Sunrise is a beautiful, free iPhone calendar alternative

(Credit: Jason Cipriani/CNET)

Last November I covered a new service called Sunrise. The goal of the service, after connecting it to your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Calendar accounts, was to help you start the day with a personalized agenda in your inbox. It would incorporate details about upcoming meetings, as well as who you're meeting with, from the various services.

While having an organized agenda automatically created for you each morning with important details was intriguing, after using the service for a few weeks the e-mail started to feel more like spam than a helpful digital assistant.

Fast-forward to today: Sunrise has released an iPhone calendar app. The app -- which is free -- aims to replace the native Calendar app on your device, both in looks and function.

(Credit: Jason Cipriani/CNET)

When you first launch the app you'll be asked to log in with your Facebook account, in turn placing Facebook Events and Birthdays into your calendar. Then you'll have a chance to connect LinkedIn and your Google Calendar.

With your accounts added, you can accept Facebook Event invites, post happy birthday wishes, organize your Google Calendar, and learn about who you're meeting with based off of his or her LinkedIn profile. Need directions to the meeting? Sunrise lets you choose between Google Maps or Apple Maps to get you there.

The best part of the app, besides its price, is that you can tell a lot of energy was put into making the app not only work well, but also look amazing.

You can download Sunrise from the App Store right now. If you're using another device and would like to try the e-mail approach, it's still live at Sunrise.im.

by Jason Cipriani via CNET How To