A phenomenal new Android calendar power-up

Lately, I’ve tried more overhyped, overly ambitious apps than I can even remember — all of ’em with lofty promises of completely changing my life and/or the way I get stuff done.

Spoiler alert: None of those has lived up to that promise or really even stuck as something I’m still actively using in any significant way, as of this current moment.

At the same time, the app that is absolutely blowing my mind and genuinely making my work and personal routine noticeably easier is a tiny little off-the-beaten-path tool that does one small job and does it remarkably well.

It doesn’t replace my main Android calendar app, and it isn’t intended to dramatically alter any of my existing workflows. All is does is make the act of scheduling new appointments delightfully simple by removing the silly friction that typically exists in that area.

It’s hands-down the most helpful, consequential app I’ve added into my Android line-up in ages. And I’d be willing to wager it might just make a world of difference for you, too.

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New app, familiar feelings

Now, fair warning: This tale, like most great sagas of our modern era, has a twist.

The calendar power-up of which we speak is new, in a sense — but it actually has a familiar past, at least if you’ve been following my mumbly musings for long.

The app got its start, y’see, as an element within other apps — specifically, WhatsApp, Telegram, Line, and (insert pause for momentary retching) Apple Messages.

That’s how it worked when I first stumbled onto it and profiled it in my Cool Tools newsletter way back in the prehistoric time of 2024, some 77 or so years ago, I believe. (I also ended up including it in a roundup of AI-powered apps that actually save you time here at Computerworld that same year!) Back then, it wasn’t even an app, technically, but rather an interesting chat-centric add-on called Dola. You’d connect it to your chat app of choice, and it’d then exist as a contact within that app that you could “message” and ask to handle various calendar-related chores for you.

It was incredibly clever and effective — but personally, I don’t use any of the chat apps it worked alongside. So while I absolutely appreciated it and eagerly shared it as a suggestion worth considering, it wasn’t something that landed for me, myself, and/or I as a part of my own personal tech setup.

Over the months since then, the team behind Dola decided to broaden their focus and expand the same concept into a more universally useful and less platform-dependent form.

The result is Toki, a standalone app for Android (and iOS, too, if you must) that is the intelligent on-the-go scheduling assistant I’ve long been yearning to see.

Toki picks up where Dola left off, but it’s so much more useful in this newly unshackled and simultaneously expanded context. In short, it’s a better and infinitely faster way to add any event onto your calendar without all the usual hassle and heavy lifting.

And there are two main scenarios where its powers really shine.

1. On-demand event-adding

The first Toki advantage is the simplest: When you find yourself facing a need to create an event from your phone and you don’t have any specific information about the event in front of you — in an email, a text, a website, an image, whatever — you can just fire up the app (or even use its instant-on Android app shortcut) and tell it whatever it is you need to create.

You can do this in pure plain language, too, without any fuss or funky formatting required. Quite literally, you just say what you want:

a follow-up with Jed Schmidt about the work proposal next Tuesday at 10am

a checkup with Dr. Riemenschneider March 4th at 2pm

a meeting with Theo, Thad, and Thalia on the first Monday in February at noon — actually, make it 1pm, and make it at the CPK on Figueroa downtown with a note to bring my Grammy Gertrude’s famous biscuit recipe (my goodness, those biscuits were scrumptious!)

You can just talk or type to Toki in any way that feels natural, and it’ll figure out what you mean and format your event for you.JR Raphael, Foundry

All you’ve gotta do is ramble off whatever you’re thinking, and Toki will turn it into a neatly formatted event in your calendar — then let you confirm what it did to make sure it’s right and, if you’d like, even switch your event into a different sub-calendar within your Google Calendar setup with a couple quick taps. If you need to add or adjust anything, you can just say whatever it is that you want. You can even enable an extra can’t-miss alert by asking the app to actually call your phone as a reminder when the time for the event arrives.

The instant confirmation and opportunity to adjust — including moving an event to a different sub-calendar — is one of Toki’s most useful assets.JR Raphael, Foundry

Notably, the scheduling part of this is something that Google’s own Android-native Gemini assistant can also manage — at least in theory — but Toki is just so much better at it, both in its ability to understand and interpret anything and in its consistency with actually getting it right. Plus, unlike Gemini, it makes it impossibly easy to move your event between calendars — or even Google Calendar accounts, if you’re using more than one (or using more than one type of calendar account, too, if your work and personal lives are spread across the Google and Microsoft and/or even (gag) Apple ecosystems).

No exaggeration: It’s such a refreshing improvement, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

And the best part is what’s next.

2. A super sharing superpower

In addition to allowing easy on-the-fly event input, Toki — just as of a matter of days ago — can now act as an Android sharing target.

That sounds like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, I know, so let me elaborate and translate back to plain English: When you find yourself looking at an email, a text message, a web page, or even a photo with event-related info on it, you can simply snap a swift screenshot and then tap the system-level share command that pops up and select Toki from the list of available options.

Capture a screenshot of anything, share it to Toki — and your work is essentially over.JR Raphael, Foundry

With one more tap, Toki will read and interpret whatever’s visible there — even if there’s all sorts of unrelated gobbledygook alongside what actually matters — and turn it into a neatly formatted event on your preferred calendar for you.

This took about two seconds to make happen.JR Raphael, Foundry

For me, this is where Toki has been especially game-changing. I’m constantly coming across things I want to add on my calendar in other places while swiping around on my phone, and now, I can do it in a mere matter of seconds — with barely any active effort — simply by snagging that screenshot and then sending the info over to Toki to let it handle everything.

If there’s a physical card or sign somewhere in the real world, I can also just snap a fast photo of it and then send that over to Toki for processing. And, again, I can then confirm what it interpreted and make sure it’s on the exact sub-calendar within the right account, right then and there.

Appointment cards, posters, flyers, you name it — snap a photo, send it to Toki, and you’re done.JR Raphael, Foundry

Once more, Gemini does something vaguely similar to this, but it’s not nearly as consistent or effective. And it doesn’t give you that instant on-screen confirmation and ability to move an event easily to another calendar. As someone who both has multiple Google accounts and religiously uses Google Calendar’s sub-calendars to stay organized, this alone has been downright transformative.

It’s also something I’ve written about before, in concept, when discussing a spectacular tool called Agenda Hero. Agenda Hero is actually quite similar on the surface and in what it aims to do for you — but on Android, its current app just isn’t exceptional. It’s mostly a shell that takes you to the service’s website, and it’s consequently a little clunky to use — with more steps and awkward interactions than what Toki offers up in the same environment.

Where Agenda Hero really shines is on the desktop, and that’s an arena where Toki is currently altogether absent. So I keep Agenda Hero around as a resource on my computer, where it’s invaluable, but now rely on Toki for the same smart scheduling feats on my phone. Together, the two make a powerful pairing and the best damn upgrade I’ve introduced into my calendar management cadre in recent memory.

Toki is free for casual use — with up to 14 event additions per week and up to two active calendars (which means those specific sub-calendars within any Google Calendar or other platform’s account). For most people and purposes, that’ll probably be plenty and all you’ll ever need.

If you want to lift those limits and support the app’s development, you can bump up to a premium plan starting at $3.59 a month or 36 bucks a year.

With an app this good, it almost makes the sting of all those grand AI disappointments a little easier to stomach.

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