Sunrise Calendar is nearing its termination, and many Android and iOS users will miss the commended scheduling app.
Microsoft bought Sunrise at the beginning of 2015 for about $100 million, and the team was relegated to work on improving the company's Outlook service. As the developers were not able to deliver updates, bug fixes and improvements to the Sunrise Calendar, they decided to pull the plug on the app, which will work until Aug. 31.
We rounded up the best alternatives to help you stay in charge of your busy schedule, regardless if you're an Apple fan or a Droid enthusiast.
Fantastical 2 (iOS, $9.99)
This app works on Mac and iOS, and many revere it as the best Sunrise alternative.
Fantastical 2 plays nice with Google Calendar, iCloud and Exchange. It sports a natural language input support, which means you can quickly pile up additional events. The app sports a clean and intuitive user interface.
In the app, your calendar can be displayed in both landscape and portrait format. Using landscape is recommended for those who want to have a detailed view of the week. Social media enthusiasts will find the notification center support helpful, alongside the integration with Facebook events.
You may download Fantastical 2 from iTunes for $9.99, and most users who did say it is worth every penny.
Cal is one of the most visually polished calendar apps out there.
This app comes from developer Any.do, which crafted one classy piece of app by slapping an essential card design on an image background.
Cal will work best for those who want to be in control of their daily agenda. As soon as you open it up, the app displays your daily tasks. The software takes a step back from the long-term scheduling that involves weeks or months and instead focuses on the day, which could be all that is needed for some users. This does not mean that a monthly view does not exist, but it's slightly lackluster. It should be noted that no weekly view is in store, however.
Calendars 5 (iOS, $6.99)
Calendars 5 offers full service to those who need to organize their schedule and meet their tasks using one main hub. The app can fetch your calendar data from Google Calendar or iOS, alongside your native Reminders items.
Just as with Fantastical, Calendars 5 makes use of natural language input, making it a breeze to create new reminders and events. There is an option to see the timeline in a monthly, weekly, daily or agenda-like format.
The app sends you notifications about upcoming events, but a neat feature is that it will deliver an SMS alert so you always make it on time.
Calendars 5 is one well-rounded solution for iPhone/iPod touch and all iPad models, and asks users to shell out $6.99. You may download it from iTunes.
CloudCal (Android, Free)
The app gives Android users a fresh perspective on calendar organization.
CloudCal relies on "magic circles" to depict how busy the user is on a daily basis. Each task that you schedule fills the circle with a specific color, and it should cater to the more visual of users.
Apart from the novel visual representation, the app packs useful tools from Google such as Calendar, Maps, Tasks, Exchange and Outlook.
The natural speech input comes embedded in the app, making it easy to voice-record a planned activity with family, friends or at the office. A smooth functionality and easy-to-navigate interface complete the CloudCal app, which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.
