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willwhitney

Once a startup gets bought, I look for alternatives.

If they don't shut down, I still learned something new! But usually they do.

In this case, I landed on Fantastical [1] — it's a little pricy but completely worth it. (Mac/iOS only.)

[1]: https://flexibits.com/fantastical

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> it's a little pricy

We should appreciate when its pricey. That's motivation for the product to continue to exist. Otherwise, "OurIncredibleJourney".

I agree but the current model is broken. I buy FantastiCal, don't like it, I've just thrown money down the toilet. Yeah yeah you can go through iTunes and get it back but that feels like a dick move, and how many actually know the procedure anyway? It's not exactly advertised.

I throw a quid down the toilet? That's fine, I don't mind. I throw a fiver or a tenner? Woah dude, that's like, a Starbucks latte! Totally different (or not, but hey, that's what it feels like).

I wish Apple would start allowing time-limited trialware. The IAP machinery is already there, they just have to allow apps that stop working after 30 days if there is no payment. After 30 days, I have a pretty good idea whether an app is worth £1, £10, £50 or 0.

> I throw a quid down the toilet? That's fine, I don't mind. I throw a fiver or a tenner? Woah dude, that's like, a Starbucks latte! Totally different (or not, but hey, that's what it feels like).

http://theoatmeal.com/blog/apps

Well spotted. Note how that strip is from 2011, it was a bit of an old joke at the time already, and nothing has changed. Or rather: app-developers now route around this perception with IAP-whaling, which makes everyone sad and doesn't really map to "real" apps anyway. A trialware model would be better for everyone.

> A trialware model would be better for everyone.

I agree.

you have to consider apps are still plugging holes of basic functionality everyone expect from a computer but isn't available on mobile.

I still can't fine tune my screen brightness nor set up a firewall. oh but next version of the OS will have support for saving a copy of my credit card for wireless payments

People hate the idea of spending money and then having a bad experience. You can be reasonably sure that with a cup of coffee that it won't be completely terrible, if you have a bad experience you can ask them to brew you a new one. With apps it is a lot more hoops to jump for a less certain outcome.

Would Apple allow an app that's ad-free for 30 days then chock full of nagware?

Agreed.

Given that so many startups only exist for the purpose of being bought, the logical conclusion here, is that perhaps you shouldn't rely on things made by startups.

At least, until they reach a level of self-operation that makes it clear that if they are bought, they'll be kept.

Sometimes there are no great alternatives :(

I still use Sparrow for email on Mac. Would use it on iOS too, but it's quite buggy in iOS9. Spark is _almost_ as good as Sparrow on iOS, but it's free which makes me wonder whether they're doing some kind of data mining for revenue and how long they will be around.

P.S. +1 for fantastical, it's great!

Nylas N1, Airmail, Canary, or Polymail. Take your pick. Personally, I use Nylas since it's open source and the extensibility of it is awesome.

And because it's open-source, it won't just get shut down. Worst-case it gets abandoned or forked or suffers feature bloat (but since it's already a mail client...) or goes the way of Thunderbird.

I really can't recommend Canary enough, has everything I need. Just need them to make an iOS version.

Thanks for the suggestions! I've tried Airmail but I found it quite sluggish. The others a new to me.

+1 for N1. Great software that keeps getting better.

Second this, totally worth the money and it works great.

Slightly shameless self promotion: If you're looking for an Android solution, we're working on TimeFerret, a calendar app that helps you reduce fragmented meeting schedules and track productivity. It's not released yet though. The iOS version will be out first, followed by Android.

[1] http://www.timeferret.com

> Over Quota

> This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later.

Thanks for letting us know. I've updated the quota so the website is up now.

EDIT: Changed it to say the website is up, where it said the website will be up shortly.

i tried using Sunrise but was already a devout Fantastical user. i'm just too into the Alfred / Fantastical macro life now. Glad I stuck with them.

I'd be curious to hear how you use Alfred and FantastiCal if you're willing to share?

the biggest thing is just simply hotkeying fantastical to "f" in Alfred and burning out reminders and events from the keyboard.

you can also pull up fantastical and scroll through your events but I find most of the time I'm reviewing events from my phone.

here are some more tweaks: https://www.alfredapp.com/blog/productivity/dont-miss-a-date...

>it's a little pricy

It's 50€ in a world where premium calendar apps are 3-4€. It better be good to justify an order of magnitude price difference.

I made the same switch as you. However, no Android app, and no plans of Flexibits ever making one, is making this transition hard! Any suggestions?

Do you exclusively use software made by startups?

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