Any.DO, makers of a smart task app for mobile, is today launching its next creation out of private beta. The company’s new Cal app for iPhone is now available and is designed to integrate with the task app, as well as sync with other mobile calendaring services, including Google, iCloud and Exchange.
The new app is unique in how it extends itself beyond being only an appointment scheduler. It starts off by importing your calendar events and contacts from your iPhone, and then lets you log in via Facebook for additional social capabilities, such as the ability to see and respond to your Facebook friends’ birthday notifications via phone, text or email.
Cal also adds a layer of intelligence to the appointments themselves, automatically adding things like a map of the location (if provided the address), and a button you can tap to kick off navigation. And when you add an appointment within Cal itself, the app will auto-suggest people from your iPhone contacts, displaying their name and thumbnail photos below the input field. Plus, it can use your location to suggest nearby meeting spots.
The overall design is iOS 7-friendly, with a clean, more minimalistic look and feel, though one that still adds color through the use of photos that give your appointments a “theme” of sorts. A selection of these image themes are built in for you to choose from as well, with categories like “food,” “art,” “landscape,” “fashion” and more.
Those who also use the company’s task list app will be able to see those items displayed within Cal, too.
Mobile calendaring applications are all the rage these days, and everyone has their favorite. But these startups are also seeing notable investment. Today, for example, social calendar UpTo announced $1.5 million in seed funding, and Sunrise recently raised a $2.2 million seed round. Other leading players include the likes of Tempo, Fantastical, and Atlas, to name just a few.
Any.Do’s advantage here is that it’s not only working on a calendaring app, but also is developing a suite of productivity tools that work together. The company, it should be noted, is backed by outside investment of its own: its $4.5 million in angel and seed funding implies that Any.Do is working on something bigger than just an app, and we’re only now starting to see the results of that.
Cal for iPhone is a free download here.