When comparing Business Calendar vs Cal, the Slant community recommends Cal for most people. In the question“What are the best calendar apps for Android?” Cal is ranked 4th while Business Calendar is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose Cal is:
As long as Facebook is already set up on the device, Cal integrates with it with a single click to show all birthdays.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Widget support
Business Calendar offers configurable widgets in many sizes for displaying Days, Weeks, Months or Agenda views on a user's home screen.
Pro Free ad supported version available
Business Calendar comes in a free ad supported version.
Pro Smooth zoomable user interface
Business Calendar has a user interface that supports scrolling and pinch zooming.
Pro Search function
Business Calendar has a search function that allows searching the calendar for dates and events.
Pro Integrates with Google Maps
Users who input locations can use Google Maps from an event to find the directions and location.
Pro Move Calendar events from one Calendar to another
The only app that has the ability to move an event to a different calendar if it was accidentally created in the wrong calendar. This app is an essential addition to any device and for anyone with multiple calendar accounts.
Pro Events can be created using the share menu
Pro Can manipulate with multiple events at a time
The app allows selecting multiple events and move or delete them together.
Pro Can import Facebook birthdays with one tap
As long as Facebook is already set up on the device, Cal integrates with it with a single click to show all birthdays.
Pro Clean interface with beautiful background images
The app displays agenda as a combination of events and to-do list items and uses different background images for each calendar day based on chosen themes.
Pro Integrates with Any.do for task management
Cal integrates with Any.do to-do list app for task management.
Pro Integrates with Waze, Uber and Google Maps for navigation
Cal uses Google Maps to show event location, Waze for real-time traffic information and Uber for hailing a car to the event.
Pro Clean widget with event creation
Cal has a good-looking resizable widget that has a shortcut for event creation.
Pro Nicely designed actionable notifications before, during and after meetings
A feature called HeadsUp will show pop-up notifications on phone's homescreen specifically designed for meetings. The content of the pop-up will change based on whether it's before, during or after a meeting.
Before a meeting it will show shortcuts for getting a taxi or a car, seeing attendees, getting directions and notifying other attendees if the user is late via e-mail or Skype. During a meeting it will give shortcuts for setting the phone on vibrate, taking photos, video or audio-recording, adding tasks that will be synced with Any.do or e-mailing a summary. After the meeting it offers sharing task list and scheduling a follow-up.
Pro Predictive text
While adding an event the app will offer suggestions, help invite other people, pick a location, allow making a note and set it as a recurring event if needed.
Pro Voice entry support
Cal allows adding events simply by speaking.
Cons
Con Poor visual design
The design of the app looks a bit dated, something out of the early 2000's. While this does not impede the usefulness of the application, it still is a sore point when compared to some of the other popular calendar apps available on Android.
Con Widgets don't show week numbers correctly on some devices
Widgets on certain devices have been showing week number incorrectly for more than 2 years. The issue hasn't been addressed and there is no sign that it will be.
Examples from S4:
Con Poor support
The developers provide virtually no help with issues.
Con Cal may give your personal and non-personal information to thrid parties
In the privacy-policy of any.do the following is stated:
"We may share your Personal Information to third parties (with or without compensation) including potential and actual advertisers, sponsors, our third party service providers and partners. We use commercially reasonable efforts to only engage or interact with third parties that post a privacy policy governing their processing of Personal Information."
and
"Use of Non-Personal Information. We may collect Non-Personal Information in order to provide and operate the Service, including for statistical and research purposes; to enable us to further develop, customize and improve the Service based on users’ common preferences and uses; to create and provide our business partners and affiliates with aggregated statistical data and other aggregated and/or inferred Non-Personal Information. We may also disclose Non-Personal Information (with or without compensation) to third parties, including advertisers and partners. We are not aware of the identity of the user from which the Non-Personal Information was collected."
Con Not actively developed any more
Last update was January 2016, and any.do includes a calendar by now.
Con Forces creating an Any.do account
An Any.do account as well as the app has to be used to create tasks, that then will show in the calendar, but cannot be created from the calendar. This can be not only inconvenient but also quite slow.
Con Shallow Any.do integration
Any.do tasks can't be managed from within the app, it requires the user to switch applications.
Con No natural language input support
Cal does not support natural language input, though it may get added in the future.
Con Can be sluggish and buggy
Cal has issues with freezing, sluggishness and other buggy behaviors.
Con Lacks weather information
There is no way to add a weather calendar to the normal calendar view, meaning no weather integration.