Windows Phone apps that help you keep up with your calendar events

While the native Windows Phone calendar app has it's usefulness, it can be a little lacking with regards to features. A little on the vanilla side if yous will.

Luckily there are some nice third party options in the Windows Phone Store that can provide a little more than functionality and features to your Windows Telephone agenda. Apps that will aid you go on track of where you need to be and when you need to be at that place.  And that's the focus of this week's roundup... calendar alternatives.

Nosotros picked iii of the more popular agenda apps in the Store that offers you an alternative to the native agenda app on your Windows Telephone. If nosotros missed your favorite agenda app, there's no conspiracy afoot just went with these iii based on their popularity. Feel free to sound off below in the comments with your pick for a Windows Phone calendar app.

Uncomplicated Calendar (free/in-app upgrades): Uncomplicated Calendar has been around for some time now and is a very popular calendar alternative that gives you... well... a uncomplicated view of your appointments and events.  The app has a very robust Live Tile and lockscreen support, plenty of settings to help the app fit your needs better and is only a sharp looking app.  Between functionality and appearance, Simple Calendar should make everyone's short list for calendar apps.

One time you launch Simple Agenda the app automatically taps into your existing Windows Phone calendars eliminating the need to spend fourth dimension setting upwardly the connection. The main view for Simple Agenda is a monthly calendar view that lists your daily appointments below. Basically creating a monthly and daily view on the screen. In tapping on a specific appointment, yous can pull up more than details on that appointment.

Elementary Agenda Principal View, Bill of fare, Navigation Menu, and Appointment Display

Uncomplicated Agenda utilizes the native Windows Phone calendar screens to add an appointment. All the same, while you lot tin add together an date to your calendar through Simple Calendar yous'll need to go into the native calendar app to edit or delete it (Bone restriction).

There isn't a weekly, daily or year view for Simple Agenda. I can alive without a yearly view and with your daily appointments listed below the monthly calendar, at that place really isn't a need for the daily view. However, a calendar week view wouldn't be as well bad or the ability to zoom into the monthly calendar. The fonts tin be awfully tough to read if your trying to plan ahead at a glance.

The agenda view mimics your Windows Telephone Theme's groundwork color. If you accept a blackness background for your theme... the properties for Simple Calendar will be blackness. Choose a white background and you get a white properties.

Upwardly under the iii-dot menu you'll find subconscious button controls to go to today's date, add together an appointment and access Uncomplicated Calendar's settings. You as well have links to the app's Live Tile settings, in-app purchases, a help section and the customary near screen.  As far as in-app purchases are concerned, you tin can purchase additional Live Tile designs and remove the ads.

Uncomplicated Agenda Settings Pages

Simple Calendar'southward settings cover a lot of ground and include:

Calendar month Options: Here y'all will notice general options that pertain to navigation and what'due south displayed.

Options to hide private appointments, double tap to add an engagement, tap/concur the calendar to jump to today's date, brandish the week numbers on the agenda, Fade past appointments, brandish "No Appointments" image when applicative beneath the calendar, display a background prototype (a calendar watermark of sorts) and cull with day the calendar week starts on.

Calendars: Here's where you tin turn on/off the calendars your Windows Phone links with and choose a custom color for that calendar.

Unproblematic Calendar Live Tile Options

Tiles: Uncomplicated Agenda'southward Live Tiles are definitely 1 of the strongest selling points of the app. They are really clean looking tiles that requite your First Screen a boost in appearance.  In addition to looking great, the tiles provide a nice windows to see what'southward on your daily schedule at a glance.

All iii tile sizes tin can be customized with up to iv styles (two come up with the free version, ii bachelor for in-app purchase). You lot have Basic, Colorless with the free version and Gob and Frodo styles that can be purchased in-app.  Each style has options that include choosing how many days of appointments to display and a few appearance options (background epitome, color, etc.).

Lockscreen: Lockscreen support includes options for choosing your wallpaper image, setting the transparency of the brandish, the number of appointments to display, the number of days displayed, to utilise the accent color, evidence the last updated fourth dimension and whether or not you desire to display all day appointments.

Simple Calendar has a unproblematic, clean appearance that makes it easy to stay upward on your pending appointments. While you can add appointments to your calendar through Unproblematic Calendar, it would be nice if you could edit/delete appointments as well. Understandably this limitation is not exclusive to Simple Agenda and an issue with OS limitations that can't be avoided.

If you're looking for a simple way to go on upwardly with your appointments, it'south difficult to overlook Uncomplicated Calendar. I do wish the calendar view could be dialed down just a little (two-calendar week view maybe?) to avoid tapping on every date to run across what your extended schedule looks like (or maybe a larger font to aid those of u.s. with aging eyes).

All totaled, Simple Calendar is a pop Windows Phone calendar app well worth trying. The base app is a freebie with ad-support kicking in after vii days. You can purchase the additional Live Tile themes and go rid of the ads through in-app purchases.

Uncomplicated Agenda is available for Windows Telephone 8 devices and you can pick it upwards here in the Windows Telephone Store.

Simple Calendar General Settings and Live Tile Settings

Quick update : Elementary Agenda was updated yesterday to version ii.6 to address a few bugs that included a few bugs associated with the Alive Tile.  The update also makes the choice to hibernate individual engagement universal.  In the process you have a new settings folio, General, that permit'southward y'all hide private appointments and a new Live Tile settings folio where you'll demand to choose you Alive Tile size.  In identifying the size, the app will simply try to update that tile size.  You still have all the customization options, you just accept to specify which tile size yous'll exist using.

Chronos Agenda (trial/$1.99): Chronos Agenda is a well received calendar app for both Windows Telephone 8 and 7.x devices. The calendar app has Live Tile support, born holidays and linguistic communication back up for over 50 cultures and Countries. Chronos Calendar does lack lockscreen back up.

Chronos Calendar'due south design is simple and fairly straight forrad though navigation takes a piffling time to get the hang of. Chronos also has the power to go around the Windows Phone Os restrictions by directly syncing with various calendar servers (google.com, outlook.com, etc).

Chronos Calendar Primary Page Views

The main page has ii view options, a dissever screen with a twenty-four hour period view upwardly top and monthly view down below or a scrolling daily view that spans almost vii days viewable at once. A control panel sits at the bottom of the screen with controls to toggle the view (the checkerboard button), navigation/sync options (the center button) and access your settings (right button with the blaster icon).

Chronos Calendar Engagement Entry

The center button options include jumping to today, reset any filters in identify, add an engagement and sync your calendars. You can also add an appointment by tapping on the day view.  If you are syncing to calendar services (outlook.com, google.com, etc) Chronos has a proprietary appointment entry.  If you are tapping into the internal calendar, y'all volition utilise the native Windows Phone agenda entry screens.

Settings cover general options and your calendar options. They break downwardly as follows.

Chronos Calendar General Settings

Live Tile options that include activating the Live Tile, selecting the background image, update frequency, various font sizes and colors and four layout styles.

GoTo is a navigation option to go to today, the beginning of the previous year, beginning of this twelvemonth, or the beginning of side by side year.

Holidays and Special Days is your filter settings to display holidays, National days, special days or other events. The event/vacation will be displayed in the upper right corner of the daily calendar view.

The residual of the General Options embrace additional filters for events, text search and first/last day of the week, month or twelvemonth.

Chronos Calendar'due south Calendar Settings

The Calendar Options deal with culture settings that will set the holidays and events for your State of choice. Full general options allow you lot choose what details for appointments are displayed and options to e'er create an date with the Windows Phone calendar. Fix-upwardly screens for syncing with your Windows Phone calendars (internal) or syncing with your Microsoft or Google accounts (in the deject).

If you sync with your internal calendars, you tin can only view and add together appointments to your Chronos Calendar. If yous sync with external Google or Microsoft calendars you tin can view, add, and edit appointments. Y'all merely take to remember to sync with these accounts to have the edits/changes put into effect.

Chronos Calendar isn't a bad culling to the native Windows Phone calendar. The layout is elementary and straight forwards, the Live Tile customizable to meet your needs, and the power to sync between calendar accounts to add/delete/edit appointments can come in handy. If y'all prefer to stay internal with your appointments, you can do that also but lose the power to delete/edit your appointments.

Chronos does lack lockscreen back up but that may not be a deal breaker for you. I wouldn't mind seeing a few color options for the calendar views but otherwise Chronos is a pretty solid app.

There is a free trial version available to let y'all requite Chronos Calendar a test drive with the full version running $ane.99. It is available for both Windows Phone 8 and 7.ten devices and you can pick up your copy of Chronos Calendar here in the Windows Phone Shop.

Super Calendar (trial/$1.99): Super Calendar throws but about everything a calendar can handle on to your Windows Telephone. From Live Tile and lockscreen back up to aural appointment details, Super Calendar is riddled with features but navigation tin can take a little frustrating at times (mainly with settings).

Super Calendar is available for Windows Phone 8 devices only and automatically taps into your native Windows Phone calendar. As with other third party agenda apps, Super Agenda is express to viewing and adding appointments to your calendar.  Calculation an date/event to the calendar utilizes the native Windows Phone calendar entry screen.

Super Agenda Chief Page Views

Super Calendar has four calendar views from the main folio of the app. You take a year, calendar month, week and day view (you lot can go into the settings and pick one equally your default view).

The twenty-four hour period view has the date/fourth dimension displayed in the upper left corner, a monthly calendar in the right corner and your daily schedule listed across the lesser half of the screen.

The weekly view has a monthly thumbnail in the upper left corner and then a seven day view scattered beyond the residuum of the screen. With the monthly view if you tap on a appointment, any appointments for that appointment will appear at the bottom of the screen.

The yr view doesn't brandish a yearly calendar but rather a scrollable list of all yous appointments for the year. You lot tin can search your appointments by keyword or jump to a particular month with the tabs that line the bottom of the screen.

In borer on an existing appointment Super Calendar volition brandish a more detailed account of that event. At the bottom of the appointment view you'll meet two control buttons. One to pin the date to your Start Screen, the other to launch an audible reading of the appointment.

At the lesser of the agenda pages you'll find 4 control buttons to navigate forward and backwards betwixt the months and days, to add an appointment, and to refresh the calendar.  Upwards under the three-dot carte du jour you lot volition find options to return to this month/mean solar day/year (dependent on which view you are on), leap to the help section, admission the Live Tile and lockscreen settings, access Super Agenda's settings, pivot a stand alone day/week/calendar month/twelvemonth view to your Commencement Screen and shut the app.

Super Agenda Settings

Settings span four general areas. You have principal, account, filter and groundwork settings. They interruption down every bit follows.

Principal: These options cover Super Agenda's display choices and cover your default view, monthly view styles, calendar week view styles, beginning day for your calendar, font size, and turning on/off date watermarks. The downside to this settings page is that you lot don't have a preview of your display options.

This tin be a piffling frustrating and means a lot of back and forth to find the view that fits your needs just right.

Accounts: Hither is where y'all can turn on/off any accounts your native Windows Telephone calendar taps into. Naturally if you lot plough off a agenda, those appointments won't exist displayed. You also have seven theme choices to assign a colour to each account. Shared accounts will appear under 1 business relationship and you won't be able to assign dissever colors.

Filter: This gives you lot the option to filter out birthdays, private appointments, or appointments by keyword.

Background: To farther customize Super Calendar's advent y'all tin can add a customized background image from your Pictures Hub. To prevent the prototype from being overwhelming, you can set up the brightness of the prototype as well.

Super Agenda Live Tile Settings

Super Calendar's Live Tile and lockscreen settings are covered under some other settings card. Super Agenda has nine Live Tile styles that range from text merely to a few that resemble a lot like Elementary Calendar'south tile styles.

Forth with the overall style choices you can set up the number of appointments that appears on the tile, show by events for the day, turn on the back side of the tile for more events, set the text size and color, choose a background image, and turn on/off the display for update times and week numbers.

Super Agenda's lockscreen support is a little on the defective side with merely i default style that shows upcoming appointments for, what appears to be, the current week.

Super Calendar isn't a bad option to consider and while the calendar views are easy to navigate around, the settings user interface could utilize a little fine tuning. I like the calendar view options but yous really need a mode to preview the choices without going back/forth between the view and settings screens.  While the developers accept been agile in updating Super Calendar to add more features and styles, I wish they would accept been more creative with the Alive Tile styles. The latest update did add a few styles just they are strikingly similar to what we see with Simple Agenda's Alive Tiles.

I practice like the multiple calendar views and the audible appointment detail feature can come in handy. I besides accept to give kudos to the developer for adding settings for the font size. As someone who's eye sight isn't what it used to be, the larger fonts is very helpful.  While I see room for improvement, as is, Super Calendar is a characteristic rich calendar selection worth considering.

In that location is a seven day trial version bachelor for Super Calendar with the full version running $i.99. Super Calendar is available for Windows Telephone 8 and you can selection it up here in the Windows Telephone Store.

Which is the best?

As with virtually of our roundups, finding the best of the bunch isn't every bit like shooting fish in a barrel equally it sounds. The all-time choice often boils down to personal preference and needs.

I will say that Simple Calendar's simplistic approach and Live Tiles can be very appealing for those wanting to keep up with their appointments at a glance.

Chronos Calendar has the advantage of being able to add together/edit/delete appointments through the online synchronization. The user interface isn't the smoothest simply with a piffling utilize, it grows on you.

Super Calendar could be considered the heavy weight choice of the three with it'south multiple calendar views, audible appointment details, and display settings. But the user interface, especially with the settings, isn't the greatest.

All 3 have appeal and are worth trying. Personally, I use my Windows Telephone more and then to see where I demand to be next and my calculator for managing my appointments.  For that reason, the simplicity of Simple Calendar appeals to me the most.  Simply let me hop dorsum on the fence and say that none of the iii options in this week's roundup are back choices.

Your needs may differ and there are plenty more agenda options available in the Windows Phone Store.  If you have a fancy for ane of the apps in this week'due south roundup or if you prefer some other alternative to the native Windows Telephone agenda, feel gratuitous to share your thoughts in the comments below.

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