you have their contact information saved on your device. Details will bring up more information, such as description, a guest list, and where. The Map option will list the location of the event as well as the guests that are attending.
Additionally, there are more options to an event besides those five mentioned. You can confirm the place and time of an event, or tell others that you are there early. If you’re running late, you can also postpone a meeting by five, 10, or 20+ minutes. There is also the option to compose a freeform message to anyone, right from the app.
Navigating between events can be done by swiping left and right on the event detail screen, or by going back to the list of days. Events can also be edited from TouchBase, saving the convenience of going to the default Calendar to change anything.
From the list of days, users can scroll through all of their events and even jump back to “Today.” The option to add new events is here as well, with the data entry just like it is in the default Calendar. “What’s Next” will immediately take you to the next event on your schedule.
I found TouchBase Calendar to be a useful tool if you are often meeting with others. It’s a fast and efficient way of touching base with others regarding your scheduled event. However, I found a few small issues.
I use Google Exchange for my main calendars (about three), but TouchBase was only pulling in data from one calendar of these. I’m not sure why though, as I’ve never had issues before with other calendar apps.
Another problem I encountered was when I was creating a new event from TouchBase. After the new event was entered, the list of days appeared to be blank. Only after I exit the app and close it fully, then reopen it, was I able to get my list of events back. Not sure what the problem was with that, but I hope that it is corrected in an update.
Besides those small problems, TouchBase Calendar is a fairly useful tool for collaborating with others. If this is something you do frequently, then give TouchBase Calendar a look.
