The Android L Material Design bug just keep on spreading, even outside Google’s own app catalog. The latest to join that fray is Today Calendar, turning Google’s own Calendar Android app into something that is even more pleasing to look at and a pleasure to use as well.
Today Calendar had a single mission: to take the open source Android Calendar app that has seemingly fallen by the wayside and make into something truly beautiful. It revamped the app’s dated color scheme into something that Google’s own apps use to great effect. Of course, it added its own bit of functionality that probably should have already been there in the original Calendar app long ago, like a combined Month and Agenda view.
The app was already a pleasure to look at, but when you throw in principles learned from Google’s own Material Design, you get an even more gorgeous masterpiece. Bright, vibrant colors are thrown here and there, and the app’s view menu is now properly stowed away on the side navigation panel. The Agenda View makes use of graphics just as Google suggested. That said, the app may not follow Material guidelines down to a T. The Month View, for example, does make use of cards ala Android L’s Recents View, but it is placed on top of the current month, probably not like the paper metaphor that Google keeps on insisting. But those quirks might be due to technical limitations, as Today Calendar doesn’t make use of any Android L API, since Google frowns upon Google Play Store apps using unreleased code.
For comparison, this is how Today Calendar currently looks like.
This Material-flavored version of Today Calendar is still in beta. Like with many publicly available beta apps, to get access to it, you need to join the beta testing community and then select to become a beta tester. Those who have bought the Pro version should note that this beta updates the free version of the app, so you will have to install it separately in case you already have the paid version installed on your device. And, yes, this doesn’t require Android L and can run on devices with Android versions as old as 4.0.3.
SOURCE: +Jack Underwood
