I did a search, and apparently they also hold a trademark on "cron" within the domain of scientific and technical services [0]. That it was granted at all is absolutely ridiculous, given the history and omnipresence of "cron" as referring to Unix cron. Similar to the debacle about "Python" a decade ago [1], this raises a lot of red flags. When somebody picks a name that is already widely known in their field, I assume that they are either inexperienced enough not to know the term, or deceitful enough to try to profit from it.
Your link 0 there indicates the trademark was suspended or is in the process of being suspended. Their other attempt at registering a trademark [0] also seems to have failed (status "Final Refusal - Mailed")
Whoops, thank you and I stand corrected. This increaaes my opinion of the trademark registration process, as it was rightfully rejected. My opinion of the applicant is lower with the correction, because it means that they kept the same name for two years after being rejected, removing ignorance as an explanation and making me think that it is intentional deceit.
Exciting news. Sounds like Cron will remain separate while they work out a way to integrate into Notion.
Off topic: Does anyone else have trouble using Notion because of the .so domain? We've had a number of corporate firewalls wholesale block the .so TLD and Notion is a casualty. Hopefully they switch over to .com soon.
You aren't the only one, and they were planning to switch to .com "as soon as their engineering team has the bandwidth", but that was two years ago so who knows
Recently started using Cron, happy to hear they plan to continue to develop it as a separate app + excited to see Notion take on more of the traditional office suite.
Their website[1] shows something that looks nearly identical to the MacOS default calendar app (edit: which is a good design to take inspiration from) but no list of features or much else of substance.
It's super fast, works great across multiple calendars, is super fast. I would say it's what I wish Apple would make the default calendar. The only downside I have to date is no iOS app. It's one of my favorite apps, unfortunately I expect Notion will ruin it.
Doesn't look like it adds much of anything to the Apple calendar, which itself is a pretty minimal implementation. I actually found it worthwhile to pay $50 for Busycal which has a lot of features important to me (presumably not to most people). Fantastical also has a following at around the same price point, though it didn't do it for me.
I wish notion supported the mac, but they just have a lame web view which isn't any better than using a web browser. Doesn't act at all like a native app.
I discovered cron looking for a way to manage my "two DayJob calendars with 85% duplicate events but 15% unique events".
Specifically since I was annoyed at getting 2 notifications for every event that was duplicated on both calendars.
And cron actually solved that problem by automagically recognizing duplicate events and only notifying once. I turned off all notifications in calendar.app.
The only other differentiating feature I am aware of is how configurable the menu bar app is.
Thankfully, I no longer have the original problem + I don't like things in my menu bar so I'm probably switching back to the built in app.
Has anyone here used cron? What makes it "next generation"? What are the platforms it supports, what's the business model? The website doesn't tell much.
It’s if Superhuman made a calendar app to go along with email. It’s super fast and has good keyboard shortcuts, and implements advanced features like sharing availability Calendly-style.
I have to ask because people here keep talking about cron’s speed:
What functionality of a calendar is speed dependent? Genuine ask and not trying to be snarky, speed just hasn’t ever been something I’ve ever had to worry about with a calendar tool so the notion (pun not intended) is merely a foreign to me personally.
Is it opening events? Creating a new calendar item? Syncing, or something else?
Where is the speed gained in from compared to Calendar.app?
If it's anywhere close to the speed of Calendar.app it's super fast compared to Google calendar, maybe that's what people are comparing it with. Remember that the Windows software ecosystem for basic tools is terrible, so maybe its users are the most excited.
It’s marginally better than the macOS stock calendar app, but pretty similar. Amongst people I know, windows users who have been used to google’s web calendar are the ones who have gotten most excited about it because having a dedicated calendar app has its advantages.
I find it less useful than the macOS calendar.app because it doesn’t let me view my iCloud calendar which I use for personal events or birthdays from the iCloud contact database.
The ui and interface is pretty snappy, and if notion is bringing on the team to speed up their client software it will be welcome.
Incredibly bizarre to me that the press release doesn't include a link to the product. Especially considering that Cron is already a ubiquitous name for something else entirely.
I wondered what Cron is/does, and found the least useful landing page I have ever seen. The whole information content is "it's a calendar app". https://cron.com/
Will Notion gains new paying user thanks to Cron ? probably not
Will it helps Notion improve its product ? Yeah probably on the calendar part, but that's only usefull for B2C, and notion focus a lot on B2B no (They even mention the workplace of the future) ?
Is it a acqui-hire ? Then why keep the products separate ?
> Cron and Notion have a lot in common. We share a sense of craft and an overlapping base of passionate users.
I’ve never used Notion and been impressed by the craftsmanship of the product. It works, sort of, 90% of the time, but it isn’t delightful, fast, or any other quality I’d associate with the craft / handsmade movement. Maybe I just misunderstand the word.
That’s definitely in the eye of the beholder. For something so text-oriented it doesn’t use the native text primitives so lots of muscle memory doesn’t work. I have to keep resorting to the mouse to do anything.
Exactly. I find I fight with what it wants to do more often than not when text editing. The table component is a mess. I wish it'd just drop me down to pure markdown. Searching is hit or miss for a product built around knowledge search.
It's something often forced on me by others, and not something I'd reach for myself.
Three things I love about cron:
- hot keys/command palette for everything
- great functions to view and schedule across my team
- an app (yes, electron…) not a website
It also does lots of other nifty things like creating individual calendly-style links for a specific meeting.
68 comments
[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 119 ms ] thread[0] https://trademarks.justia.com/900/03/cron-90003841.html
[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/pytho...
[0] https://trademarks.justia.com/900/03/it-s-about-90003004.htm...
Off topic: Does anyone else have trouble using Notion because of the .so domain? We've had a number of corporate firewalls wholesale block the .so TLD and Notion is a casualty. Hopefully they switch over to .com soon.
i guess Notion's success is evidence .com's may be overrated. (sure, an alternate reading is that they're successful despite the TLD).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Notion/comments/f6x9mk/why_the_so_d...
Your firewall is incorrect.
I found Notion launched amazing out of the gate and has gotten progressively slower over time. I hope they don't do that to Cron :(
Feel the same.
This is one scenario where the founders who originally built the app turn their attention to fundraising and add a bunch more engineers
Their website[1] shows something that looks nearly identical to the MacOS default calendar app (edit: which is a good design to take inspiration from) but no list of features or much else of substance.
Edit: Their docs[2] contain some more info
1: https://cron.com/
2: https://cron.com/docs
But how fast is it?
Leaving original up intentionally.
You’ve convinced me to try it out!
I wish notion supported the mac, but they just have a lame web view which isn't any better than using a web browser. Doesn't act at all like a native app.
Cron also runs on Windows. No idea if Windows comes with a calendar.
Windows does come with a calendar, but it's not great.
Specifically since I was annoyed at getting 2 notifications for every event that was duplicated on both calendars.
And cron actually solved that problem by automagically recognizing duplicate events and only notifying once. I turned off all notifications in calendar.app.
The only other differentiating feature I am aware of is how configurable the menu bar app is.
Thankfully, I no longer have the original problem + I don't like things in my menu bar so I'm probably switching back to the built in app.
It’s marketing. Read the qualification as “good”, and trust it as much as any marketing.
Yes.
What functionality of a calendar is speed dependent? Genuine ask and not trying to be snarky, speed just hasn’t ever been something I’ve ever had to worry about with a calendar tool so the notion (pun not intended) is merely a foreign to me personally.
Is it opening events? Creating a new calendar item? Syncing, or something else?
Where is the speed gained in from compared to Calendar.app?
That’s the thing I’m not growing here and sorry but the answer above doesn’t tell me this
I find it less useful than the macOS calendar.app because it doesn’t let me view my iCloud calendar which I use for personal events or birthdays from the iCloud contact database.
The ui and interface is pretty snappy, and if notion is bringing on the team to speed up their client software it will be welcome.
Interesting history in this case - a personal domain.
They probably emailed the owners with a good offer. Since this wasn't a domain broker, it was probably five figures instead of six or seven.
I've managed to do this a few times.
Why sell it so early? There isn't an app publicly available yet, or even pricing...
Will Notion gains new paying user thanks to Cron ? probably not
Will it helps Notion improve its product ? Yeah probably on the calendar part, but that's only usefull for B2C, and notion focus a lot on B2B no (They even mention the workplace of the future) ?
Is it a acqui-hire ? Then why keep the products separate ?
I’ve never used Notion and been impressed by the craftsmanship of the product. It works, sort of, 90% of the time, but it isn’t delightful, fast, or any other quality I’d associate with the craft / handsmade movement. Maybe I just misunderstand the word.
Performance could be better, but that's a different dimension of craft. Kind of like a formula 1 racecar versus a classic corvette.
That’s definitely in the eye of the beholder. For something so text-oriented it doesn’t use the native text primitives so lots of muscle memory doesn’t work. I have to keep resorting to the mouse to do anything.
It's something often forced on me by others, and not something I'd reach for myself.
[0] https://cronhq.notion.site/cronhq/Cron-Calendar-5625be54feac...
It also does lots of other nifty things like creating individual calendly-style links for a specific meeting.
Also the team is super responsive to feedback.