Apple Calendar
Ranked 2 of 4 calendar apps by recommenders
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.
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.
37 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 19
- approval share
- 49%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Simple, clean, uncluttered design
“I love the clean, one-page layout for tracking habits over a full year.”
Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “Calendar” “Clean, readable, and refreshingly boring in the best possible way.”
Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “Calendar” “I love the simple layout and idea of this calendar.”
Comment from 28 Dec 2025 in “Calendar” - Comment from 22 Jan 2026 in “Reminders (BSD Calendar and All)”
- Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “I found the perfect yearly calendar (for me)”
Feels native and fast on Mac
“crawled back to mail.app + Calendar.app on MacOS simply for how native it feels”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Penguin Mail – open-source Rust email client for Linux with AI” “MacOS' own calendar app takes <2 seconds”
Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Theranos.world” Automatic events and leave-time alerts
“iOS/macOS makes this pretty simple (it detects most booking emails and offers to create an entry for me”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Does anyone else struggle with keeping travel bookings organized?” “This means Apple Calendar sends us notifications when it's time to leave”
Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “NanoClaw Moved from Apple Containers to Docker”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Awkward date picker and event entry
“Only thing I don't particularly like is the date-picker interface for new events”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: New clean macOS install. Must-have apps? Best browser?” “it brings up a free-entry text box to “describe” the engagement rather than a structured window”
Comment from 8 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: Is there any data on whether users prefer voice/chatbot experiences?” Trouble importing ICS calendar files
“The failure in your chain is iOS Calendar not being an intent handler for ICS files.”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Muse – Meta’s personal AI agent” “Calendar on iPhone and on their website can no longer import ics files.”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Siri AI” “Apple Calendar cannot read its own calendar format”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “Muse – Meta’s personal AI agent” Slow and limited customization
“Calendar, Mail and Finder are all slow, dumbed down and only very superficially customizable.”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Asahi Linux Progress Linux 7.0” “Frankly, the old Mac first party apps sucked for it.”
Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items”
Other calendar apps people recommend
The three most recommended other calendar apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Calendar | 27 | 35 | 44% | 10 | — | — |
| Apple CalendarThis page | 18 | 19 | 49% | 10 | — | — |
| Remind | 7 | 0 | 100% | 2 | — | — |
| Proton Calendar | 5 | 6 | 45% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
37 of the 39 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the calendar app weeps in the corner”
“MacOS' own calendar app takes <2 seconds”
“crawled back to mail.app + Calendar.app on MacOS simply for how native it feels”
“simply opening Calendar, CMD+F typing "flight" into the text field”
“On iOS I can drag and drop to move, and also to adjust the start and end time of events”
“I also strongly dislike the iOS Calendar UI”
“Apple Calendar cannot read its own calendar format”
“The failure in your chain is iOS Calendar not being an intent handler for ICS files.”
“Fantastical, Readdle and Apple Calendar have slightly fresher UI that could be good inspiration.”
“Only thing I don't particularly like is the date-picker interface for new events”
“I do wish more apps worked in grayscale (calendar I'm looking at you)”
“Frankly, the old Mac first party apps sucked for it.”
“Calendar on iPhone and on their website can no longer import ics files.”
“it brings up a free-entry text box to “describe” the engagement rather than a structured window”
“allow select all, or have the "OK" button at the same location”
“For me I definitely need Calendar”
“Apple Calendar is fetching data with CalDAV vs direct API connection”
“Calendar, Mail and Finder are all slow, dumbed down and only very superficially customizable.”
“Apple Mail and Apple Calendar are fine to replace Exchange”
“iOS/macOS makes this pretty simple (it detects most booking emails and offers to create an entry for me”
“This is driving me crazy for some time. Worst with Calendar.”
“Calendar.app is totally seamless with synology on iOS.”
“This means Apple Calendar sends us notifications when it's time to leave”
“In Apple Calendar it's not possible to see the full year, and still have some visibility into which events are happening on the individual days”
“quite amazing in its simplicity”
“changes all your calendar appointment times when you travel to a different time zone... with NO WAY TO PREVENT IT”
“if you hit Esc to make the window go away, it will delete the whole thing”
“I don't trust the birthday calendar anymore.”
“I'm deeply touched by this extreme simplicity.”
“I have never been more upset at a default setting.”
“it doesn't take kindly the futurists who like to spell years with a starting 0”
“no build step, no framework bloat, just vanilla JS”
“I love the simple layout and idea of this calendar.”
“Clean, readable, and refreshingly boring in the best possible way.”
“it takes two pages on printing in the landscape orientation in Firefox”
“I love the clean, one-page layout for tracking habits over a full year.”
“Especially on OS X where a leather-bound Calendar had to interact with other normal windows.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.