CalReader vs Ocean
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CalReader
Enhance your calendar's readability with customizable fonts and sizes. Easily filter events by date, calendar, or search terms, and export your data and time calculations in various formats like TEXT, CSV, or TSV. This tool is ideal for logging work or personal events and generating invoices.
- Customizable font and size
- Event filtering by date, calendar, and text
- TEXT, CSV, TSV export
- Time calculation for billing
- Siri Shortcuts integration
- Dark Mode support
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CalReader provides calendar readability, TEXT/CSV/TSV export, and time calculations. Choose a favorite font and size for maximum readability. Filter event listings by date range, calendar, and search text, and export listings and time calculations at TEXT, CSV, or TSV files. CalReader features time analysis and can calculate an invoice billing amount and time log for a given filter setup, total hours and rate per hour. Use Siri Shortcuts and Home Screen Quick Actions to quickly perform common actions in CalReader. CalReader can be used to log events on work/home projects. CalReader integrates iOS, macOS and CalDAV calendars including macOS Server, Google and Yahoo calendars, and provides a unique tool for journals, diaries and event logs. CalReader's unique flexibility makes for easy browsing/reading of one's history or future. The events listing view optionally displays ALL of the text of an event in an easy to read format. Calendar Filtering • Choose a date range to filter the visible events and to calculate hours and produce time logs. • Easily choose a single calendar, multiple calendars or all calendars for viewing. • Search selected calendars for text, keywords or phrases. • The search function can be used to search for times or dates. For example, find all events in the date range that start at "9:00 AM", or events on the date "11/4/26". Export Listings and Calculations • The export text generated by the Copy Text With Calculations command includes a header with the current calendar names, date range and optional search text. • Copy the filtered calendar text, with or without calculations, and then paste the text to other types of applications, or tap E-Mail Text to deliver the calendar text via e-mail. • E-mail CSV (Comma-Separated Values) or TSV (Tab-Separated Values) event listing files as attachments. • The Calculations view displays the total hours for the filtered event set and calculates the total amount using rate per hour, useful for invoices / billing. Calculations also displays the event count, average, minimum and maximum duration for the current set of events. Display Customization • Dark Mode support, and app-based dark and light styles with various color effects and calendar color indications. • Customize the font and size of the calendar text for best readability: large text is easy on the eyes, or small text for high density information. • Use pinch touch gestures to instantly change the size of the text. • Choose from various view styles using calendar colors, or no colors. • Choose to view all text of each item, or limit the number of lines (1-5) for a quick overview. Usability • Week and Month select: Previous, This, Next buttons provide fast one-tap date range selections. Use Previous and Next buttons repeatedly to move the date range window through time. • Go To Today and Go To Date actions provide quick navigation. • Speak Events uses the device’s text-to-speech capabilities to speak the currently visible events. • The Filter settings, Actions, Display, Calculations and Extras sections are neatly accessible without scrolling and searching for functions. • Tap the Done button for direct return to the main CalReader view after performing functions or settings changes. • Event listings include the duration for each event. • Events close to the current time are highlighted in the listing view with a gradient of orange displayed along the right edge, most intense for events close to the current time, fading off for events within 24 hours before and after the current time. • The filter settings of CalReader help produce complete listings of events that match a date range, calendar set, and a text phrase, and readability all of the text in the filtered set of events. • Choose to see all of the event text for all displayed events in the list, or truncated text and more items per screen. • Update Notification sound indicates a calendar update.
Ocean
This app intelligently sorts your Gmail inbox into actionable, reviewable, and cleanup categories. It offers smart replies, bulk email deletion, and scheduling tools to streamline your communication and save time.
- AI-powered email classification (Action, Review, Cleanup)
- Smart replies tailored to recipient
- Bulk email cleanup and unsubscribe
- Email docking for future action
- Meeting scheduling with availability blocking
- VIP contact filtering
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Your Gmail inbox wasn't built for the way you work. Ocean was. Ocean brings Beacon Intelligence to Gmail and Google Workspace on your iPhone. When you ask, Beacon classifies every email by what it needs from you, so you spend less time sorting and more time doing. ⎯ BEACON INTELLIGENCE Every email, handled. Beacon classifies every email into three lanes: Action, Review, and Cleanup. Within each lane, emails are grouped by kind (Needs Reply, Bills, Scheduling, Travel, and more) with the best next step ready. - Action: reply, dock to the due date Beacon found in the email, or send a meeting invite. - Review: swipe to archive or discard. - Cleanup: clear hundreds of emails in seconds. Never leave anyone hanging. Beacon spots emails waiting on your reply, so you can answer now or dock them for later. ⎯ REPLY IN YOUR OWN VOICE Smart Replies are written the way you write to that person. Or switch to casual, shorter, or formal. Add a quick guideline ("1pm Thursday works") and Ocean drafts the rest. Replies are never sent automatically. ⎯ CLEANUP Newsletters piling up? Clear the lot. Pick a category (Subscriptions, First Timers, Persistent Pingers, Forgotten, and more) and clear the whole list in one go. Archive or trash, unsubscribe, and add senders to WaveGuard, which routes their future emails out of your inbox and deletes them after 30 days. Nothing comes back. Your first cleanup each day uses 1 Credit. ⎯ CREDITS: INTELLIGENCE WITHOUT THE COMMITMENT Every new account gets 25 free Credits, enough for about a week of daily use. Credits never expire and are only used when you ask for intelligence. Skip a day, skip a week; you don't pay for days you're not working. Need more? Credit packs are available for quick top-ups. Or go Ocean Blue, our yearly membership: 25 Credits every day, refreshed at midnight. No subscription, no auto-renewal, nothing to remember to cancel. Prefer to wait? Ocean's core features stay free forever. ⎯ CORE FEATURES: ALWAYS FREE Email: compose, reply, forward, and manage your Gmail. A full email client, always free. Dock: Not now? Dock it. Swipe into Today, Tomorrow, This Weekend, This Week, Next Week, This Month, Next Month, or Whenever, or set an exact due date for bills and deadlines. Docked emails come back right when you need them. Invites: Meetings without the back-and-forth. Propose a few times in one email; they pick one, and it lands in Google Calendar with a Google Meet link. Slots you've already offered stay off the table, and a lead time blocks last-minute bookings. Global Search: search across emails and invites from one place. VIP Contacts: mark important senders as VIP and never miss their emails. ⎯ PRIVACY FIRST Your emails are never stored on our servers. Beacon only runs when you ask: we request your consent before sending email conversations to our AI provider for analysis. Nothing happens in the background. ⎯ BEAUTIFULLY NATIVE, AND IN SYNC Dark mode, clean design, built for iPhone. Not a web wrapper. Beacon results and docked emails sync with Ocean on Mac through iCloud. ⎯ Built in Canada by a small team who actually use this thing every day. Privacy Policy: https://ocean.app/privacy-policy Terms of Use: https://ocean.app/terms-of-use
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Ocean at Free against CalReader's $6.99. Ocean also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.3) and update cadence (every 8 days vs every 3 months). CalReader's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 8) and ratings volume (3 vs 1). On ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Ocean is free to download; CalReader costs $6.99 up front. Ocean sells 8 one-off in-app purchases. CalReader asks for nothing beyond the download.
Ocean holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 1 respectively.
CalReader ships an update every 3 months, Ocean every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CalReader | Ocean |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $6.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (3 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 18 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 16 MB | 32 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Imaja | BigWave Labs Inc |
Customer experience
CalReader
Ocean
In-app purchases
CalReader
No in-app purchases
Ocean
- Ocean Drops Small$1.99
- Ocean Drops Small$2.00
- Ocean Drops Medium$3.00
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- Ocean Drops Medium$3.49
- Ocean Drops Large$5.00
- Ocean Drops Large$5.99
- Ocean Drops XLarge$9.00
- Ocean Blue Access$57.99









