Comparison

Fantastical Calendar vs Notes for Apple Watch

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Fantastical Calendar

This powerful calendar and task management app offers intuitive natural language input for event creation, multiple calendar views, and robust task integration. It provides weather forecasts and advanced features like meeting polls and video conferencing integration for premium users.

Highlights
  • Natural language event and task creation
  • Multiple calendar views (day, week, month, year)
  • Integrated task management (Todoist, Google Tasks)
  • Weather forecasts
  • Meeting scheduling and polls
  • Video conferencing integration
Features
Read full description

Fantastical is the award-winning calendar app with powerful features including intuitive natural language text parsing, beautiful full calendar day, week, month, quarter and year views, tasks, time zone support, and much, much more. TRY FANTASTICAL FOR FREE • Beautiful, clean, and easy to use calendar app allowing you to manage basic events • The DayTicker and calendar makes your schedule look the nicest it ever has • Full screen day, week, month, quarter, and year views • Full task support including Todoist and Google Tasks • 3 day weather forecast (powered by AccuWeather) • 14 day free trial for Flexibits Premium UPGRADE TO FLEXIBITS PREMIUM FOR EVEN MORE (requires subscription) • Includes Fantastical on all devices: Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad • Openings: Schedule events based on your availability • Proposals: Create meeting polls • Add Zoom, Google Meet, Webex, and Microsoft Teams calls • Extended 10 day weather forecast with RealFeel and MinuteCast up-to-the-minute weather data (powered by AccuWeather) • Browse and instantly subscribe to interesting calendars, including sports, TV shows, holidays, and much more (powered by SchedJoules) • Calendar sets - quickly toggle multiple calendars on or off with a simple click or automatically when you leave or arrive, based on location • Event and task templates • Sync calendar sets and templates across devices • Apple Watch app with Up Next and Weather (and works over LTE) • Parser autocomplete recommendations for invitees, locations, and calendars/task lists • Propose multiple times to easily ask people when they can meet • Combine duplicate events across multiple calendars • Invitees and availability lookups • Respond to event invitations • Default alerts • Time zone override • Favorite time zones • Push updates for Google and Exchange • Set event travel time and receive time to leave notifications • Custom event colors • Custom home screen icons • Custom alert sounds • Hide events without deleting them • Add attachments to events on iCloud, Google, and Exchange • Priority email support ADDING NEW EVENTS OR TASKS IS FAST AND FUN • The easiest and fastest way to add new events or tasks • Type in your details or use dictation and watch your words magically turn into an actual event or task! • Powerful parser features, including: - Create tasks by starting your sentence with “task” ”reminder", "todo", or "remind me to" - Powerful and expressive repeating events such as third Thursday of every month, every weekend, last weekday of the month, and more - Create alerts with phrases like "remind me tomorrow at 3PM", "alert 1 hour before", or "alarm 3PM" THE BEST TASKS APP, TOO • See your events and dated tasks together in the main list • Add tasks directly from the Tasks list or new event screen - just flip the switch to toggle between events and tasks • Set dates, times, and geofences (when I arrive/when I leave) • Support for iCloud Reminders, Todoist, and Google Tasks WORKS THE WAY YOU DO • Connects to your favorite calendar services including iCloud, Google, Exchange, Office 365, Todoist, and more • Automatically add alarms to your new events • Fantastical is fully localized in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese • Start typing your event or task in any of these languages and Fantastical will automagically understand! EVEN MORE FANTASTICAL • Lots and lots of iOS and iPadOS widgets • Background app updating enables events, tasks, and alerts to be pushed to Fantastical even if you don't launch the app often • Birthdays and Anniversaries - see your contact’s details or send a quick birthday or anniverary greeting • Handoff support between Fantastical for Mac, iPhone, and iPad • Time zone support including floating time zone support • Dark and light themes • Stickers • Accessibility support • And much, much more!

About

Notes for Apple Watch

Effortlessly create, view, and manage all your notes directly on your Apple Watch. Syncs seamlessly with your iPhone and iPad, offering intuitive organization with color themes and efficient input methods.

Highlights
  • Compose notes on Apple Watch
  • Browse, view, and edit notes
  • Automatic syncing across devices
  • Color themes for organization
  • FlickType Keyboard support
Features
Read full description

Compose and manage all your notes directly on Apple Watch. • Browse, view, edit, and compose notes with a highly intuitive interface optimized for your wrist. • Automatically sync all your notes between your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. • Organize your notes with a variety of color themes for easy categorization. • Supports FlickType Keyboard for even more efficient note-taking on the go. Take your notes, anywhere! --------------------- Terms of Service: https://bit.ly/NotesTerms

Screenshots

Fantastical Calendar4 screens
Notes for Apple Watch4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Notes for Apple Watch at weekly against Fantastical Calendar's every 3 weeks. Notes for Apple Watch also leads on iOS requirement (14.0 vs 17.6). Fantastical Calendar's advantage is chart position (#140 vs unranked) and ratings volume (25K vs 2.8K). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Fantastical Calendar sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month and Notes for Apple Watch sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.2 for Fantastical Calendar against 4.3 for Notes for Apple Watch. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Fantastical Calendar has 25K ratings behind it against 2.8K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 47% of Fantastical Calendar's written reviews are positive against 40% of Notes for Apple Watch's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Fantastical Calendar ships an update every 3 weeks, Notes for Apple Watch weekly. Both last shipped on October 25, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Fantastical Calendar versus Notes for Apple Watch: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFantastical CalendarNotes for Apple Watch
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.2 (25K ratings)4.3 (2.8K ratings) — better
Positive reviews47.3% of reviews — better40.0% of reviews
Number of ratings25K — better2.8K
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#140 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Vision ProiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch
Requires iOS17.614.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size186 MB17 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperFlexibits Inc.Kpaw, LLC

Customer experience

Fantastical Calendar

All ratings24,689 ratings
Positive80.1%
Neutral3.4%
Negative16.5%
Written reviews954 reviews
Positive47.3%
Neutral11.5%
Negative41.2%

Notes for Apple Watch

All ratings2,714 ratings
Positive80.8%
Neutral4.8%
Negative14.4%
Written reviews205 reviews
Positive40.0%
Neutral8.3%
Negative51.7%

User reviews

Fantastical Calendar

From 25K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Intuitive and easy to use
  • 👍 Excellent natural language input
  • 💡 Helpful calendar integration features
  • 🚀 Smooth syncing across devices
  • 👍 Beautiful and clean UI design

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Inconsistent behavior with reminders and event management
  • 💰 Expensive subscription model
  • 🤖 Overly aggressive upselling of premium features
  • 🤔 Concerns about forced account creation
  • 🐛 Sync issues between iOS and Mac versions

Notes for Apple Watch

From 2.8K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Useful for quick notes
  • 👍 Convenient for Apple Watch
  • 👍 Accurate keyboard
  • 👍 Syncs notes between devices

Room to improve

  • 💰 Subscription required for syncing
  • 💰 Expensive monthly fee
  • 🐛 Crashes and freezes on Apple Watch
  • 🐛 Keyboard issues (can't scroll, delete, etc.)

Bugs and requests

Fantastical Calendar

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Apple Watch sync problems
  • Events disappearing or changing unexpectedly
  • Freezing and crashing on certain user actions

Requested features

4 requests
  • Option to disable predictive input features
  • Improved calendar set management
  • Enhanced integration with third-party apps and services
  • Ability to customize app icons and themes

Notes for Apple Watch

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Notes not syncing properly between devices
  • App freezing and becoming unresponsive on Apple Watch
  • Keyboard issues causing typing difficulties

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add ability to edit notes from Apple Watch
  • Implement a one-time purchase option instead of subscription
  • Improve syncing reliability and speed
  • Add more keyboard features (delete word, number pad, etc.)

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Fantastical Calendar

Subscriptions10
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)$6.991 Month
  • Flexibits Premium14 Days trial$6.991 Month
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)3 Months trial$6.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Premium for Families14 Days trial$10.491 Month
  • Premium Family (2020 Upgrade)$10.491 Month
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)$56.991 Year
  • Flexibits Premium14 Days trial$56.991 Year
  • Premium (2020 Upgrade)3 Months trial$56.991 Year
  • Premium for Families14 Days trial$89.991 Year
  • Premium Family (2020 Upgrade)$89.991 Year
2 purchases

Notes for Apple Watch

Subscriptions2
  • Premium3 Days trial$3.991 Month
  • Premium3 Days trial$5.991 Month

Questions

Is Fantastical Calendar free?
Fantastical Calendar is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Notes for Apple Watch free?
Notes for Apple Watch is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Fantastical Calendar or Notes for Apple Watch?
Notes for Apple Watch is rated higher. Fantastical Calendar averages 4.2 out of 5 from 25K ratings, while Notes for Apple Watch averages 4.3 from 2.8K ratings.
Do Fantastical Calendar or Notes for Apple Watch have ads?
Neither Fantastical Calendar nor Notes for Apple Watch shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Fantastical Calendar or Notes for Apple Watch?
Fantastical Calendar ships an update every 3 weeks, and Notes for Apple Watch weekly. Most recently, Fantastical Calendar was updated on October 25, 2026 and Notes for Apple Watch on October 25, 2026.

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