Counting is hard. I mean, basic counting is pretty easy…but counting the number of days between today and a future date can be annoying. Are they calendar days, or business days? How many weekends do I have between then and now to get my act together? Should I count today, or start my count with tomorrow?

If you’re tired of event-related counting headaches, let an app do the heavy lifting for you. There is a very simple Mac Aapp called DayCalc that will save you time and agony… at least when it comes to counting down towards a big event.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

The official Mac App Store description of DayCalc reads as follows: “DayCalc is a simple utility which tells you the number of weekdays and weekends days between two dates. You might use it to help you plan a major project, to see how long to your wedding or to test whether a 20-weekday reply period has been met by an organization.”

Pros

• Simple, single-function app that is small in size
• Works with all international date formats
• Clearly explains that the calculation include the start date: no more confusion over whether today is counted or not!
• Easy-to-read characters and layout
• Automatically uses your local date format as set in your Control Panel

Cons

• Some users may wish for a prettier-looking app
• Hasn’t been updated since last year
• App reminds users to take holidays between the start date and target date into account, but doesn’t list those holidays for you!

Discussion

DayCalc solves a very annoying problem most people have, and does it in a very simple, minimally-designed app. Pulling your local date format as set in your Control Panel, DayCalc is ready to go as soon as you load it. The layout is easy to navigate, and easy to interpret

My only real concern with this app is the way holidays are accounted for. The DayCalc app reminds users to take holidays between the start date and target date into account, but doesn’t go on to list those holidays for you! To be fair, that could get tricky.

But if you were able to provide the app with your location, the app could produce a list of regional/religious holiday between now and then. Users could then tick off any boxes next to holidays they don’t celebrate, producing a list of relevant holiday dates that could affect their calculations. It would take a little doing to make these improvements to the app, but it would result in a product of a much higher quality.

Conclusion and download link

This is a very simple app, with a very simple interface. It solves a simple problem in a simple, elegant way. If you love simple tools that are great timesavers, DayCalc is a handy app to keep on your hard drive. You can use it to count down to a wedding, a project due date, a movie premiere, or use it to calculate how many days it has been since you sent an important application off to an organization for their review.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.2

Requires OS X 10.6.6 or later

Download size: 1.7 MB

DayCalc on Mac App Store