BusyCal for Mac

1.0 stars

"Rip off pricing and nil support"

October 22, 2012  |   By paulkeleher

Version: BusyCal 2.0

Pros

A few superficial nice features

Cons

I paid $50 for this less than 3 months ago which was a bit steep for a few nice features. Now I have to pay the full product price for an upgrade; has anyone ever heard of such predatory pricing and bad customer care? They're trying to lure people in with an 'offer' of $29.99 but it doesn't bode well for proper levels of support, so I'd save your money and look elsewhere, otherwise like me you'll be ruing an expensive mistake

Summary

The pricing of this product has always been controversial; now it seems pretty clear. It's a rip-off.

Updated on Oct 22, 2012

I wasn't over-impressed to begin with; now I'm furious!

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5.0 stars

"Solved my Frustration with iCal"

February 8, 2012  |   By apvocelka

Version: BusyCal 1.6.2

Pros

Displays Calendar better then iCal.
Customize the calendar display including the font face and size. (For me this was the swinger to buy it).
Drag-n-drop contacts, emails, and more.
BusyCal performs automatic backups of your data.
Works with iCloud (Have not done that yet but will). Etc.

Cons

You will have a hard time finding a Con with BusyCal. I haven't yet. So NONE.

Summary

My needs are simple. I am an old guy and wanted to be able to Color text and , most of all, have the ability to increase the size of text. I have searched many option and getting totally frustrated with Apple on this one.
BusyCal may be a bit expensive for my needs but after using it , it relieved all my frustration of iCal. So , to me, it was worth every penny.

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5.0 stars

"You will NEVE want to use iCal again."

January 25, 2012  |   By LoriSch

Version: BusyCal 1.6.2

Pros

Easy to use and syncs with everything I have wanted it to sync with.

Cons

Very cumbersome trying to add icons to monthly calendar events which is VERY important to me.
What I can and can't print, like a list of for example my appointments with a particular person over X number of years would be nice. If this is available, I haven't figured out how to do it yet.

Summary

Please support the BusyCal people so they don't go away.
This is the best calendar program I have found out there for a Mac.
Every friend i have told about it, now owns it.

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5.0 stars

"Great app, I love it"

January 1, 2012  |   By dudemanla

Version: BusyCal 1.6.1

Pros

I use this to sync with my iCloud calendar and it works like a charm. Great customer support too.

Cons

None that I see.

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4.0 stars

"Excellent Calendar to Replace iCal or Palm Desktop"

September 27, 2011  |   By wrbtu

Version: BusyCal 1.5.4

Pros

Superior "find events" feature
Much more attractive than iCal or Palm Desktop
Extensive "notes" may be attached to events
Auto assignment of color to new calendar
"To Do" List pops up & must be dismissed or postponed

Cons

Doesn't allow user assignment of calendar colors
Selecting a calendar to work with is not intuitive
Function for easily changing dates/hours not present

Summary

I've been using iCal since it was available, & also using Palm Desktop Calendar, which still works with Mac OS 10.6.8. I wanted a calendar which allows better finding & listing of events than either of those two, & BusyCal is perfect for that function. It allows a list view of events found, & finds events over a period of a day, week, month, year, or decade.

It automatically assigns a color to any new calendar created, which is a nice feature, but it should allow for a manual over-ride of the chosen color, in case the user wants to assign a particular color.

When using multiple calendars, it's not intuitive. I had a hard time figuring out that clicking the check-box for a calendar pertained ONLY to visibility of that calendar's events, & not to adding events or editing events for that calendar. To add/edit events, you must also highlight the calendar's name. It's possible to have one calendar's events visible, but any editing you do applies to an invisible calendar (if the visible calendar is not highlighted). In that case, BusyCal, makes the other calendar visible as well. A bit confusing until you get the hang of it, then it becomes simple.

Both iCal & Palm Desktop allow dates/times to be edited by either pressing the up/down arrow keys, or by using the cmd-[plus key]/ cmd-[minus key]. BusyCal has plenty of shortcuts for date/time entry, but omits that particularly useful shortcut. To increase or decrease the date or time, you must do additional typing, unlike the other two programs.

I contacted their customer support (while still using a trial version) & found them to be very responsive to my emailed question, even though I was not yet a paid user, so I rate their Customer Service very highly.

This is a fairly expensive program for what it is ($49), but worth it if you need the advanced list feature, attractive look, overall ease of use, extended notes feature, etc.

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1.0 stars

"Not compatible with Apple Mail"

August 17, 2011  |   By appleusernyc

Version: BusyCal 1.5.4

Pros

Shows the weather

Cons

Cannot import events from Apple Mail (Apple Mail's single most useful feature. Bad tech support.

Summary

Stick with iCal. Apple has if doing everything Busycal does and iCal is fully compatible with Apple products.

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4.0 stars

"painless, intuitive, syncing and organizing"

February 21, 2011  |   By calderwood

Version: BusyCal 1.5.1

Pros

It is astonishing how easily and effectively you can manage calendars across multiple systems with BusyCal. After a week of use, I could not go back to iCal; it has become my preferred means of accessing and entering data in Google Calendar too.

Cons

Two (very) small cons: syncing produces occasional duplicate entries; and date entry in the editing menu takes some getting used to -- I miss the iCal interface -- sometimes it's unclear if your edit is been without checking the calendar itself.

Summary

I'm pretty sure that this will become one of my top 3 indispensable aps (along with Launchbar and TextExpander.) As others have said, run it with iCal in the background in order to take advantage of the iCal services and scripting. Now if only they could use their considerable talent and imagination to take ToDo management to the next (hierarchical/GTD?) level..... Still, this is the most fulfilling calendar/todo program I have ever used.

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4.0 stars

"On test mode it seems like a good substitute for iCal"

February 21, 2011  |   By tigerandyx9

Version: BusyCal 1.5.1

Pros

Quite simple to use and the features complement iCal

Cons

So far none.. just learning problems! :)

Summary

On test mode it seems like a good substitute for iCal Its complementary functions to iCal and the sync with Google make it quite interesting for me

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5.0 stars

"iCal on steroids"

February 9, 2011  |   By toshdog

Version: BusyCal 1.5.1

Pros

The list view is super useful. Syncs perfectly with Google and my Android. Find duplicates useful. Better UI than iCal, great tech support.

Cons

Minor issue getting data from Mail directly (data goes to iCal, then BusyCal once iCal launches).

Summary

Worth every penny.

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