No Cars Here: Toyota Releases Calendar App
by Lenny Liang
November 11, 2011
Toyota Motor Corporation is best known for making cars. What some people may not know is that Toyota is also involved in a number of non-automotive endeavors, such as: education, robotics, and biotechnology. Recently, Toyota's reach has also expanded into the area of making calendars.
TOYOTA Better Is Never Enough Calendar is a stand-alone calendar app for the iPhone. Why has Toyota made a calendar app? As described on its iTunes page:
Better is Never Enough. That’s the Toyota approach when it comes to making cars. It's a message about commitment; a statement that being the best means never being satisfied, while always aiming to be better. Now Toyota has applied that philosophy to a Toyota Calendar App for your smartphone.Like the default Apple Calendar app, Toyota's calendar can show events and appointments in daily, monthly, or list views. It can also show the calendar in three, five, and seven day increments. The most unique feature of the app is the inclusion of a slider, which allows the user to quickly switch between different views (not including the list view). The calendar also incorporates an in-app task list and can sync with Google Calendar. So is Toyota's calendar app better than Apple's? Yes and no. If Apple's Calendar app was a stand-alone app, then yes, Toyota's calendar is arguably better. It offers more views and more options, in an intuitive and visually pleasing format. The key here is that Apple's app does not stand alone. It is integrated seamlessly into Apple's ecosystem, most notably with Siri and iCloud. While Toyota's app can be set to mirror your iOS calendar (thus including appointments made in Siri, as well as changes made through iCloud), it is not optimized for the iPad. The Toyota calendar may be better than the native iPhone calendar app, but it pales in comparison (when upscaled) to the native iPad calendar app. For me, I prefer seamless consistency, across all my devices, over a neat slider that changes views quickly. In addition, there is no way to input reminders directly into the task list through Siri, which will be a deal breaker for many. I also found some minor glitches in the task editing menu, such as the inability to click on "ASAP" or "Deadline" when editing a task. Finally, this is more of a personal note, but I was hoping to see some cars. When I first heard that Toyota had made a calendar app, I envisioned a calendar, which featured a different vehicle every day, week, or month. I became excited at the idea of a calendar app, which could potentially highlight different Toyota vehicles, using beautiful photographs and multimedia. I was somewhat disappointed that this app was nothing more than an ordinary calendar. TOYOTA Better Is Never Enough Calendar is a good app. It's just not good enough to replace the calendar I already use. TOYOTA Better Is Never Enough Calendar is available in the app store now - free of charge