The best calendar app in its class Fantastic has nearly 13 years of history, a shelf full of awards, and many well-curated fans across iPad, iPhone, Mac, and Apple Watch. Yet Michael Simmons, CEO and lead product designer for Flexibits, the company behind Fantastic, says the Apple Vision Pro app is “the best version we’ve ever made.” We asked Simmons about what he learned while building for visionOS, his experiences visiting developer labs, and what advice he would give to his fellow developers as they bring their apps to Vision Pro.
What was your initial approach to moving Fantastical from the iPad to Apple Vision Pro?
The first thing we did was look at the platform to see if a calendar app made sense. We thought, “Could we do something here that would really be an improvement?” » When the answer was yes, we moved on to the question: “OK, what are the possibilities?” »And of course, visionOS gives you unlimited possibilities. You are not confined to borders; you have the entire canvas of the world to create on.
We wanted to take advantage of this infinite canvas. But we also had to make sure Fantastic I felt right at home in visionOS. People want to feel like there's a human being behind the design, especially in our case, where some customers have been with us for almost 13 years. There's a legacy there and the expectation is that what you see will tie into what we've done for over a decade.
I play guitar, so for me it was like learning an instrument.
Michael Simmons, CEO and Senior Product Designer for Flexibits
In the end, everything turned out to be really smooth, so much so that once Fantastical was finished, we immediately said, “Well, let's do (the company's contacts app) Cardhop Also!”
Was there a moment when you realized, “We really have something here”?
It happened as instantly as possible. I play guitar, so for me it was like learning an instrument. One day it clicks – the songs, the notes, the patterns – and it's like second nature. For me, it was like those movies where a musical prodigy feels the music leaking out of him.
How did you approach designing for visionOS?
We focused a lot on the readability of fonts, buttons and other screen elements. The opaque background didn't work well with elements from other operating systems, for example, so we changed it. We stayed consistent with the design language, used system-provided colors as much as possible, built primarily using UIKit, and used SwiftUI for ornaments and other fancy elements in Vision Pro. It's amazing how great the app was without us needing to rewrite a lot of code.
How long did the process take?
It was five months from first experiencing the device to submitting a beautiful application. Essentially, this meant three months to ramp up (check out the UI, explore what was feasible, and learn the tools and frameworks) and another two months to tweak, refine, and test. It's crazy fast! And once we gained that domain knowledge, we were able to build Cardhop in two months. So I would say if you have an iPad app and that knowledge, it only takes a few months to create an Apple Vision Pro version of your app.
What advice would you give to other developers looking to integrate their iPhone or iPad apps with Apple Vision Pro?
Make sure your app is suitable for the platform. Look at the device – all its capabilities and possibilities – and think about how your application would feel with unlimited real estate. And if your app makes sense – and most apps make sense – and you're already developing for iPad, iPhone, or Mac, it's a no-brainer to integrate it with Apple Vision Pro.