If you’ve used the iPhone’s built-in calendar app, you know its extremely lackluster. Readdle’s Calendars 5 app makes up in every way the default app fails. That’s one of the things we love about Readdle, they take an ordinary idea and make it extraordinary. We saw them do that with their Documents app. Now they’ve done it again with Calendars 5.

Calendars 5 is just one of our favorite calendar apps for iPhone and iPad. We’ve collected all of our favorites here. And if you’d like to see more of our top app selections in different categories, just head on over to our Best Apps Series. Now, on to the review.

To begin, Readdle took their original app Calendars+, flattened the design, and then added natural language support. That means that you can set a new appointment by naturally typing a sentence. For example, typing “meet with Jon Miller at 6pm this sunday” will create an appointment with Jon Miller on Sunday’s date and set the time at 6:00 PM. You can also specify a location that will link to a map. Add calendars and change calendar colors by tapping the “31” icon in the top hidden menu. This menu also lets you dive into the app’s settings where you can set default alarm times.

You can view your appointments by list, day, week, or month. I prefer month view as it gives a nice overview of your schedule with color coded slots for each calendar you have synced. Speaking of syncing, that’s right, Calendars 5 will sync to your built-in iPhone calendar app or to Google Calendars online. I like using Calendars 5 with my wife because we can both sync through Google. So when she adds an event, I know about it, and vice verse.

Calendars 5 also manages tasks. You can set one-time or reoccurring tasks with alarms and due dates. These will also sync to Google Calendars if so desired.

Color-coded events, multiple calendar sync, Google integration, custom reminders, etc. These basic features are available in the free version called Calendars by Readdle [iTunes link]. But if you want the whole shebang, go for Calendars 5. You’ll get a beautiful calendar which outshines Apple’s native app in every way.

Calendars 5 by ReaddleReaddle Technologies LimitedProductivity$29.99Download

Here are a couple of our other picks of the best calendar apps for iPhone and iPad:

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