Filed under: Productivity, iPhone
MyCal: custom calendars for your iPhone
Here's the question: what day of the month does next Friday land on? You pull out your iPhone, turn it on, unlock it, navigate to the Calendar and switch to Month view. Got it. March 20th. Of course, being the self-proclaimed efficiency expert that you are (isn't everybody?), you quickly decide that was way too many steps for such a simple task. If you regularly need this particular type of information, you're going to have to find an easier way. You could (A) carry around a printout of the calendar for the month, or (B) check out MyCal.
MyCal is a single-purpose app from Chillix, the same developers to whom our faithful readers offered their offbeat to-do lists a while back. It allows you to pick a background -- from a wide variety of built-in images or from your own collection -- select a calendar style and set transparency levels. When you're done, it outputs a wallpaper image you can use to get a quick view of the month without even unlocking your phone. To be clear, it won't show you any appointments or tasks, just a good-looking calendar that's readily accessible. A recent update to the application fixed some issues with blurriness, and I give it two thumbs up for simplicity and usefulness. If you fit into the description in the first paragraph, you might just want to check it out. The user's guide offers a comprehensive preview, and it's available in the App Store for 99 cents (US). Chillix has built up a fairly extensive collection of iPhone apps; check out their website for some other gems.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jonathan Head said 10:17AM on 3-13-2009
MyCal does the same thing and is free, just fyi.
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antiorario said 10:52AM on 3-13-2009
Isn't the article about MyCal itself?
Le Big Mac said 3:18PM on 3-13-2009
Link to the free version of this 99c app, please!
Jonathan Head said 9:02PM on 3-13-2009
Heaven's me, it is about MyCal - the 99cents threw me off. I got a copy while it was still cost zilch.
Jonathan Head said 8:41PM on 3-14-2009
Figured out what I was referring to above - Quick Calendar (not MyCal) does the same thing but for free. Also have the option to display for than one calendar. Just fyi here's the iTunes link:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=302897215&mt=8
jimmy said 10:34AM on 3-13-2009
i do the same thing, but with a simple screenshot of the calendar app. takes 3 seconds, and i'm done. If i have a super-busy day, I'll screenshot the "List" view, so I have the appt's there without unlocking the phone.
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Ryan Trevisol said 10:59AM on 3-13-2009
This is a fantastic idea. Thanks for the tip!
Barron said 10:59AM on 3-13-2009
Now that is a great idea.
josh said 5:38PM on 3-13-2009
This won't automatically update your wallpaper each month, will it? You'd have to manually change it each month.
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SIP said 7:29PM on 3-13-2009
I prefer the look of DeskClock fom the same developer
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Michael said 4:43AM on 3-14-2009
So they are going to charge me for a wallpaper that has a calender on it? This should so be free.
They could just upload the 12 wallpapers to the web and you could save to the phone. No app required, no coding necessary, etc.
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Dave Hornsby said 4:32AM on 3-16-2009
Hi Michael
As the developer of MyCal I'm quite interested to read your comments.
Yes, we could just upload 12 wallpapers to the web and let people download them (and I'm sure there are some free calendar wallpapers out there if you can be bothered to search for them). But that would be missing the point of MyCal (and implying it's simply a collection of 12 wallpapers). Using a combination of the backgrounds we provide, calendar styles and the ability to add your own pictures, you can create an infinite number of wallpapers rather than just 12...
As far as your comment 'This should so be free' - when was the last time you worked for free? A considerable amount of time and effort went into the development of MyCal and we feel it's priced very fairly.
GadgetGav said 10:17AM on 3-14-2009
The worst thing about this: It's still tied to the old metaphor of a page-per-month PRINTED calendar.
I want a calendar app (any of them - they're all the same) that will present a view with this week at the top of a four week view. I don't care when the end of the month falls. Take last month to this month for instance. What if I had a very important event on March 2nd. Because February had 28 days and happened to start on a Sunday, March did not come in to view at all on a month view calendar until March 1st. Why do I need to see the events that happened nearly 4 weeks ago at the start of February, and not be able to see the ones that are happening in less than 7 days time without flipping over a screen..?
It's madness and it only comes about because of the metaphor that's used to display electronic calendars. If you work in a production environment, you're much more likely to think in week numbers than months anyway.
PLEASE, someone give us a rolling 4 week view in our calendar apps!!
(or someone point me to one - I've never seen one on a Mac or PC)
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