I finally broke down and got Fantastical 2. Yes, Apple’s calendar application is nice, but it’s also limited. I was tired of trying to utilize may different apps to get all the features that Fantastical provides out of the box. Plus Fantastical does it beautifully.

One of the biggest advantages of Fantastical for me is that it includes Google Hangout links in calendar events. It’s the only Mac calendar application that does that. Sunrise used to, but it’s no longer developed. Fantastical can be setup to pull calendars from Google Calendar’s API so you can get Hangout links; something Apple’s calendar app doesn’t do.

Fantastical also integrates reminders right into my daily view. I’m a fan of this as they’re front and center and I don’t have to worry about forgetting something. I need to manage everything, so why not have it all in one place?

Adding calendar events or reminders is super simple too with the natural language input. I just type what I’m thinking and it does the rest. The scheduler is very handy as I can see when my co-workers are available without having to leave the app.

Fantastical’s menu bar application allows me to see my day without switching to the full application. This is very convenient. Everything you find in the main app, is also in the menu bar app.

The support team is also very responsive and helpful. I bugged them with some questions and suggestions and they were more than willing to talk through my ideas.

Fantastical 2 is a well thought out application that not only looks great, but it also integrates really well with Google Calendar to get you the most information possible.