While startups are trying to replace your mobile calendar by making it smarter, there’s a new-ish iOS app called Event Book that seems to built around the belief that what calendars really need is to become simpler and easier to use.
Created by Abhinay Ashutosh, Event Book launched earlier this year. Since then, Ashutosh said the app has been downloaded more than 60,000 times, and he said that he has incorporated “user feedback from tens of thousands of folks” to release version 2.0 today.
The Event Book interface is divided into different “books” — there’s the Day Book, which shows you your agenda for the current day, the Week Book, the Month Book, and the List Book, which displays all of your calendar items in a single list. In most sections, you can swipe across to see the next day, week, or month, and you can adjust between “long” and “short” views to determine how much information is displayed. In the Month Book, the number of dots under each day to indicate how many events you have scheduled.
None of this is exactly revelatory, but I think it looks pretty slick — if you don’t like the design of the native iOS app, but you’re not necessarily looking for lots of “smart” bells and whistles (something I’ve complained about in the past), this could be the app for you.
When I asked how he sees Event Book fitting into the larger calendar market, Ashutosh said it offers “a unique blend of features and design”: “The app does this by combining thousands of points from users about what features they want most along with a killer, light, and themed design to create an app that really keeps you on top of your schedule while keeping up with your preferences and styles.”
As for what’s new, Ashutosh said the version 2.0 has a new design, as well as the ability to customize that design with new themes. There’s also a new “book”, namely the Location Book, which integrates with Apple Maps and Google Maps to allow users to save their favorite locations, add them to events, and bring up directions. For example, many of my meetings take place at the TechCrunch office, so the Location Book allows me to save the address and easily add it to any future events. (Not that I need directions in that case, but hey, it saves me some time.)
You can download Event Book here.
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