Review of Android Calendar apps

I've gotten my first smartphone, and I'm hoping to be able to find applications that will allow it to replace my Palm Tungsten E2, which I've had for at least 5 years now.  I'm a diehard Palm user since 2000 and 13 years of Palm habits have worn deeply into my brain, so any Android apps I use have to be as good or better than what I've been used to.

There are a lot of calendar applications out there and I've tried at least six now, including the Google Calendar app that comes with the phone, so I thought I'd share what I see as the advantages and disadvantages of each of them below.  Dashes indicate disadvantages, while + indicates an advantage.

I must mention first that I have a certain bias against any agenda view, since my brain doesn't seem to comprehend time very well in that setup.  (Agenda view is when all events are simply listed with their times under each day with no depiction of scale as to how much time occurs between them or how much time they take up.) So, take any ranting I do about agenda view with a grain of salt.

Google Calendar

+Agenda view's font makes events easy to distinguish from dates

-Month view tells you nothing. You only see there is an event represented by a dot.

-Week view shows the days in long narrow vertical strips that make the text awkward and unreadable

-Adding an event takes 3 touches as the option is in a sub-menu. (Inexcusable!)

-Day view requires you to scroll to see if you have anything

-Difficult to edit events once put in

Pimlical (Supposedly designed for Palm users)

+ Synchs with Google Calendar

+ Week view is good and readable, using an eight-square grid

- LOTS of gestures to learn and remember (location of gesture on the screen is just as important as what gesture is made)

- Events in month view are displayed too small and too limited text to read

- Includes a 4-day view with long narrow vertical strips that make text awkward and unreadable.  I consider this view to be pretty close to useless, yet I have to scroll through it constantly to get to day view from week view.

- 2 touches to edit events (once you figure it out)

- Inconvenient to put in done tasks (I track what I've done each day by making a floating event that holds todo list items I've completed)

AnCal (Emulator for Palm software)

+ Very simple interface

+ Navigation with screen buttons (similar to Palm)

+ Supports inclusion of tasks, appointments, and notes

+ Easy to enter task, appointments, and notes (unknown whether notes float between days or not)

+ Takes 1 touch on a time to enter an appointment in day view (This is the GOLD standard of efficiency!)

+ Takes 1 touch on an appointment to bring up an edit box in day view! (Excellent! Why aren't other apps like this?)

+ Tasks have settings for two priority levels, alarm, and due date.

+ Appointments have alarms, a floating event setting, and repeat settings

- DOES NOT synch with Google Calendar (Sooo disappointing!)

- Day view requires scrolling to see events

- Does not show text on week view, only shows a dash for events

- Does not show text on month view, only shows a dot for events

- Tasks for future days do not show due date and only two priority settings available, and no repeats available

- Notes can't be attached to a particular day

- I personally dislike the black background

aCalendar

+ Synchs with Google Calendar

+ Week view is good and readable, using an eight-square grid

+ Has a widget which is very large, also transparent, but configurable.

- Month view doesn’t show much useful text

- Hard to edit events put in (takes 2 touches to get to edit screen)

- Can't edit events put in with other calendar apps

- Difficult to get to a dayview of the day you want from weekview. It took me a while to figure out that I had to click the right day and THEN scroll left.

Jorte

+ Synchs with Google Calendar

+ Week view is fairly readable

+ Incorporates tasks and memos

+ Can create task templates and different task lists

- Uses only one calendar view (month/week) which is set by the user.  Makes it annoying to switch views.

- No day view, only agenda view, a sliver of which is shown below the main calendar. It can be expanded, but it still feels very cramped. (and did I mention that I hate agendaview?)

- Hard to get to day-specific agenda list (requires 2 touches)

- Difficult to edit events once they are input (3 touches required)

- Icons at bottom of the screen seem annoying (should have been in menu)

- Supposed to have a widget, but didn't find one in the widget list

- Tasks incorporate only 1 priority setting.

- Unable to set tasks to different task lists.

CalendarPad

+ Synchs with Google Calendar

+ Week view easy to read (8 grid boxes)

+ Month view shows events, though only first word fits

+ Day view can be customized to show 3 different ways, one of which shows the whole day without having to scroll at all

+ Day view displays open slots of time and beginning and ending event times

+ Entering events seems intuitive (touch anywhere on the day view)

+ Has a widget which has customizable size and customizable view of day, week, or month.

- Month view does not show event times, and only first few word(s) fit

- Entering a new appointment takes 4 touches instead of 1 to bring you to an edit box (ABSOLUTELY INEXCUSABLE!!)

- Editing an existing appointment takes 3 touches instead of 1 to bring up an edit box. Also inexcusable. 

- When trying to edit, program keeps asking what program I want to use to edit, even though I already chose what I want by default!  (Update. Okay. It seems to have stopped for some reason, so now I'm down to 3 and 2 touches to input and edit events respectively.  But that's still too much.)

- Menu contents change depending on what view you are in, which is kind of weird

So far I think CalendarPad has the best views and the best navigation.  I just wish it had 1-touch entering and editing of events like AnCal.  I think CalendarPad will probably be what I use, although if I get discontented, I will probably try out some more apps.

After trying out all these calendars it is enough to make me wish I could make one myself.  Here's what I would include:

• Synch with Google Calendar
• Month view with time and a few words of the event showing
• Week view in an 8-square grid layout
• Day view in which the whole day is visible without scrolling
• 1-touch entering or editing of appointments
• Floating appointments
• Memos for appointments
• Using the edit box to change appointments or tasks with 5 priority levels, due dates, and memos.
• A pane in day view showing tasks in priority order
• Completed tasks are tied to the day they are completed

 If you happen to know someone who has already made an application that does these things, please comment and tell me!

To do apps: Astrid for Android

I have to say that I am suffering from technological growing pains. Specifically, with my to-do lists. I have used a Palm Pilot for 10 years and I have honed my ability to use its tasks application to a fine point. So when I look at other task applications for iPad or iPod touch or Android, you can be sure that I want something that will be as functional as my Palm.

So far I am very frustrated. While Palm seemed extremely concerned with using screen real estate as carefully as possible, it seems like iPad, iPod Touch, and Android applications drop the ball by being more concerned about style and beauty rather than efficient use of space. I’m forced to scroll with my finger to find the information that should be immediately visible in the most important screen space.

Right now I am testing the Android ap Astrid.

What Astrid does wrong

Astrid puts user-created lists at the bottom of the main lists screen. User-created lists should be at the top of the screen where users can get to them easily. Why should a list called “Recently Modified” or “I’ve Assigned” get more attention than a list that I am more interested in myself? I want those OUT of there and I can’t find anyway to do that!

Astrid uses the “active tasks” label. The label should be “all” instead. This makes much more sense.

Astrid has a button for “Sorting and Hidden Tasks,” but unfortunately I have no idea what I do to create hidden tasks. I have some, but I don’t know how they got that way in the first place. It wasn’t like I selected “hide” anywhere.

Astrid provides an “Astrid smart sort” option, but gives me no information as to what “smart sort” actually does. Astrid’s help site is silent on the matter.

Astrid only has 4 priority levels. After having 5, 4 seems like a step down. I may sound picky, but if I could, I would have 6 or 7 priority levels.

Astrid has the capability of adding additional filters for lists, but in testing out this capability, I discovered that the filter I created was added to the main lists screen and it uses up more of the valuable screen real estate space! And there is no way that I can see to delete it. (Later: Never mind. I discovered I could press and hold on that filter and then a dialog came up that gave me the option of deleting it. (phew!)

What Astrid does right

Astrid allows users to customize the layout of their task creation screen so that most needed items are easiest to get to. If it weren’t for this option, I probably would have given up on this ap in the first 10 minutes of trying it out. For me, the most important things to enter for a task are:

• Description
• Priority
• Due date
• Category
• Notes

Astrid allows me to find out exactly how much time it takes me to complete a task by incorporating a little timer into each task you create. You can start it when you begin the task and stop it when you take a break. This makes it possible to really gather data about how long it takes to accomplish something and make your estimates more accurate for how long it will take to complete a task.

Astrid makes it possible for me to put a task on my Android calendar without having to go to the trouble of entering it manually. Unfortunately, it seems to put the wrong tasks in. Obviously there is a bug there. I messed around with the task I had tried to put in and finally got it to work.

For me, a good to-do list program should have

• Priorities. Use numbers for priorities, preferable as many numbers as possible. 1-5 is good, 1-10 would be better.
• Categories. Allow user to make as many categories as they want.
• Due dates. Allow user to give due dates.
• Due date ranges. Allow user to see task for next seven days, today, and last seven days.
• This way, user can easily see what is coming up to prepare for it, and can easily see what they missed.
• Recurring tasks. Allow the user to make tasks repeating tasks. Palm’s repeat is the best I’ve seen for customizing repeats. You can actually set something to repeat until a specific day, which is very nice for tasks you know will only last so long.