The calendar app should remind you that your brother’s birthday is next week. It should allow you to quickly see your weekly meetings and keep track of your schedule from anywhere.
And, ideally, he would do everything and more without too much involvement on your part.
Access to a calendar on the go is essential. And while Apple’s preinstalled calendar may work, there are still plenty of options to consider for the calendar app on the iPhone.
We’ve tested a series of the best calendar app for iPhone designed for your iPhone, and here are the top 10.
What Makes a Great iPhone Calendar App?
There are iPhone calendar apps designed for almost all types of people, from A to Z. But there are some things you must-have when it comes to the best calendar app for iPhone:
- Easy to use: No one wants to set up a calendar for hours or enter events and reminders for hours. Your calendar app should be easy to learn, intuitive, and easy to maintain.
- Designed with intent: Whether the goal is simplicity or dozens of features, iPhone calendar apps must be designed with purpose, and everything must come from that goal.
- Customizable Views: When it up to something as personal and essential as your schedule, you should be capable of managing it the way you want, enjoying the features you need, and customizing the look to your liking. as you wish.
- Notifications and Alerts: Unlike the giant wall calendars of the past, your iPhone calendar isn’t always in front of your face. That doesn’t mean you can risk forgetting about next Tuesday’s meeting. Your calendar app should have customizable notifications & alerts so you can stay on top of your schedule, not the other way around.
- Map Integration: On the go, time-traveling is more complex than setting out X minutes before an event. The best calendar apps for iPhone integrate with Maps to help you track traffic and travel time.
- Siri support: By the same lines, iPhone calendar apps should work seamlessly with the rest of your apps, including Siri, your choice for all iPhones.
10 Best Calendar App for iPhone
1. 24me
On a screen as tiny as your phone, simplicity often beats the cluttered screen, and 24me succeeds.
The layout is simple, the default value to optimize the display of your diary. Creating new events is just as intuitive: tap blue + in the bottom corner, and a new possibility opens. Start typing the title, and all the details will be expanded for editing.
But what differentiates 24me apart is the combination of calendars, tasks, and notes in one app. Instead of jumping back and forth, you can tap once toggle and see your following tasks for today, tomorrow, next week, and later.
Also, the premium version of 24me makes it straightforward to create tasks from your email – send the email to task@twentyfour.me, and it will appear in the app.
Another remarkable feature: automatic conference calling. Instead of copying or writing down conference call numbers and access codes, one-touch on 24me calls automatically logs you in.
As long as the conference information is included in the event details, you’re good to go.
24me Price: Free for basic access; $ 4.99 per month or $ 29.99 per year 24me Pro, which includes creating tasks from emails, Nag alerts, and time zone support.
2. Apple Calendar
The calendar app preinstalled on your iPhone displays all of the simple looks, ease of use, and looks that Apple is known for.
Click the month or year in the top left corner to zoom out from day to day. Tap today in the lower-left corner to return to today. It all makes sense.
It’s not designed to look good, it is designed to look great on the iPhone, and it is. It’s the perfect basic calendar app with all the useful features you need without everything you don’t.
Sync your other calendars to add & edit all your events, and create and share iCloud calendars with just a few clicks.
Apple Calendar automatically syncs with maps, giving you intelligent alerts that take into account current travel time and traffic, and let you know when to go.
Apple Calendar synchronizes with other calendars like Google & Outlook so that you can connect work and life at home.
Sync numerous calendars as you want, and the parent calendar app will show all of your events. It’s as straightforward as going to your settings, choosing passwords and accounts, and signing into your email.
You can also share your iCloud calendars by tapping the Calendar & Info icon next to the one you want to share. Then tap Add person and enter your email address.
Apple Calendar Price: Free
3. Awesome Calendar
Awesome calendar makes it pretty straightforward with a basic layout and function. You can toggle between multiple display options (including day, week, and calendar) by tapping the eye icon at the bottom of the screen.
And the calendar syncs with Apple’s original calendar, making the initial change easy.
The app fully supports the creation of natural language events, a feature that significantly reduces the time and effort required to create new events.
Hit the + key, type something like “dinner with Sarah tomorrow at 5 pm,” and the awesome calendar translates your text into the date, time, title, and other event details. Tap Save, and you’re done.
Of all the calendar apps we reviewed, Awesome Calendar had the best display of multi-day, overlapping events, showing them in the bars at the top of the daily view.
And for those who want quick access to their iPhone’s Today view, the makers of Awesome offer a separate widget app called WidgetCal.
Speaking of display capabilities, Awesome Calendar boasts one of the unique features we’ve come across: the Filofax display. The old Filofax, along with a three-day display, page turn, and spiral binding, appears to have been copied to your iPhone.
The awesome calendar has one of the most expensive apps we’ve tested, but if you’re craving your old Filofax, it might pay off.
Awesome Calendar Price: $ 9.99
4. Calendars 5
The Calendars 5 app was our favorite hassle-free calendar. You won’t find any extensive bells, whistles, or visual tweaks here, but it gets the job done with a few essential features.
List view makes it easy to get an idea of your future schedule, and unlike many other calendar apps, Calendars 5 doesn’t hide event details. You can view the location, web conference, and other event details without the added step of opening an event.
The natural language ability in Calendars 5 was one of the best apps we tested. “Meet Brian at the Lincoln Tavern Monday 8 am to 10 am”, date, time, location, and contact information are automatically populated with no additional clicks.
Add easy Siri integration (the app will automatically ask you to add a phrase to show the layout, instead of burying this feature in Settings), and Calendars 5 is arguably the leader for the iPhone.
Price of Calendar 5: $ 6.99
5. Fantastic 2
Fantastical 2 is among those apps on almost every “best of” list and fills the hype. The Fantastical 2 app combines an attractive and intuitive design with the robust features needed by advanced users.
The standard view of the agenda is clear and concise. The colored bars at the top help you visualize multi-day and overlapping events and estimate at first glance how busy the day is.
The colors indicate which calendar the event belongs to; In the screenshot, the events in blue are in our calendar and green in our professional calendar.
Shoot from the top to see the entire moon. Tap Settings in the top left corner to enable Siri integration and create shortcuts.
Fantastical 2 has outstanding natural language event creation – as you type; the app shows how your words “fall” in the event details below, so you don’t have to recheck details after the fact like you do with the other apps, except
In addition to that, Fantastical 2 is one of the few calendar apps with a widget that you can see on your iPhone’s today’s screen. On the Today screen, scroll down and tap Edit, then turn on Fantastic.
Check out upcoming events or tap Show More to see the whole month.
Fantastical Price 2: $4.99
6. Google Calendar
If you make use of the Google Calendar web app, you will feel right at home in the iPhone app. The calendar integrates seamlessly with the entire Google product suite.
Automatically add events, such as flight bookings or out-of-office settings, from Gmail to your calendar. And when you start typing the location, the app will give you suggestions for Google Maps.
Tap the colored + in the lower right corner, and you can choose to create a new event, goal, or reminder out of the office (default). Invite guests, add web conference details, or attach files from Google Drive right from the event creation screen.
One of my favorite features on Google Calendar is event artwork. Google uses detailed event data to create an image of the event, such as a food image for events that include “dinner.”
If you look at the far exemplary screenshot above, you’ll see how our program’s app presented a picture of the hockey site. It’s a fun (and rewarding) way to see what’s in store for you.
Google Calendar provides five different view options (schedule, day, 3-days, week, and month), and switching between them is as easy as tapping the menu at the top left and selecting the view you want to see.
We’re supporters of the calendar display (middle screenshot above), which is the right combination of detail and a bird’s eye view.
You can also allow the widget to see upcoming events in Today view on your iPhone.
Cost of Google calendar: free
7. Microsoft Outlook Calendar
Microsoft Outlook is for Windows users, but its calendar app is more than capable of being your iPhone calendar.
The layout offers several display options (Agenda, Day, and 3-days): tap the second icon on the right to change the display at the top of the screen.
Two-week blocks are specified in the agenda and day views; scroll through these two weeks to view and scroll through the months.
Using the Outlook calendar requires a Microsoft Office 365 subscription, making it one of the more expensive apps on our list. But if your business is already using Outlook email, this is the best calendar option to merge emails, hours, and contacts into one place, making it easy to download.
Additionally, you can sync other calendars that you can use with Outlook, making it easy to centralize your working time and personal working time in one app.
Your Outlook calendar is also automatically shared with people in your company.
Another feature we liked: When creating an event, enable the Skype call feature, and Outlook will automatically and instantly generate a single Skype sign-in for your event.
You can do this with Google Hangouts by enabling the feature in Settings> Plugins. With Microsoft Bing, you can even subscribe to your selection of public calendars to add your favorite professional sports teams or TV shows to your calendar.
Microsoft Outlook Calendar Price: The iOS app is free; however, you need a Microsoft Office subscription to use it.
8. Peek
From the instant you open the app, it’s evident that Peek is built for simplicity. The original view is your only option (although you can expand or close events for each day).
You can change the color theme in terms of settings, turn sound and vibration on / off, turn shading gestures on / off, and set the week to start on Sunday or Monday. This is where the adjustment begins and ends.
Many features and functions depend on gestures: tap to open and close each day’s calendar, long press to create a new event, shake to view upcoming reminders, and swipe left to access the menu.
There’s a slight learning curve (swipe left and tap Guide to see the list), but they leave room for the cleanest design on our list. In the main view, Peek displays only the essential information: the date and an indicator showing whether you have events scheduled for that day or not.
Peek Price: $ 2.99, with more purchases in themed apps.
9. Pod
On the surface, Pod is one other iPhone calendar with a simple design and predictable, easy-to-use features. It’s quick to set up and sync other calendars with the Floor, and most of the features work the way you want them to, with no learning curve.
What gives the app a place on our list is the relationship management features. The upstairs connects to your phone and email contacts. So when you make a new event, you can easily link the contact to the event without calling or notifying.
Context The spoken word offered for each contact takes relationship management skills to the next level, quickly reminding you of past and future events with that contact.
Just tap on the contact’s name, and Pod will show all the possibilities with them (see the far exemplary screenshot above).
The FloorFloor also allows you to hide events when you don’t need them, making it easier to manage a busy schedule without feeling overwhelmed.
Open the event and tap Hide. A thin gray bar will appear at the top – if you need to tap it, tap the bar, & all of your hidden events will be displayed, allowing you to view the events as required.
Pod Price: Free
10. Time Page
Moleskine’s Timepage app is simply customizable when it comes to appearance – you can choose from 15 black and white colors or themes and a brightness switch.
The app only offers two main display options. Opens in Agenda view; swipe right to see the month and a summary of today’s events.
Press to extend the schedule for the day or press and hold to view. Swipe left again to return to the calendar.
But Timepage is above a pretty face. Unique features like an intelligent heat map (shown in the top-left screenshot above) make planning easier and tell you which days are crowded or wide open.
The more opaque the circle around the date, the more events you will schedule for that day. And you can switch on smart alerts from the menu to get notifications when it starts raining or get a daily summary of the following schedule.
The app fully supports Siri and has several widgets for display today, so you can manage your calendar and browse it even without opening the app.
The only thing Timepage lacks is creating natural language events, but with our fingers crossed, we’ll see that soon in the update.
Time Page Price: Free Download; then $ 1.99 per month or $ 11.99 per year.
Conclusion
Your schedule should work for you, which means you need to pick one that’s right for you.
All of these apps provide the basics, so focus on things like aesthetics, the intuitive interface (for you), and unique features that require you to say “ooh!”
It’s not a shame to choose Google Calendar because you like the images it adds or Vantage because you want your calendar to remember Star Wars credit. That suits you.
