Way overpriced for what you actually get!

Years ago before the native Apple Calendar app accepted “natural language” input, I could certainly understand all the hype about Fantastical. It allowed you to create events on your calendar by simply typing things like, “Lunch with Barb tomorrow at 1:00 pm” and voila, Fantastical would turn that into an event on your calendar. No fussing with tedious little date and time spinners. It was slick. Magical even. But not anymore. The Apple Calendar app now allows you to do exactly the same thing, yet Fantastical still promotes this feature as though it is the only app that allows natural language input. Well, it isn’t. They may have been pioneers in that arena, but they aren’t anymore. So that is simply not a selling point now.

What, then, would cause me to shell out fifty bucks of my hard-earned money just to replace my native calendar with Fantastical? Besides the fact that Fantastical has a slightly “prettier” face than the Apple calendar, and that it provides a quick-access icon on the task bar… I can’t find a single reason to buy it. With Fantastical’s natural language input now being a totally ho-hum, that’s-so-yesterday feature, I can’t imagine anyone being willing to plunk down fifty smackeroos to buy it! Twenty… maybe, but certainly, most definitely, absolutely not fifty! I’ve tested both apps in A/B comparison tests, performing exactly the same tasks first in one app, then the other, and there just isn’t enough difference between the two anymore to matter.

Sorry Fantastical. You had your shining moment in the sun, but your glory days are gone. Time to admit that and get real on your pricing. Or not. But if you don’t, you will continue to see your market share shrink as more and more users recognize the reality of what I’ve pointed out here. My advise to people considering paying fifty clams for Fantastical is to download the free trial from their website first. Do your own A/B comparison and decide for yourself before paying what is a totally outragious asking price for this piece of software.

HeresMyTwoCents about Fantastical - Calendar, v2.2.4