Let me introduce you to my newest favoritest app! Fantastical...

Fantastical is a menu bar app that integrates with your iCal or Google calendar. It allows you to very quickly add new events that are then synced with your Google calendar (if you use it) for access from your mobile device , etc. Read more after the break!

It has two features that I think are really neat — the first is the ability to assign a new event keyboard shortcut. In my particular case I have it set to Option+Shift+R, this is a habit from the other similar app Remind Me Later (which I reviewed a while back, Fantastical blows it away). Clearly, you can have any shortcut that takes your fancy. This shortcut is universal, meaning that no matter where you are you can quickly and easily add a new event. I love this particular feature as I can be writing in Word, or reading a blog and quickly add a reminder or event without having to drag myself away from what I am doing, pluck it from my fallible head into my much less fallible calendar!

The second feature, which is killer is the use of natural text for event input. So when you are adding something you can write it pretty much as you would if you were texting it or emailing it... for example “Meet John at Safeway on June 30 at Noon” gets inputted as event “Meet John” at the location “Safeway” on “6/30 at !2:00PM” neato right!? 

It also has both a monthly calendar and agenda view which drops down when you click on the menubar icon. You can set the default alarm type and time for both timed and all day events. When you click on an event in the agenda view it opens as a popup (you can alternatively set it to open your calendar app).

In short this app greatly increases productivity by reducing the number of steps you have to take to add an event to your calendar. If you are a user of Google calendar, Outlook or iCal this is a must-have little App - I haven’t opened iCal since I got it! Caveat, you need 10.6 (Snow Leopard) installed to run this.

DOTM Meter: 9/10

Homepage: http://flexibits.com/fantastical

Price: Free Trial/$19.99

Direct Download: http://flexibits.com/fantastical/download

App Store Link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fantastical/id435003921?mt=12&ign-mpt=uo%3D4#