Iconical is a Windows Phone calendar app that allows you to create multiple appointment groups filtered from your Windows Phone calendars and pin them to your Start Screen for quick and easy reference.
You create appointment filter groups based on subject keywords. The Live Tile focus lets you pin that group to your Start Screen, view up to three appointments (ten with the Plus version) in that filter group, and help you keep up with all your appointments. You can create filtered groups for school, work, medical or any other appointment keyword that you need to monitor a little closer.
Iconical is an interesting Windows Phone calendar app that definitely has potential.
When you first launch Iconical you will find a pre-existing calendar filter group, Appointments, which contains all your Windows Phone calendare appointments. At the bottom of the screen will be a "+" button where you can create additional filter groups (more on this in a second).
Tapping the appointments category (or any other category you should create) will allow you to view all of your Windows Phone appointments within the category in agenda form. If you swipe to the right you will see a summary of the settings for this filter group. Individual appointment details can be pulled up by tapping the appointment.
Button controls at the bottom of the filter group page include a done, new, monthly view and search button. Creating a new appointment, modifying an existing appointment or deleting an appointment in Iconical is reflected in your main Windows Phone calendar. Iconical does have the ability to search your appointments by keyword with search as you type results.
Below the three-dot menu on the filter group pages you will find options to view the filter groups settings, a pin to start option, an option to delete the filter group and a help section. You'll need to use this pin to start option to create the Live Tile for the filter group. Pinning Iconical from the Application List won't do the trick.
A filter group's settings will be the same screens you will see if you tap the "+" button on Iconical's main page when you create a new filter group. Here is where you name your filter group, determine how you want the text to lay out, choose your background and alert colors, choose which calendar account you'll be using (Hotmail, Google, etc.) and set your filter parameters. Parameters include the keywords to include or exclude, how far out you want the filter to look, and set the cut off time for all day appointments.
While the filter settings are nice, if you have multiple calendars in one account Iconical won't let you separate those calendars. If you keep a work calendar and family calendar in your Hotmail account, they are viewed as one by Iconical. I'm not sure if this is a limitation of Windows Phone or one of those programming hurdles tough to over come. Whatever the reason, it would be nice if there was a way to apply a filter to an individual calendar as opposed to the full account.
Iconical's Live Tile will display up to three appointments when set to the wide view. The Tile will also display the current date and the last update time. Iconical will update the Live Tile every thirty minutes. While the Live Tile is a little on the plain side, one nice feature with Iconical's Live Tile is the color options. You can set one background color for the Live Tile and choose another color to set as a reminder color. While the Live Tile is functional, it's a little on the vanilla side. I would have liked to have seen it have more pop the way Simple Calendar's Live Tile is presented.
Iconical is an appealing calendar app for our Windows Phones. The core function is basically creating groups of appointments that can be easily monitored from your Windows Phone's Start Screen. If you have a series of appointments associated with one project or event, you can create a group, pin it to your Start Screen and monitor the activity related to that project a little closer. It would be nice to have more options on the app's filter but what's in place is a nice start.
There are two versions of Iconical in the Windows Phone Store. You have Iconical (right QR Code), which is a free app that has some display limitations. Then there's Iconical Plus (left QR Code) that is running $.99 and extends your Live Tile to ten appointments and adds a seven day view with the monthly view. Iconical is available for both Windows Phone 7.x and 8 devices but does require OS 7.10.8858 or better.
