QuickCal 3.0 — Pat Dryburgh

It was about 3 months ago when I was on the look out for a simple, fast way to add events to my iCal calendar. I wanted a simple app that would open with a keyboard shortcut, would let me enter the event using natural language, and would quickly get out of my way when the job was done.

I did some searching but came up short. I was beginning to wonder how I would find time to learn Objective C so I could create the app myself when my good friend Patrick Rhone pointed me to QuickCal.

QuickCal was everything I wanted. It was fast, it was simple, it used natural language to create events.

But damn, it was ugly.

I posted a tweet that same day to the effect of “I wish I could get in touch with the QuickCal app devs to discuss redesigning their app for them.” I figured the tweet, like most of my tweets, would go unanswered. But, minutes later I was contacted by Jim Boutcher, the app’s creator, and by the end of the day I was invited to join the QuickCal team as the new UI designer.

I began working on the app’s design immediately, churning out mockup after mockup in Photoshop. I knew I wanted something simple, something that fit in with the OS X UI but didn’t just use standard UI elements. I wanted colour.

After a few rounds of revisions, and even more rounds of refinements and changes, we finally settled on a UI that would become QuickCal 3.0.

I’m very proud to announce today that QuickCal 3.0 is available on the Mac App store. I’m also proud to announce the launch of the new QuickCal site, which I also had the pleasure of designing.

This was the first Mac application I’ve designed and I’ve learned a ton. We’re already working on improvements for QuickCal 3.1 and I’m really excited about what’s coming down the pipe.

If you’d like to stay updated with what we’re working on, be sure to check out our new Tumblr blog, or follow us on Twitter. We’ll be happy to have you along for the journey.

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