A calendar app for the iPad, iPhone and Mac that includes Reminders/Tasks AND allows searches of past events

I am a HUGE fan of Reminders and Calendar on the iPad and iPhone. I rely on my Reminders and Calendar notifications day in and day out to keep my work and personal life running as smoothly as possible.

But wouldn't it be great if your Calendar app could also show your Reminders so that you could see your tasks and events for the day in one place.  And wouldn't it be great if you could create EITHER calendar events or reminders from the same app.

And wouldn't it be great if you could type (or say) a plain English description of an event or reminder and have it pop into the calendar magically?

A Calendar app that includes your Reminders

All these things are possible with the award-winning calendar app Fantastical.

I use Fantastical every day to manage my day and the tasks that I have set for the day.

It has a handy Widget that I have in my Today view on the iPhone (shown in the third image below), allowing for really quick access to information about my day and tasks.

(If you don't know what a Widget is, or what the Today view is, we'll cover these in a separate Handy Hint another time.)

But can it cater for tasks created in Outlook on a Windows computer? 

Last week I showed Fantastical to a client who provides productivity training to corporate clients, including making the most of Outlook tasks to manage emails and 'to-do's.  Her problem was that ​​she didn't have an equivalent to the the Windows version of Outlook on the iPhone - one that could show the calendars events and 'to-dos' that her Outlook showed. (The Outlook App for iOS only shows calendar events and does not include tasks.)

Fantastical solved this problem.

​As soon as we turned on the Calendar and Reminders 'switches' for her Exchange / Outlook email account in Settings -> Passwords and Accounts, she could see all her events and reminders on her Fantastical calendar, grouped by date.

Locating events from more than 12 months ago

Another client asked me a while ago whether there was any way she could search for events that occurred more than 12 months ago. She is a counsellor, and wanted to retrieve a list of dates of previous appointments with the client.

Her problem was that the standard Calendar app would not allow her to search past 12 months ago - even though in Settings->Calendar she had chosen to Sync All Events​ to her iPhone.

I checked my other 'go-to' calendar app, Week Calendar, and it was also limited to searching only 12 months' events. (I also use this one on my iPhone as it provides an excellent week view in portrait orientation.)

Fantastical had no such limit on searches. It allowed me to find all events that matched my search phrase of 'hair' (looking for past haircut appointments) - going back as many years as I have been using my iPhone Calendar.  The earliest was January 2010!

The search function even includes the ability to search Title, Location, Invitees or all of these.

How to get Fantastical

Fantastical is available from the App Store on your iPad, iPhone or Mac. It costs $7.99 for iPhone and $14.99 for iPad.  And if you want to go 'all in' (like I did), the Mac version is $79.99. 

​(Note. iTandCoffee is in no way affiliated with the maker of this App and we receive no money for this article or any purchase you make.)

Do you have an app you would like to tell others about?

We love hearing from our readers about great apps.  Please feel to share details of your own favourite app in the comments below.

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Related articles and handy hints

Handy Hints (for iTandCoffee Club members)

• Quickly save the date received in an email - and set up an event in your calendar
• Quickly create a calendar event in your iPad's or iPhone's calendar​
• The week view in the Calendar on your iPhone
• Can I share a calendar with my husband, but only show those events that I want him to see?
• Creating multiple calendars and choosing which calendar applies to each event
• Make sure you never forget birthdays - using the Contacts app!
• Dealing with missing events in the Calendar
• Controlling Facebook notifications about birthdays and events
• Including or excluding Facebook information from Contacts and Calendar apps
• How to ensure you know where to be and when - setting standard alerts for your Calendar events
• Using Reminders to help manage a busy life
• ​Tell Siri to remind you about an email, text, web content - anything!
• Is there a quick way to get all the local school term dates and public holidays into my Calendar?
• Sharing a Reminders list

Blog Articles

• Why your Contacts or Calendars may not be sync'ing across all devices
• Making a backup of your Contacts and Calendar - and how to 'restore' if something goes wrong
• ​Did you receive a heap of 'spam' Calendar invitations recently?
• My iPhone tells me when it is time to leave for appointments - based on current traffic conditions
• What happened to all the events in my Calendar?
• Why do my iPhone's Calendar entries disappear after a month?   
• My Apple devices remember birthdays!  But where do they come from?
• Sharing a Reminder list can be really useful