# Apple Calendar

18 Hacker News commenters recommended Apple Calendar and 19 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend Apple's built-in Calendar for its simple, clean design and native feel on Mac and iOS. Critics say it cannot show a full year view.

## Why people recommend it

- Simple, clean, uncluttered design (5 comments): "I love the clean, one-page layout for tracking habits over a full year." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46408767)) "Clean, readable, and refreshingly boring in the best possible way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46410388)) "I love the simple layout and idea of this calendar." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46411550))
- Feels native and fast on Mac (2 comments): "crawled back to mail.app + Calendar.app on MacOS simply for how native it feels" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49989169)) "MacOS' own calendar app takes <2 seconds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50019414))
- Automatic events and leave-time alerts (2 comments): "iOS/macOS makes this pretty simple (it detects most booking emails and offers to create an entry for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47527363)) "This means Apple Calendar sends us notifications when it's time to leave" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47115947))

## What people warn about

- Awkward date picker and event entry (2 comments): "Only thing I don't particularly like is the date-picker interface for new events" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48650469)) "it brings up a free-entry text box to “describe” the engagement rather than a structured window" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451080))
- Trouble importing ICS calendar files (3 comments): "The failure in your chain is iOS Calendar not being an intent handler for ICS files." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49618587)) "Calendar on iPhone and on their website can no longer import ics files." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48462814)) "Apple Calendar cannot read its own calendar format" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49625541))
- Slow and limited customization (2 comments): "Calendar, Mail and Finder are all slow, dumbed down and only very superficially customizable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47910814)) "Frankly, the old Mac first party apps sucked for it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48490107))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Google Calendar](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-calendar.md): 27 recommend
- [Remind](https://hackerapproved.com/p/remind.md): 7 recommend
- [Proton Calendar](https://hackerapproved.com/p/proton-calendar.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Apple Calendar", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-calendar/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).