Now smartphone users have no excuse for forgetting their next dentist appointment or for missing their favorite sitcom on TV. A revamped UpTo app — developed by a team working in Detroit’s Madison Building — offers users a quick way to review their personal calendar alongside more than 10,000 calendars featuring public events.
“(The new version) adds innovation by adding a second layer of content,” says Greg Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of UpTo. “It’s everything beyond meetings and appointments, which is what calendars have been devoted to for decades..”
When using the app, available for free for iPhone and soon for Android, users will see their personal calendar on the first layer. With a quick tap, however, the app expands to reveal additional events, gleaned from calendars a user chooses to follow. “When you’re adding additional content, you’re not cluttering your calendar — it kind of lives under your (person) calendar. It’s quickly accessible without getting in the way,” Schwartz says.
Schwartz says the UpTo staff, which has grown from four to 15 employees since 2011, secures calendar content from a few different sources. In addition to pulling event information from several publicly available national data sources — such as sports schedules for college and professional sports teams — an internal team also curates public calendars for things such as “Top Events in TV this Week.”
Organizations can also publish calendars through the network for public use, says Schwartz, counting public schools and the Detroit Pistons among some of the platform’s users.
UpTo also offers automatic two-way sync with any existing Google, iCloud, Exchange, Facebook, or other calendar that syncs with the user’s phone. It also offers the option to connect with friends about privately hosted events. “We want this to be a complete replacement for your mobile calendar. You should be able to stop using your iPhone calendar and not miss one feature when you switch the UpTo,” Schwartz says.
The re-launch also marks the next phase of growth for UpTo, which reported about 250,000 downloads for the app’s original version. “That was a great point of entry for us, but our aspirations go far beyond a quarter-million,” Schwartz says. “We’re looking to expand and add more resources for software development and marketing over the next several months.”
To download UpTo, visit upto.com.
