In Finding Things to Do, Mobile App Uses Calendar for Search

Jan Anton, the CEO of San Diego-based uTemporis, is a little guarded about the genesis of Time to Enjoy, a free, location-based mobile app intended to answer the perennial question, “Is there anything for us to do?”

The app, available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, pulls in data (from San Diego’s Eventful and Tribune Media Services) about concerts, sporting events, movies, conferences, art exhibits, kid’s activities, and millions of other events. What makes it different, Anton says, is that the app transforms a user’s mobile phone calendar into a search engine for events—so the search for something to do begins with the time and date when you’re available. The app links to about 5 million movie showtimes throughout the United States, and more than 1 million other events each month in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe.

Time to Enjoy also uses location-based technology (on all devices except the iPod touch), so users can search for events near their current location or choose any city. The search radius can range from 200 feet to 50 miles; a filter helps users winnow down their personal preferences, and users can share the results with their friends.

Jan Anton

“We’re the first to do this type of search,” Anton says. Asked about the genesis of the technology, Anton says the concept came from “one fellow who works for a big Fortune 500 company, and who was instrumental in the app’s design.” (He wouldn’t get any more specific, but my guess is that the guy works at Qualcomm.) Anton and co-founders Brendan Boyd, Paul Gazur, and Ivan Crespo ran with the idea.

The founders incorporated uTemporis in late 2010. (The name is a Latin translation of “time to enjoy.”) They demonstrated an early version of the app in 2011 at TechCrunch NYC and at DEMO in Santa Clara in September, Anton says. “In November we acquired the domain www.timetoenjoy.com.” The Time to Enjoy app officially became available in Apple’s iTunes App Store on March 29, and the official launch followed on April 9. The uTemporis crew is now working to release an Android version by the end of the year.

Loyal Xconomy readers may recall that Anton and Boyd were previously the founders of

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.