Google Calendar went public a few hours ago. I certainly heard the rumors and stuff behind it, but after having had tried out out, I have to say one thing: Google certainly did their homework with this — the interface and everything. I’ve tried out many AJAX calendars lately, but GCal seems to take it.
Google is known for their simple (usable) but crappy interfaces. Google Talk, GMail, Google Reader, even Google itself. Simple. Crappy looking. Extremely usable however. But with calendar, I think it’s a whole new thing for Google. I found that the calendar’s interface beats anything. Here’s why: after my first two minutes, I just got it.
With other calendar programs, whether it be on a PDA or a cell phone or even some of the 2.0 ones, believe it or not it actually took me a couple of tries to get the real jist of it. There’s no extra crappy features in GCal and the best thing is that its extremely customisable. If you input the wrong data, whatever, it can be changed within a second, literally.
GCal beholds, however, so many other useful features. Agenda (great for travelling), week, month, next four days, scheduling events (and sending invitations!), quick add feature (almost AI), they’ve really did it all with this. And guess what, at least to me, it doesn’t look crappy like other Google apps.
Some uses I think GCal would do perfect for:
- Day to day life (duh)
- Holiday/trip planning: travelling
- Event/conference scheduling
- Party-planning
- Day planning for teachers/tutors
- Planning for people who work from home
- Business meetings scheduling
