I rediscovered Sunrise earlier this year, when I was looking for a calendar app that integrated with Todoist and offered a web app in addition to solid iOS clients. Sunrise, founded by Pierre Valade and launched last year, has quickly become one of the most popular free alternatives to the stock calendar apps on iOS and Android thanks to a polished design and integration with various web services such as Evernote, LinkedIn, and Songkick.
Today, Sunrise is launching version 3.0 on the App Store, bringing full support for the iPhone 6, integration with Google Tasks and Eventbrite, and a new widget for iOS 8.
I’m not interested in the latest platform integrations personally (I was looking forward to the ability to check off Todoist tasks from Sunrise, but that still hasn’t been brought to the app), but I’m a fan of the widget’s design and layout. Events are split in upcoming events (listed chronologically) and all-day events; they’re color-coded based on the calendar they belong to, and they carry the custom icons that are automatically assigned in the Sunrise app. Profile pictures are displayed for people you’ve invited to events, and there’s a “+” button to quickly open Sunrise in event creation mode.
The widget isn’t groundbreaking and it’s got less options than Fantastical, but it’s nicely laid out and I appreciate the inclusion of colors and icons to quickly distinguish events in Notification Center.
Sunrise continues to be a great app if you’re looking for integrations that go beyond iCloud in your calendar. Version 3.0 is currently propagating on the App Store.
