App demo: Round the Clock

Over the next week I'll share the 30+ app demos we caught on tape at WWDC 2010. To kick things off, here's Round the Clock, a productivity app from Masters of the Minute. Round the Clock takes your calendar and presents it as a pie chart for the day or week. If you love pizza, Pac Man and pie charts, you'll love Round the Clock instantly. If you love MobileMe sync on your calendars, you may not (keeping in mind that an advertised feature of iOS 4 is the ability for developers to finally access your calendar data). Google calendar sync does work, however, which is quite nice. At US$9.99, however, you may want to determine if the bells and whistles are worth the cost.

While Round the Clock seems a bit gimmicky, there are a few nice things besides the presentation of data here. First, there are extra edges to pie wedges to indicate travel times so your schedule can accommodate those. Next, there's a simple swipe movement to change days or weeks or even months on the calendar. Why Apple's Calendar app doesn't do this I'll never know. You can also shake at any time to return to the "Today" view — although in real life I've found shaking an app can lead to unintended consequences (sliding down a bench can indicate a "shake" to the iPhone's peabrain).

Adding data in the app is actually one of the coolest features as the UI has you using sliders and nice, big buttons to enter your info. If you've ever cursed at Apple Calendar app and the crummy way data entry is handled (how many times do I have to forget to save something?), know that Round the Clock does it better. Plus, the way it handles things that happen with regularity is excellent. I guess in Cupertino nothing ever happens on "the last Thursday of every month" but in my world it happens a lot. Round the Clock is the best I've seen at tackling that specific issue.