Calendate Review

I'm a seriously busy guy, so having a calendar app to aid me in keeping daily structure to the things I do is pretty much essential. Calendate is yet another attempt at nailing that all-important balance between design and function in this regard.

Visually designed to fall in line with the new iOS 7 aesthetic, and offering up a few different themes, upon first launch Calendate will attempt to sync one's calendars. From what I can tell the app supports syncing for both the iPhone's built-in calendar and Google Calendar. However, in order to avoid seeing the spinning wheel of death at the top of the app users are going to want to ensure they have Location Services enabled before proceeding.

On the “Today” screen Calendate displays the selected date, current temperature, and chance of rainfall. Below this is a list of the user's upcoming events for the next 24 hours; chronologically organized so that the latest events appear towards the bottom. Calendate also allows users to set a visual icon per time that they enter, which are chosen from a preset palette of 20 and can be changed at any time.

Tapping on an item will allow users to see all the events for that day, while swiping either left or right on the date displayed at the top will allow them to see this view for each individual day. If they wants to see a broader view of their events for this week, or indeed the month, tapping the “Calendar” tab will see Calendate display the usual month view with a few additions. This view is completely scrollable up and down; there is no need to swipe left and right to visit the previous month. Need to visit a month in a past year? Tapping the relevant year in either the top left or right corner will switch to that year. For each day in this view Calendate will display a super-tiny icon for the events happening on that day. These dots are color-coded to the color of the icon one previously assigned to each of their events, ensuring complete organization when needed.

While Calendate might look a bit gray and lifeless to start, the app does offer a bunch of colorful themes to brighten things up a little. There are four of these themes to chose from; including Annite, Ocean Green, Clear White, and Strawberry Shortcake. Personally I'm not a fan of Strawberry Shortcake (neither the cake nor the theme), but that's just personal preference.

Overall, Calendate carries out its intended purpose well. One small tweak I would like to see is for the main date field at the top of the Calendar view become linked to that day, so that it acts as an anchor for returning to that day from either a previous month or year. Other than that little gripe, Calendate does its job elegantly.