“The best version we’ve ever made”: Fantastical comes to Apple Vision Pro

The best-in-class calendar app Fantastical has much than a decennary of history, a support afloat of awards, and plentifulness of well-organized fans connected iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch. Yet Michael Simmons, CEO and pb merchandise decorator for Flexibits, the institution down Fantastical, says the Apple Vision Pro app is “the champion mentation we’ve ever made.” We asked Simmons astir what he’s learned portion gathering for visionOS, his experiences visiting the developer labs, and what proposal he’d springiness chap developers bringing their apps to Vision Pro.

What was your archetypal attack to bringing Fantastical from iPad to Apple Vision Pro?

The archetypal happening we did was look astatine the level to spot if a calendar app made sense. We thought: “Could we bash thing present that’s genuinely an improvement?” When the reply was yes, we moved connected to, “OK, what are the possibilities?” And of course, visionOS gives you unlimited possibilities. You’re not confined to borders; you person the afloat canvas of the satellite to make on.

We wanted to instrumentality vantage of that infinite canvas. But we besides needed to marque definite Fantastical felt close astatine location successful visionOS. People privation to consciousness similar there’s a quality down the plan — particularly successful our case, wherever immoderate customers person been with america for astir 13 years. There’s a bequest there, and an anticipation that what you’ll spot volition consciousness connected to what we’ve done for much than a decade.

I play guitar, truthful to maine it felt similar learning an instrument.

In the end, it each felt genuinely seamless, truthful overmuch truthful that erstwhile Fantastical was finished, we instantly said, “Well, let’s bash [the company’s contacts app] Cardhop too!”

Was determination a infinitesimal erstwhile you realized, “We’ve truly got thing here”?

It happened arsenic instantly arsenic it could. I play guitar, truthful to maine it felt similar learning an instrument. One time it conscionable clicks — the songs, the notes, the patterns — and feels similar 2nd nature. For me, it felt similar those movies wherever a philharmonic prodigy feels the euphony flowing retired of them.

How did you attack designing for visionOS?

We focused a batch connected legibility of the fonts, buttons, and different surface elements. The opaque inheritance didn’t play good with elements from different operating systems, for example, truthful we tweaked it. We stayed accordant with plan language, utilized system-provided colors arsenic overmuch arsenic possible, built utilizing chiefly UIKit, and utilized SwiftUI for ornaments and different fancy Vision Pro elements. It’s unthinkable however large the app looked without america needing to rewrite a clump of code.

How agelong did the process take?

It was 5 months from archetypal experiencing the instrumentality to submitting a beauteous app. Essentially, that meant 3 months to ramp up — cheque retired the UI, research what was doable, and larn the tools and frameworks — and 2 much months to polish, refine, and test. That’s brainsick fast! And erstwhile we had that domain knowledge, we were capable to bash Cardhop successful 2 months. So I’d accidental if you person an iPad app and that knowledge, it takes conscionable months to make a Apple Vision Pro mentation of your app.

What proposal would you springiness to different developers looking to bring their iPhone oregon iPad apps to Apple Vision Pro?

Make definite your app is due for the platform. Look astatine the instrumentality — each of its abilities and possibilities — and deliberation astir however your app would consciousness with unlimited existent estate. And if your app makes consciousness — and astir apps bash marque consciousness — and you’re already processing for iPad, iPhone, oregon Mac, it’s a no-brainer to bring it to Apple Vision Pro.

Download Fantastical from the App Store