[App github link](https://github.com/procrastimax/BirthdayBuddy)
#### Introduction
Exactly a week ago (10th of June), my younger brother did his induction ceremony. I remember how family members kept calling to remind me about the upcoming event every day due to how bad I am in keeping up with dates of events. There have been times I forgot about my birthdays until I started receiving calls and messages from friends and families wishing and greeting me about my birthday.
This issue of forgetting special dates and event dates have sometimes affected my relationship with people because most times people believe it is a deliberate act, or they believe I don't care about them enough to not remember important dates that have to do with them. Only a few very close friends and family members understand this defect of mine. So you can imagine my joy when I was going through one of my favorites and fellow blog writer's blog and came across this wonderful and useful app in one of his reviews. I had to quickly download this app and give it a try.
After using it for a while to get the drift of how this app operates, I decided it's time I promote and present this app to the public by publishing a review based on my own experience.
In this article, I'll not only be reviewing the app but I'll also be sharing my opinions alongside. This promises to be another interesting app review, sit back, relax and enjoy this article.
#### What is BirthdayBuddy?
[image source](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2-y7ymTeMOwYgLwxeAt1tNgA9bDrsHSsl7Vq-guJEO4EfeP2BAOPwSxI0tVhfVn0hg=s180-rw)
BirthdayBuddy is a simple free and open source app that helps users to keep up with important dates for special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries and so on. The app is simply basic but does the job it is meant for effectively.
Below is the succinct description of this app by the Project Owner;
> This is a simple, material design orientated app to handle all your birthdays, anniversaries and important yearly dates. You will be reminded about those dates a couple of days before they happen (changeable in settings). You can write notes for every event you add and you can set avatar images for your birthdays. For birthdays and annual events, you can specify a birth year or "start-year" to calculate the age of a person, the weekday of their birthday or the n-th time of their occurrence. You can also add future one-time events like graduation dates, which are automatically deleted after they took place.
The most recent improvement that was made in the app was done 14 days ago which was the "Fixing of expiring date of one-time-event" which led to the release of the latest version of the app that same day.
Also, the Project Owner made a list of the Key Features of the app in the 'Readme' document as the basic features. The features are;
- Adding multiple types of events (birthdays, anniversaries, one-time events, ...)
- Custom notification settings for every type of event
- Customization of birthday events with nicknames and avatar images
- Simple material design
- Chronologically presentation of all events grouped in months
- Multiple languages (english, german, [spanish, russian]))
- Event searching
- Export/ Import event dates to not-app storage (SD-Card or phone storage)
- Open-Source
- No need for external internet service for storing data -> no login/ account needed
- Free yourself from the need to lookup birthdays on facebook ;)
The highlighting of the Key Features by the Project Owner has really made the review of the app kind of easier because my reviews are going to be based on the listed features.
#### Review of BirthdayBuddy features.
##### Simple material design
I always like to start the features review of all of my review posts with the app's User Interface and this wouldn't be an exception. Even though, this is not the first feature that was listed in the Key Features list by the Project Owner.
The app made use of Google's material design to put together a simple but nice looking interface. The design is so simple that it didn't even present the users with any UI customizations, not even the simplest and the most common of all which is the "Theme Change Options". But the app's interface is neither too bright nor too dull thanks to the choice and mixture of colour of the design. Even though I've made mention in most of my reviews that I prefer using most apps in the dark mode, I think I will not really be needing such a feature in this particular app as the colour and the design of the UI is 'cool' enough and mild on my eyes. Although including this feature won't be a bad idea, leaving it this way is not bad also as it doesn't affect the use or in any way affect the purpose of the app.
##### Adding multiple types of events (birthdays, anniversaries, one-time events, ...)
Even though the name of this app is BirthdayBuddy, it necessarily didn't make the app monotonous as it can be used for keeping track of other activities such as Anniversaries and other events whether they are one-time or recurring ones.
The inclusion of this multiple event feature is really a great one as it enlarges the usefulness of this app. This means in addition to the birthday reminder function, it can be used to keep tracks of other recurring events such as wedding anniversaries, a one-time event such as my brother's induction (lol) and so on. This is a good feature and I like it.
##### Custom notification settings for every type of event
If there is one thing I cherish most when it comes to apps that have to do with reminding or notifying users, it is the ability to customize the types and modes of notifications. I like to distinguish various notifications with its' own specific sound, vibration and/or led light notification customizations. It gave me joy to find out that BirthdayBuddy possesses this feature. Users have the ability to customize their notifications under the following options; Notifications, Notifications Sound, Vibration, Notification Time, Notification Day and Notification Light.
All the above-listed Notifications customizations are really good and offer users freedom and flexibility to express themselves, but there was a major issue I encountered which I wasn't happy about and that was the fact that users can't select or change the type of sound they want playing as sound notification and are compelled to go with the default sound notification settings. I don't like this and hope this can be improved on.
On the positive side. I like the feature that allows users to set how often they want to be reminded about a particular event. This setting can be accessed in the 'Notification day' option, and the options present can be seen in the image below.
 This feature allows users to set how often they want to be reminded about an upcoming event.
##### Customization of birthday events with nicknames and avatar images
In past times, I've always used a reminder or to-do app to keep track of birthdays and events, I've never had the opportunity to use a birthday reminder app per se. This is the first time I'll be using such an app which was purposely built for birthdays. So it came with some cool features which are modeled to give the app an exciting look. One of such features is the ability to include the celebrant's nickname and avatar when creating his/her reminder. Even though I'm indifferent about the nickname space simply because there is provision for Name and Surname already, I love the ability to add an avatar, as this will allow the user to create a better profile for the celebrant.
From that image, it could be seen that there is a space for a note. I believe this can be used to pen down the thoughts and wishes of the user towards the celebrant pending the time the D-day comes. I think it is a good addition.
##### Chronologically presentation of all events grouped in months
Arrangement matters a lot. If a presentation is made in a disorderly manner, people are going to find it difficult to keep up with such a presentation. And an arrangement had to follow a particular known pattern to be orderly, that is the case in BirthdayBuddy as entries of events are arranged and grouped in months for easy usage.
##### Multiple languages (english, german, [spanish, russian]))
According to the Project Owner, the app is available in 4 different languages. Although I didn't come across any language apart from the English Language which is my preferred language, I don't really know much about the other languages or how to activate. I honestly really didn't put much effort into this as I'm not interested in other languages apart from English.
##### Event searching
I won't dwell much on this as this search feature works basically like every other search feature which is pratically present in all apps/
##### Export/ Import event dates to not-app storage (SD-Card or phone storage)
This is a great feature that is highly needed in most apps. Just some days ago, my device got formatted which was really unplanned, I normally back up my files from time to time in my online drive, and this saved me a great deal but the files and data of the apps who don't have data "Import/Export feature" was totally lost. With the aid of this feature in this app, users can put there mind at rest and save themselves the stress of having to create new entries every time by simply making use of the 'Import/Export' feature.
##### Open-Source
As earlier mentioned. this is an open source project.
##### No need for external internet service for storing data -> no login/ account needed
This app is totally an offline app and doesn't require any internet permission before it can be used. No need for account creation, just install and use.
##### Free yourself from the need to lookup birthdays on facebook ;)
Facebook has over the years served as my unofficial birthday reminder but of recent, there have been some discrepancies like getting notified too early before the actual date of the celebrant's birthday, or not receiving notifications until I opened the facebook app which most times is late in the day and the celebration is mostly over amongst other reasons. But with the help of BirthdayBuddy, these troubles are over.
#### Summary and Conclusion
In summary, I have been able to review the features of this useful app, the app as a whole and also share my thoughts about the app. I as a person finds the app very useful because of my forgetful nature which may be as a result of leaving too many tabs opened in my brain (lol).
I believe there are many people who are like me out there when it comes to keeping events date in mind, this app is for you. Install it and let me know how you feel about it. Thanks.
#### Resources
All of the images used are screenshots of the app from my device. All other places where other images were used were duly cited.
The app can only be downloaded from [Google Playstore](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.procrastimax.birthdaybuddy) for now.
#### Github profile:
https://github.com/jubreal
Thanks for reading.