A countdown app for birthdays, trips and the dates ahead

Some dates you look forward to, and some you just can’t miss: a friend’s birthday, a flight, the dentist, your parents’ anniversary. A calendar holds them, but as squares on a grid, mixed in with every meeting. What you usually want to know is simpler: how many days is it now, and will I hear about it in time?

That’s what Shadowkit’s Events skill does. It keeps the dates ahead and counts the days down to each one.

An event in a few fields

Tap + on Events’ page and give it:

A title, like “Sam’s birthday” or “Flight to Rome”.
A date, with a time or All day. An all-day event counts down to the day itself.
Once or Every year. A trip happens once. A birthday comes back every year, and the day after it Events moves it to next year by itself.
A place and a note, if you want them: the terminal, the clinic, what to bring.

The top of the form shows the countdown as you type, “21 days · Saturday 7 November at 06:40”, so you can see you picked the right day before you save.

Birthdays that know the age

For a yearly event you can add the first year: the year someone was born, or the year of the wedding. Then choose how it reads:

Age: “Sam’s birthday · turns 31”.
Anniversary: “Mum and Dad’s anniversary · 35th”.

The app doesn’t guess from the title; you choose. A birthday on 29 February falls on 28 February in the years without one.

Reminders before, not only on the day

A countdown helps most when it tells you in time to do something about it. Each event can have several reminders:

With a time: at the time, 2 hours before, 1 day before and 1 week before.
All day: on the day at 09:00, 1 day before and 1 week before.

A week before a birthday is time to post a card; a day before is time to buy one. The notification says the day as it is when it arrives, like “Tomorrow at 06:40 · Gatwick North”, and a yearly event reminds you again every year.

Reminders come from every profile that has Events, so the events in a Work profile still reach you, with the profile’s name in front. On an iPhone, iOS limits how many notifications an app can line up ahead, so Shadowkit keeps your next three event reminders ready and lines up the ones after them each time you open the app.

What’s next, then month by month

Events’ page on Home puts the soonest event on top, large: “2 days · Sam’s birthday”. The rest follow, grouped by month, each with its date and how far off it is. Anything a week away or closer shows in orange.

Past events don’t pile up. A one-off event is gone the day after it, and a yearly one moves to its next date. Today, Home’s first page, shows the next event in one line, and the app’s search finds events by title, place or note.

On your home screen

On Android, Events has two widgets. Countdown shows one event you pick and the days left, and it’s free. Coming up lists your next four and comes with Shadowkit Pro. Both move on at midnight by themselves.

Offline, like the rest of Shadowkit

Your events are kept on your phone, in the profile they belong to, and never sent anywhere: the app doesn’t have internet access, and there’s no account to make. The free version holds 5 events still to come in a profile, and everything above except the Coming up widget is free. Shadowkit Pro removes the limit. For things to do rather than dates to count down to, see reminders in plain words.