Last month, I reviewed Calvetica, a nice alternative calendar app for the iPhone and iPad. An iPhone J.D. reader wrote to suggest that I check out Easy Calendar, another alternative calendar for the iPhone. Like Calvetica, it uses the regular iPhone calendar database so you can switch back and forth between the built-in app and this alternative app. And like Calvetica, one of the main features is speed; it takes much fewer taps to enter a calendar event. After using Easy Calendar for the last few weeks, I am really impressed with this inexpensive app and I find myself using it more and more.
Easy Calendar has one view, a week view. The top of the screen tells you which week you are in, and you can tap that date to jump to a different week.
If your day has more entries that can be displayed in the box, you see an indication at the bottom that there are additional events. Tap that indication (or, on any day, tap the line at the top of the box that has the day/date) to see a pop-up window showing additional information for that day.
Creating a new event is simple and very fast. Just tap on any blank spot in a day and the day will turn blue, followed by a single page containing the most frequently used items for a new event — the time, the text for the event, and whether it is an all-day event. If you want to enter additional information about an event, tap the More... button, but for a standard event that lasts an hour, you won't need to bother with that screen. In other words, you can often enter a new event with just a few taps: tap the day on the calendar, tap the start time on the wheel, tap the text field and type the event, then tap done. This is far fewer taps that it takes to create a new event in the iPhone's native Calendar app.
This app also does a great job when you need to move an event. In the normal Calendar app, to move an event you tap in the event to edit the event, then you use a calendar scroll wheel to select the new date, but you cannot look at your calendar while doing so. In Easy Calendar, you tap and hold down on an event and the screen changes to indicate that you are in move mode. Then you can flip through your calendar to find another day or another week, and when you are done just tap that day and the event moves there.
Easy Calendar focuses on doing the essential calendar tasks and it does them quickly and easily. Seeing all of the events in a week at one time is very useful, adding or moving events is fast and simple, and jumping to a different date is much faster than on the built-in Calendar app. The app is normally $3.99, but right now it is on sale for only a buck. Even if you like the built-in iPhone Calendar app, I encourage you to take a look at Easy Calendar. It is a elegant app that lives up to its name, making simplicity a virtue.
Click here for Easy Calendar (currently $0.99): 
