This was originally going to be a screencast, but I have decided to hold off on that part. It may still become a screencast in the future, but for now this is my review.
BusyCal is a powerful iCal replacement application. Created by BusyMac, the same people that brought you BusySync. BusyCal allows you to easily synchronize your iCal calendar with your Google Calendar and even share your calendars through LAN. Now you may be thinking that this is something you can do in iCal already. But this isn’t just a simply replacement. This application is made for the power users that want more than the basic functions that iCal offers.
At first look, BusyCal looks a lot like iCal. This actually helps a lot when trying to get used to the application. Many of the same features are present as well. If you have used iCal in the past, then using BusyCal will be a breeze to you. But it does so much more. You can add the weather forecast to your calendar, which I immediately did. I was also able to immediately see everything that I had in iCal over in my new BusyCal window. I went ahead and made BusyCal my default calendar and test that they two calendars actually worked together. Of course it was seamless. That to me really is the first selling point, if you are using BusyCal and accidentally open iCal and don’t realize it, your event you added will be in BusyCal. That actually happend to me a few times.The other thing that I really liked about the application was the ability to add graphics to your events. This comes in very handy for a nice quick visual of what is coming up. If you are having a skype conference call, you can put the skype logo with the event. There are tons of ways to make this useful and cute. I can see a lot of people spending a ton of time putting images with events. Something else that I saw myself using quite a bit was the Stickies feature. Being able to just throw up a quick sticky on a date for some extra info about things was fantastic. There were some features that I didn’t use and those were Journal and Banner. I really didn’t find much use, mostly because I didn’t know what I should use them for or what the difference really was.
Overall I would give BusyCal a 4 out of 5. It is super powerful but can be a little confusing if you don’t spend a lot of time in it. Thankfully there is a great guide on their site on how to use BusyCal. BusyCal is also a little on the pricey side. It is $40 USD, however like every thing I review, there is a trial period so you can try before you buy. I think if you give it a try and you are a power user, you will get a ton of use out of this calendar. It has been my primary calendar for months.
