What’s this app for?
Well, as one would expect, this is the app for organising
your life and keeping abreast of what’s going on throughout the weeks and months
of each year. You can of course sync in existing 3rd party calendars
from other accounts, such as outlook.com, gmail or your corporate account. The
usual Add, edit and delete of events (as Microsoft calls them) are there, as
well as several ways to view your calendars combined/separately, or in a
week/day or month view so you can get a good glance at what it is you want to
know … in theory anyway.
Does it do the job it
was primarily designed for?
It does the basics, let’s just say that. To me, the calendar app is like getting an A5 calendar for Christmas when you really wanted an A4. It feels squashed and somewhat like it’s been through the washing machine a few times, due to its inability to clearly show anything in any truly helpful manner.
Lets start with what it does do respectably, adding
events. As you can see below, the essentials are there in terms of the event name and the people
you might invite, as well as the start/end dates/times. You can also choose which
calendar to add it to, set reoccurrences, reminders, privacy and availability.
Yes, it could be more sophisticated but for the majority of people this is
really all one needs in terms of complexity.
Even creating events by clicking on a point on the calendar
is simple. Initially you get the basic new event window before you can bring up
the previous extra details window:
Deleting events already on the calendar is pretty simply
with a right click, where you can also change availability.
This is all pretty basic, reasonably intuitive and acceptable.
This is all pretty basic, reasonably intuitive and acceptable.
Where the app fails, is on the visuals of the various calendar views. It’s either not very pretty, or it’s simply various levels of non-clarity
when you’re trying to work out what is what, and when. The month view (see
below) isn’t too bad:
But click on day, week or work week and blimey, it’s hard
to work out. And the more calendars you add to the view, the harder it gets. Events are chopped out of view.
What’s the
alternative?
Hopefully one has Microsoft Office Outlook installed or maybe Windows Live
Mail which provide better and clearer calendars for my eyes. Even outlook.com’s
or Google Calendar webpages are better. For me though, the best method for
viewing my calendars comes on my android phone.
Hit, Miss, or Maybe?
Maybe; it won’t
be for everyone, but I have to admit that the basics and fundamentals of a
calendar app are there. It’s just a shame that it’s visually unpleasant and
obstructive, although that may not bother some.
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