http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/technology/personaltech/the-best-calendar-apps-for-setting-your-agenda-for-the-days-ahead.html 2014-12-10 20:26:31 The Best Calendar Apps for Setting Your Agenda for the Days Ahead Among other things, calendar apps let users make entries through natural language and arrange conference calls. === Smartphones are slimmer and smarter calendar managers and event planners than the options of yore. But not all calendar apps are created equal. Sunrise is my favorite. Instead of merely being an old-fashioned calendar in digital form, Sunrise adds features that prove how a powerful net-connected calendar can do so much more to keep you organized. The app presents a lot of calendar information at a glance. You can see your calendar entries in two ways: a summary weekly view, which lists coming events in a long, scrolling list; and a detailed agenda view, which shows several days in column format, with hours displayed vertically down the page. This means that with just one tap you can get a quick update about what is on the week’s schedule and see what is going on in a few hours or tomorrow afternoon. Entering a new event into Sunrise is simple and straightforward. The app has a feature that lets you tag a calendar entry with an icon matching the event — options include “Coffee” dates and a serious “Meeting.” The app automatically syncs with many other calendar programs, including those from Google, Apple and Microsoft, and apps like the one for the online ticketing service Eventbrite. It can pull data like friends’ birthdays from Facebook, and if you connect it to your LinkedIn account, it can even show the faces of other attendees at meetings. Sunrise has a long list of built-in events that you can add to your calendar — from national holidays to more tailored events like Formula One races. Some Android users complain about its widget, but on iOS it integrates well with Apple’s quick-access Notifications menu. There’s little to dislike about Sunrise, though I sometimes wish I could change its default color scheme to suit my tastes a little better. The app is free on Tempo Smart Calendar, a Tempo has a host of extra features. You can sign up for a free conference phone call via a partnership with Speek, a conference-calling start-up, for up to five attendees; post birthday greetings to friends’ Facebook pages from inside the app; check for up-to-date information about flights you have planned and entered into the app; and view maps and directions. Best of all, the app can add events to your calendar in natural language — simply type something like “Coffee meeting with Kenton tomorrow at 11,” and the app automatically works out what you mean and adds an event. You can use Apple’s voice entry system to make this process even more natural. The app has a few other nice touches, too, like the ability to add photos as backgrounds, and its gesture-based controls feel very intuitive. If it lacks anything, it is the ability to customize the look and feel more, but this is a minor complaint. Fantastical 2 is another On Android, Google’s Cal has a beautiful look that incorporates minimalist menus and photo backdrops that make dealing with your calendar feel somehow more personal. It is also tightly integrated with the One final mention goes to the Calendars 5 by Readdle. It’s the most expensive app I’ll mention, at $7 for Enjoy filling your schedule with these apps, but remember that a wise man once said, “There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want” — and that’s something you can’t plan for. Quick Call Terraria, a popular adventure-style game with retro graphics and some clever features that will remind you of Minecraft, has had a huge new update. The game has had over 1,000 new items and 100 new enemies added to it, as well as other additions and changes. It’s $5 on