Agenda (by Brian Reber) (Free)

Days displayed: Customizable

Widgets: 1

Customized views: Yes (text and background color)

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: Yes*

This is a fairly simple widget which displays 1 event at a time.  Touching the event will switch to the next event, through the events for the selected number of days.  Touching the date will open an agenda with the events for the selected number of days.  *This will pick up tasks set by another application (i.e. CalenGoo), but doesn’t seem to pick up Google tasks on its own.  This application is simple and intuitive.  It is a very small application.

Android Agenda Widget (Free and Paid ($2.00))

Days displayed: Depends on widget and customizations

Widgets: 15

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes*

Task integration: No

This is a highly customizable set of widgets in several styles, but I found the descriptions of what was being modified by the various settings were confusing.  There are also some built-in themes.  *Although it supports multiple Google Calendars, I was never able to get it to display events from my Google Apps calendars.  It will pick up tasks from another application (i.e. CalenGoo again).  When I did this, though, it pulled in all my tasks, whether they were complete or not.  I couldn’t find a setting to change this.  This is a fairly good sized application, but given the number of features, the size is not bad.

Anton’s Calendar Widget (Free)

Days displayed: Depends on widget

Widgets: 8

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration:

This is another simple yet very functional, intuitive widget.  It is moderately customizable; the number of lines displayed, text size, date labels and opacity, as well as a couple others.  It is a tiny application.

Blik Calendar Widget (Free and Paid ($2.99))

Days displayed: 21

Widgets: 3

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: No

This widget is unique in that it will use the text of the event name to display an icon.  If it cannot determine what to display, it will display a generic icon, which you can change.  There is a large selection of icons available, and you can also choose custom icons.  You can make Blik remember that event and display that icon any time you enter an event with the wording you select.  There are only 3 widget styles available; horizontal row, vertical row or full month, however, these are fairly customizable.  The UI is fairly intuitive.  This is medium sized application.

Business Calendar (Free and Paid ($5.51))

Days displayed: Varies based on widget

Widgets: 12

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: No

This application has nicely customizable widgets with three different styles available in multiple sizes.  The calendar has a very friendly interface.  There are multiple views available while in the application.  Touching a day in month view will display the events.  Running your finger over a series of days will display a custom view of those days.  This application allows the entry of recurring events, with a wide range of options.  Given the features, this is a small application.

Calendar Pad (Free and Paid ($2.89))

Days displayed: Depends on widget

Widgets: 7

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: Yes*

This application did not work well on my phone, however, I don’t know if this was due to the fact that I’m running a custom ROM.  It definitely didn’t play nicely when my launcher rotated; it hung, refused to display, and forced me to reboot in order to recover.  It also hung when exiting the calendar to the home screen, forcing a second reboot.  *The task integration is with Astrid Task/ToDo List only, not with Google.  The UI was simple and intuitive, but unfortunately not particularly useful for me.  It is a small application.

CalenGoo (Paid ($6.26))

Days displayed: Depends on widget

Widgets: 9

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: Yes

This application has several highly-customizable widgets.  It has the ability to associate icons with events, but the selection of icons is limited.  The application supports drag-and-drop rescheduling of events, zooming and many options for recurring events.  It supports reminders (including playing an MP3 file) with snooze.  It also has full integration with Google tasks.  The UI is very intuitive.  The application is fairly large, but not bad for the number of features.

Pocket Informant (Trial, Paid ($9.99))

Days displayed: N/A

Widgets: N1

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: Yes*

This is a very powerful application aimed more at task management than strictly calendar.  It is full of customizations that make it possible to view your data in whatever way works well for you.  It is most unfortunate and disappointing that it does not have any widgets, but it is possible those will be included in a later build (this was only introduced for Android earlier this year).  *The tasks are internal to the application, and are not synchronized with Google, which was another disappointment for me.  On the other hand, given the features available, this app is fairly small.

Quick Calendar (Free)

Days displayed: Depends on widget

Widgets: 4

Customized views: Yes*

Multiple calendar support:

Task integration:

This application basically has 1 view: a list of upcoming events.  This is a nice option for a quick reference.  You can customize how far in advances to display events.  Events are also displayed in the notification bar by default, but can be turned off.  This actually can look a little strange, as by default there are no icons, and it can move other notification icons over.  The UI is simple and clean.  The application is fairly small.

S2 Calendar Widget 2 (Free and Paid ($3.61))

Days displayed: 1 month

Widgets: 3

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes*

Task integration: No

This widget is merely a 1-month calendar display, with three different sizes.  You can customize the appearance of the calendar, and you can specify whether tapping the calendar opens a pop-up menu (with tabs for options, a larger 1-month calendar display, or an agenda) or the native calendar app.  *This calendar merely reads from the native Android calendar.  It does not display any markings for scheduled items.  This application is fairly small, but given its limited functionality, it is big.

Schedule St. (Free*)

Days displayed: Depends on widget

Widgets: 26

Customized views:

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: Yes

At first glance, this appears to be more like a day planner for your phone, with a whopping 26 different widgets.  There are widgets for photo-, text-, and voice-memos, task lists and several different schedule views.  However, in order to use the memos and tasks, you have to install add-on applications (they are also free).  You can opt to use the internal application calendar or Google for your source.  *Within the application, there is (disappointingly) only 1 calendar view, unless you purchase separate “refill” packages ($2.41 each), which includes one with some cute “kittens”.  Support for this application is only in Japanese.  This is a fairly large application.  The memo and task add-ons are small, but the refill packages are also large.

Smooth Calendar (Free)

Days displayed: Current + up to next 6 events

Widgets: 1

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: No

This is a no-frills calendar widget, which can display from 1 to 6 events.  Tapping the widget gives you the option to refresh, open the native calendar app or modify the settings.  You can customize the appearance of the widget.  This is a small application.

Touch Calendar (Free and Paid ($2.34))

Days displayed: Customizable

Widgets: 4 (paid version only)

Customized views: Yes

Multiple calendar support: Yes

Task integration: No

This application has 1 style of widget in four different sizes, on which you can specify the number of weeks to display (including into the past).  Within the application, you can pinch-zoom and scroll freely through your calendar, but there is effectively only one view, which is monthly.  The UI is clean and intuitive.  It is a small application.

So, now for my picks.  For simplicity, it is a toss-up between Anton’s Calendar Widget and Smooth Calendar.  For appearance, I choose Blik, with its automatic icon selection.  If Pocket Informant was able to sync tasks with Google and had widgets, it would be my hands-down, most useful winner, but in lieu of those, I have to go with CalenGoo.  Given the variety of available applications, there is sure to be one to meet your needs.

Enter Easy Calendar. Easy Calendar specializes in the week view. No month or day view, no agenda view – just one week at a time.

No highlights, no fancy colors. Easy Calendar doesn’t even have much in the way of Settings. You can turn hints on or off, set the time after which you want to return to today (within the week view, of course), set USA or International view for week numbers, or set the time zone. The time zone is sketchy. I sorted all through the “America” listings (North America), and found no city that’s permanently on central time. My Easy Calendar shows New York (eastern time), but it doesn’t seem to affect anything. Maybe this is a setting meant for a future revision.

It is very easy to jump to a month in Easy Calendar, but you will have to scroll to get to the exact week you want. For instance, today is the 10th of April. If I jump to July, it will go to the week of July 10th. If I wanted July 28, I’ll have to scroll through the weeks to get there.

Adding in a new appointment is, likewise, easy. It brings up a menu much like the default calendar. Actually, most of Easy Calendar is like the default calendar with no obvious benefit.

This is version one, and I know the developer has more in store. We will certainly revisit this app when it has had a chance to mature.

Tonight’s guest, Alli’s Mom – former broadcast journalist, Sheila Small (not on Twitter).

How does the non technically minded person move from a Palm to an Evo.
(Dad thinks the Evo screen is too sensitive.)

Likes and dislikes
Used to like documents and memos on Palm
Like: web browsing, calendars and Google sync, large screen – awesome!, camera
Dislike: virtual keyboard, no quick/easy way to enter notes, predictive text, battery

Customization

Social media integration – synergy

Want your app reviewed on JAGS? Send a promo code to edward@justanothergeeksite.com.

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http://www.mediafly.com/Podcasts/Feeds/ConvertCast

Calendar Apps – Next generation

Calengoo – http://calengoo.dgunia.de/Start.html
SaiSuke – http://www.saysoftware.net/saisuke_i/SaiSukeTop_E.html
Calvetica – http://calvetica.com/
Pocket Informant and Agendus

Case talk;

Vapor Case – here today, gone today.

Went to best buy and bought:
Apple iPad case: wonderfully thin
IFrogz luxe lean

Got on order:
SGP – Valencia
Using:
Proporta SteriTouch

iPhone 4 Bluetooth
Response (Jenny) – 08/10/2010 10:12 AM
Dear Alli,

Thanks for clarifying that for us. Apple has acknowledged there is an issue with their iPhone 4 and Bluetooth headsets. They recommend trying an iPhone reset but I have found this to be more of a nuisance than anything. Before you try a reset please make sure you back-up all your settings since it resets everything back to default.

Go to Settings> General
Go to Reset Options
Go to Reset all settings

Apple has said that they are also working a software update that they hope will fix this issue.

Hope this helps Alli!

Sincerely,

Jenny
The Jawbone Support Team
www.Jawbone.com
1-877-ALIPHCO (254-7426)
Weekdays 6AM-7PM (Pacific)

RadioAlarm – FTW!

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It has now taken a place of honor on my application dock.

What CalenGoo does that the others don’t do

CalenGoo gives you drag/drop just like you have on your Google calendar on the web. There is no fumbling, no menus, just drag and drop. Once you have dropped the item, you get a pop up asking if you are moving or copying. I like that! Other calendar apps have promised drag/drop, but none have delivered – at least not as effectively as CalenGoo.

I love the month view for spot checks, but I hate to have to go to a day to find out what all the squiggles in the month view mean. CalenGoo has taken care of that as well. You can pinch to zoom in the month view! Talk about something that makes sense – why does no one else do this?

CalenGoo also does tasks. Google tasks. Not tasks from some 3rd party solution that you didn’t really want to subscribe to in the first place, and then discover it doesn’t do what you want for free. (I’m talking about you, ToodleDo!) Google gave us tasks, why not use them? Your Google tasks can be visible in all views (or the views of your choice. You can see an example in the month view screenshot above. You even have the option of making your tasks some other colour. I’m very impressed, and very happy with this!

What CalenGoo just does better

I would show screenshots of all CalenGoo’s options, but I don’t have enough free time to take that many – yes, there are that many options. They seem to have thought of every detail, from header colours, to the colour of the background behind specific days of the week. Incidentally, this is a great calendar if you’re one of those people who don’t work a regular Monday through Friday kinda job, and your “weekends” fall on different days than Saturday and Sunday.

Ok…so I’ll show you one option that I really like. Any time you get a date picker (the above screenie is for jumping directly to your desired date), you have a choice between using the default Apple’ish wheel, and your keyboard. The wheel is great if you’re already in the ballpark, but sometimes you just want to get where you’re going fast!

The search function is something I’ve been missing since I retired my Centro. Sometimes it’s important to know when that last haircut was, or how long it’s been since the cat went for an “annual” checkup.

Icons! Yes, silly, I know, but I do love my icons. They don’t provide a huge number, but they do offer a method of adding more if you’re so inclined.

Did I mention it’s a universal binary app? That means it works on both iPhone and iPad, with special features available from your iPad.

If you also sync with MobileMe or an Exchange account, you have only to sync them with your native iPhone calendar, and then turn on local calendars within CalenGoo.

What CalenGoo does not do

CalenGoo has a view that I have always referred to as List view, that it calls Agenda view. That’s ok with me, as I like to see what’s coming up as well as what I’ve got today. But there is no view that only shows an overview of today. Neither is there a year view. Personally, I have never used a year view, and having a Jump To button resolves any possible need I would have had there.

If there’s anything else that CalenGoo does not do, it’s not something I use.

Oh and one more thing

When I started using CalenGoo, I kept getting the error you see in the above screenshot. So I emailed the dev. I had tried the workaround the popup suggests, but it defeated the purpose of having Tasks. They replied very quickly, and offered me a solution that worked. Responsive devs make for a better product!

Maybe active devs also means there’s a chance for the one and only other thing I still want: a better selection of notification sounds. Since I now have an alarm clock that works in the background (yay iOS 4!) and will use any mp3 in my iTunes collection to wake me, maybe something similar can be done with a calendar. Here’s hoping!

And yes, we can mention “antennagate” since we’re going to discuss cases.
I did speak to an RF engineer, who suggested the only way to fix the current problem would be to put the antenna back on the inside. Form vs. function.

Case offer from Apple – Bumper? Rebate (bumper owners), or 3rd party Apple offering?
How many cases do you already have in your possession?
How many do you have on order?
Screen cover/shield?

Parent update! Both are getting Evos…which required a dissertation on the difference between 3G/EVDO and WiFi. Things we take for granted.

App update
What do you have that’s best taking advantage of iOS4?
iHound (wow!)
iMovie
Streaming software – TuneInRadio and MLB AT BAT 2010
Podcaster (wow!)
Zagat (Calendar Integration)
MotionX GPS Drive / Tomtom
Calendars
(MyWireless update includes AT&T WiFi locater)

Windows Phone 7 speculation – haha!

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Episode 17

Monday, November 16, 2009

Nephews, tropical storms, and ooooooooo…9 and oh baybee!

Parental update – started looking at VZW cause Dad noticed the Droid Does commercials. I think they’d like VZW, but not the device. Mom really wants an iPhone. Little reception in the house with AT&T, perhaps they’ll wait on AT&T’s femtocell. Holding pattern.

Top 5 Must Have applications and mini review- for any platform

Jerry – iPhone:  Non JailBreak: 1) PocketInformant 2)Faces Lite 3) Tweetie 2 4) iXpensit ) WhatsApp

Jailbreak: 1) sbSettings 2) Backgrounder 3) 3GEnabler 4) GVMobile 5) Intelliscreen

Alli – iPhone – 1) TaKePhOnE…only cause I love the old Palm stuff. 2) TV Forecast, while not a productivity app is definitely one of my absolute favorites. 3) PocketInformant 4) iCanSee***** 5) 10 Thousand

Jailbreak….1) GV Mobile. 2) LockCal Not really taking advantage of much beyond that for jb besides wallpaper/themes even though I have SBSettings and Backgrounder installed.

We both tried Shape’s (IM+) new app Business Card Reader. Working about 80% for me. Only getting one phone number.

80-85 recognition, but always lists the work number as home.

JottNot

Jailbreak stuff in general. Gonna help @clarescoffee j/b. Slow down on icon design, but maybe do an entire new theme now that I know how easy it is. DiskAid – vavavavoom! No need to ssh.

Waiting on Element – new lock screen

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This does not mean I love all Iambic’s products. I dislike Agendus Mail. Seriously. But I know what works and what doesn’t, and I understand where the company is trying to go. The goal, as I see it, is simple: get the functions of Agendus for the Palm on all possible platforms. The goal is simple…it’s the implementation that’s not. You see, Palm’s version is 13 – it’s mature. Heck, it’s so mature that Palm Inc. has put the entire platform out of its misery! What many users fail to understand is that you can’t just take a mature app for platform A and put it through a transformer and have it come out the other end intact and ready to be run on platform B. You have to code everything from scratch.

That brings us around to Agendus for the iPhone, which is in its infancy. Think Action Names – which is what Agendus was before it went through puberty (if you will), and became Agendus. It was a contacts manager. Right now, Agendus for iPhone is pretty much a contacts manager. I could go through everything AGiP doesn’t have that AGP does. But as I’ve pointed out, no other version of Agendus on any platform has what AGP does – but they get closer and closer every day.

Do I wish Iambic had waited until it had more functionality? Of course. Do I understand why they put it out before it did? Absolutely. Do I agree with the $8.00 price tag? No. Then again…they aren’t going to be able to charge for every update on the iPhone like they do on every other platform. I say “get it while it’s hot,” because if Apple ever relaxes some of its app restrictions, you could see the same $25 price tag for many apps, not just Agendus.

For the sake of argument, I’m going to do my famous conclusion jumping move and assume you know how closed the iPhone API is, and that you understand how difficult it is to get an app through the app store. If you don’t know and understand these things, stop for just a moment and ask yourself why 98 of every 100 apps for iPhone are simple games or fart apps, and that should give you your answer.

So what is it that Agendus does on your iPhone? Right now – not a whole lot. That’s the honest truth. It gives you some different contacts views from what you can get in the default iPhone contacts.

Agendus gives you the option of showing your contacts First Name / Last Name, Last Name / First Name, Last Name / First Name / Company, and a few other variations. I pretty much stick to the traditional Last/First.

Better still is the expanded contacts view that gives you the contact photo along with their numbers and email addresses. 

From the expanded view you can tap the contact’s email to take you to the email app and right into a new email, or tap the phone number for the option of dialing or sending an SMS.

Regardless of the look or what you can do, this is still the Apple iPhone database, and anything you do to your contacts from within Agendus will be reflected in the default contacts app and anywhere you currently sync your pim data. So far the only flaw I’ve found is that AGiP not only doesn’t reflect any custom ringtone for a contact, it doesn’t give you the option of changing it to anything beyond the standard iPhone ringtones (which we all know are BLAH).

The home screen leaves much to be desired. Since there is currently no calendar integration, it can’t tell you much about your day. It offers a few little tidbits like Quote of the Day, This Day in History, the Weather Forecast, and Tasks – providing you’ve set those tasks in Agendus. I like the weather. But I don’t really need to go into Agendus to see the weather, because I already have The Weather Channel and it goes into much greater detail. Unfortunately, Quotes and History Day were two features I never used back in the good old days of Palm.

Tasks look nice. They contain all the useful features you expect to find in a task manager…but they don’t sync to anything or show up in the calendar. Most of us want to see our tasks in our calendars.  I know it’s something to look forward to, but right now it’s a little on the disappointing side. Then again, I sync to Google which doesn’t sync tasks yet anyway. I’m hoping for the best here – I don’t care for any of the Tasks alternatives out there at the moment.

Notice the integration of contacts in tasks? Definitely a step in the right direction, but it’s not working quite right yet. I can’t seem to get a current contact into the task. There’s a nice little arrow that should bring you into your contacts from the task, but it doesn’t do anything on my iPhone. So I type out the contact name and am prompted to add the contact as new.

Because I love Agendus and have faith in Iambic, I will stick with it. I am the poster child for product loyalty. I have faith that with a few updates we will start seeing a product that is more recognizable to old (make that former) Agendus users, and one that will sync somewhere to make it more
valuable to all of us.

Iambic’s developers are pretty good about taking customer suggestions, so my advice is to get it now while it’s still a work in progress, and join us in the forums with your product suggestions.

So what changed? As most of you know, my love of Agendus was so great, that about a year ago Iambic invited me to join their forum support team. This means that every day I read through the Iambic forums, trying to help people solve their frustrations. And then, two days ago, I found this thread. The current solution is not free, although I suspect with the current race to the cloud, there will be alternatives popping up right and left. In the meanwhile, this one works quite well.

Ingredients:

1 WinPho

1 or more Google calendar

1 Goosync subscription

1 free copy of the Palm desktop

1 copy of CompanionLink (Express or Pro, depending on your needs and wallet)

The major expense of this undertaking is the cost of CompanionLink ($49.95 for the Express version, and $99.95 for the Pro version). Goosync is a subscription based service. It also has 2 versions: free and Premium. For what we want to do here, you really need the Premium subscription at £19.95/year. (The free version only syncs your calendar, not contacts or tasks.)

The only major drawback of this whole procedure is that Goosync doesn’t currently support categories. So if this is a major concern for you, you might want to just stick with (yech, ptooie!) Outlook. However, since I’ve brought this up, there is at least a work around to calendar categories (although it’s more work than I’m willing to do). Just set up multiple calendars: one labeled “work,” one labeled “personal” – you get the idea.

Goosync Premium will also do automatic syncs, so it nicely takes the place of an exchange server. So once you have Goosync all set up, your WinPho is in sync with Google. Here comes the secret sauce. All you have to do now is install CompanionLink and set it up to sync your Google account with the Palm desktop. It really is that easy. You do not have to plug your WinPho into your computer to sync – ever again. The one reason you might want the Pro version of CompanionLink over the Express version is the automatic sync. Why leave anything to chance? Yes, $99.95 is expensive, but it means you’ll never again have to wonder if you’ve done a sync. And more importantly, you’ll never again have to open Outlook, and you can go back to that nice Palm desktop (or Agendus!) interface.

As brilliant and seamless as this all appears, I must admit that I’m also using Microsoft’s My Phone beta to sync my pim data. I like to keep my options open. I also like knowing that I have lots of backups of my pim data.

What’s that? How do you deal with those programs that have desktop components that need to be synchronized? Of course I’ve thought of that, gentle reader! And that’s where Microsoft’s Live Mesh comes in. That takes some juggling, but once your data files are properly located and placed, you have access to the same data on your device and your pc.

We are going head first into the cloud, but we are not going without plenty of backup on the ground!