Vantage Calendar vs Deepen
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Vantage Calendar
This app offers a visually engaging way to manage your schedule and to-do lists. It uses colorful cues, stickers, and "stacks" to help you understand your day at a glance. Integrated to-dos can be easily scheduled by dragging and dropping them onto dates.
- Visual cues (colors, stickers, book covers)
- Summarize days with 'Stacks'
- Integrated to-do lists in notebooks
- Drag and drop to-dos to dates
- Natural language input
- Syncs with multiple calendars
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Who says calendars can't be fun? Vantage takes the mundane out of scheduling. In part because it works well and is easy to use, but also because of useful visual cues like colors, stickers, book covers and stacks. Visual cues makes understanding a long list of stuff easier, and can help you understand your daily life better. Sort of like doodles in a physical book can help you remember notes. Picked by Apple as the "App of the Day" on the App Store in 2019. Stacks Stacks are a really cool way of summarising days. It reduces clutter and visualises how much is on your plate. The higher the stack, the more things you got planned. Tap any stack to peek it’s contents. Integrated To-Dos To-dos live in little notebooks right next to the main timeline. To set a due date, just drag a to-do and drop it on a date. You also get to customise your books with a pre-set book cover, or even a photo from your camera roll. Color Tags and Stickers Visual cues makes long lists of stuff so much easier to read. Pick from a variety of funky stickers or color tags to let events either pop or feel connected. Features in summary - Natural Language Input - Custom Repeat Rules - Custom Alerts - Syncs with iOS Calendar, Google Calendar, Exchange, Facebook - Use colors, stickers and fonts as search tags, super useful! - Useful widget calendar in notification centre - Keep To-do lists in Notebooks - Drag and drop To-dos to due dates - Location through Apple or Google Maps - Inbox for event invites - Week numbers - Absolutely no ads Featured by the App Store in 'Stay on Schedule', as the 'Free App of the Week' and in 'New Apps We Love'. Pay a visit to our web or twitter if you're curious for more. http://twitter.com/vantage_by_44 http://vantageby44.com "A More Visual Way To View Your Calendar" - Lifehacker "Vantage [...] gives you the best view of everything you've got going on" - Gizmodo "It breaks the mold and offers an entirely new way to organize your life. Plus, it’s very easy on the eyes." - AppAdvice Our terms of use can be found at https://vantageby44.com/terms-of-use.
Deepen
Transform passive reading into active learning by speaking your thoughts aloud. This app creates a personal knowledge map from your spoken insights, connecting ideas across all the books you read. It helps you remember what you've learned and query your own reading history.
- Log pages read and track progress
- Answer spoken questions about content
- Generate concept maps from spoken answers
- Connect ideas across multiple books
- Query your personal reading library
- Save lookup words and memorable passages
- Import Goodreads shelves
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You finish a chapter, feel like you understood it, and a month later almost nothing is left. That is the normal outcome of reading, not a personal failing. Reading is passive: the text goes in, feels clear, and leaves no trace you can retrieve. Deepen makes it active, and it takes about a minute. HOW IT WORKS 1. Log the pages you read. Your progress bar moves. 2. Deepen asks you one open question. "What was the author actually arguing there?" or "What did you disagree with?" 3. You answer out loud, in your own words, for about a minute. 4. Your answer comes back as concepts, connections, and the questions you still have. 5. Those concepts join a map of everything you have ever read. Speaking an idea back in your own words is retrieval practice, which is the best-evidenced way to turn reading into memory. Almost nobody does it, because writing notes is work. Talking for a minute is not. THE MAP IS THE POINT Every concept you articulate becomes a node. When the same idea shows up in a second book, Deepen links them without being asked. Over a few months you stop having a pile of separate books and start having one connected body of reading. Read something about legitimacy in a history book, meet it again in a book about organizations, and the map shows you the two are talking to each other. ASK YOUR OWN LIBRARY Ask a question in plain language and get an answer built only from what you have said about the books you have actually read. Not the internet. Your own words, with the notes they came from listed underneath. NOTHING IS EVER SCORED Deepen does not test you chapter by chapter. Nobody wants to be graded on their evening. The questions after each session are open and never scored, because the point is to make you think, not to make you correct. When you finish a book, it asks once more: what will you still be thinking about in a year? Your answer joins the map like any other. It is a lap of honour, not an exam. ALSO IN THE APP - Keep the words you had to look up, with the book you met them in - Keep the passages worth remembering, and share one as a sticker - Scan a barcode to add a book, or import your Goodreads shelves - A home screen widget showing the book you are on WORKS WITH PAPER Deepen never asks what you are reading on. Paper, library copy, hardback, secondhand, an ebook, a PDF. You talk, so it does not matter. Nothing to sync, no highlights to export, no cable. BUILT TO BE PRIVATE Your notes and your map live on your iPhone. The map is computed on the device, so it works with no signal at all. There is no account and no sign-up. FOR PEOPLE WHO READ ON PURPOSE Deepen is for nonfiction readers who want the reading to stick: students, researchers, people working through a field, anyone who has ever finished a good book and been unable to say what it argued. DEEPEN PRO Deepen is free to try. Pro unlocks unlimited recaps, the map across every book, and Ask. - Monthly: $5.99 - Annual: $49.99 with a 7-day free trial Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel in your Apple Account settings. Privacy Policy: https://chamallox.github.io/deepen-legal/privacy Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Support : https://chamallox.github.io/deepen-legal/support/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Deepen at 5.0 against Vantage Calendar's 4.3. Deepen also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 82%) and update cadence (every 5 days vs fortnightly). Vantage Calendar's advantage is ratings volume (1.8K vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Vantage Calendar sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Deepen sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Deepen holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Vantage Calendar has 1.8K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 82% of Vantage Calendar's written reviews are positive against 100% of Deepen's.
Vantage Calendar ships an update fortnightly, Deepen every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Vantage Calendar | Deepen |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (1.8K ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 81.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1.8K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 58 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Fortyfour AB | Francois Sempe |
Customer experience
Vantage Calendar
Deepen
Bugs and requests
Vantage Calendar
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashing on launch
- Inability to restore purchases
- Sync issues causing data loss
- Recurring tasks not working as expected
Requested features
6 requests- Widgets
- Apple Watch app
- More color and theme options
- Ability to see full month view
- Ability to add contacts to events
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- Improved search functionality
Deepen
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Vantage Calendar
- Monthly3 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Yearly3 Days trial$9.991 Year
- Unlimited$9.99
Deepen
- Pro Weekly$6.997 Days
- Pro Annual7 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Pro Annual7 Days trial$79.991 Year









