BusyCal, what iCal for Lion should have been
Dissatisfied with Lion’s new iCal interface? So are many of those who upgraded to Lion. While some fixes exist, I’ve found BusyCal not only retains all the good features from iCal for Snow Leopard, but also adds a significant number of new features that make it a great purchase for anyone. Really, it’s what an iCal update should have been.
First, BusyCal doesn’t have that annoying faux leather iPad style interface. It retains an unadorned look more in line with older versions of iCal. There are hacks to return your iCal to classic mode, but sensible good looks isn’t the only thing BusyCal is offering.
BusyCal supports direct syncing of calenders between computers, and if you desire, can bypass the cloud altogether. Otherwise the app supports syncing to any CalDAV service such as MobileMe as well as Google. Setting up Google Calendar sycning is a breeze. You put in your credentials and away you go. Your calendars instantly appear. Lion’s iCal requires a few additional steps to add multiple calendars, which is both annoying and unnecessary.
In iCal for Lion, the calendar list floats on top of your calendar, making it near impossible to view both it and your calendar list. BusyCal retains a unique column for your entire calendar list, as well as a month at-a-glance view (mini-month). Although BusyCal doesn’t have iCal’s yearly view, it does have a list view of all your upcoming events, regardless of when they fall, and can integrate daily events into an optional icon on the menu bar. This is a handy feature to answer the basic question of where you have to be today.
Other nice features in BusyCal include the ability to add graphics to an event, as well as sticky notes and custom banners. These features will even sync with other BusyCal users, but won’t sync with your iPhone or Android device. Best of all is that BusyCal will show you the daily forecast with highs and lows right on the day in question.
Although Lion introduced some great new features, iCal is one giant step backwards in my opinion. BusyCal on the other hand retains great features from Snow Leopard’s iCal, while adding some new ones as well. BusyCal is sold directly for via the Mac App Store for $49.99 ($79.99 for a family pack), which is more than Lion costs as a whole, but the price of entry may be worth it to users that once relied on some iCal features that are no longer there.
Disclosure: Busymac provided a copy of BusyCal for review purposes.
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BusyCal is great if you use Google Calendar or feel a bit luddite’ish about UI for your calendar.
I’ve got a better and cheaper solution though I do like BusyCal and the developers behind it.
Standard iCal Lion mated with Flexibits Fantastical. This allows me to leave iCal closed down and create new events with the best natural language front end i’ve seen. Thus all I do is hit a menu bar icon and type “Meeting with mom at 4pm at Sullivan’s Steakhouse” and voila the even is added to my iCal with the proper location (Sullivan’s Steakhouse) without me even having to launch iCal. That’s hard to beat.
Note: Fantastical supports BusyCal so if you still want BusyCal then think of Fantastical as a much improved front end for it as well.
I doubt Apple plans to change the UI of iCal that much since the inevitable solution is going to be using Siri to create many of your events anyways.
BusyCal, what iCal for Lion should have been
and that would have killed the company behind BusyCal.
Very true! Just ask the SoundJam MP people about that
BusyCal. What iCal would have been if it had been beaten by an ugly stick.
Fantastic post. Just upgraded and it feels like an old friend it back. Also, the weather addition is a nice touch.
BusyCal is one of my most used applications on my Mac. I’m so glad it’s getting some recognition here.
$49.99 for a calendar? Looks great and I envy the weather and graphics features, but those things aren’t worth $49.99 to me. Plus, I like my faux leather iCal! ;)
Samsung is making fool of Apple fans in its new ad?! That’s hilarious! You gotta watch it!
http://goo.gl/pWWde
I kind of like BusyCal because, as you say, the developers have avoided some of the stupid decisions Apple has made with iCal. But there’s nothing really impressive about it, and it seems strange to me that no-one’s come up with really significant interface enhancements in the calendar field to compare with those in task management. An easy example would be allowing users to focus on a single calendar without having to deselect (and remember to reselect later) every other calendar.
I just did not upgrade to Lion and use the old iCal. (Which, also was ignored by Apple and during its last two updates, was mucked up even more, made harder to use for the sake of meaningless interface changes and has a number of bugs on entering information in it!) Despite its troubles, it works OK and, it’s what I’ve been using.
Apple has just blown it with iCal not being properly cared for and improved. Then this Lion junk iCal sunk it for me.
I think they just don’t realize how CRITICAL a calendar and date book is on the Mac? Is iCal going to suffer the same long term neglect as printing did with Apple?
Many thanks for drawing attention to the topic that I started in Apple Support Communities.
I’m a paid up user of BusyCal, but there is explicitly **no support** for Microsoft Exchange Server — http://www.busymac.com/faq/index.html#exchange
For that reason and others, continued use of iCal is a must.
I should encourage each person who finds difficulties without the sidebar in iCal to send feedback to Apple. Please clear your reasons for each difficulty.
The sidebar is good for Calendar in iCloud.
The sidebar was good in iCal before Lion. Apple should allow the user to prefer a sidebar.