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Escape the contact sync spiral with addapt for iPhone
Sometimes I miss a paper Rolodex. While I'm not really old enough to have used one, the idea of a reliable, semi-permanent repository of contact information -- update it by stapling in a new business card, or with good old correction fluid -- seems comforting. Plus it makes that cool whappity-whap sound when you spin it. Modern contact management, while faster and much lighter (my 1K+ contact list would be a pretty bulky Rolodex), doesn't provide the same sense of control. When your contacts could disappear in a puff of iCloud, it would be comforting to know that your friends' up-to-date info is only a few taps away. Contact syncing from LinkedIn, Plaxo and now Facebook helps somewhat, but all those services come with their own baggage and inessential features. Former LinkedIn exec Mrinal Desai looks at the current state of contact management and thinks that we might as well still be using the spinny card holders. "We used to pen down contact info before and then when and if informed, erase it and write a new one all over again -- today we do the same. Everything has changed yet nothing has changed for the address book," he says. That's why he and co-founder Jorge Ferreira are introducing addapt for iPhone, a free app that aims to modernize the contact update cycle. The addapt approach is straightforward. You select your contact info; you share it to fellow contacts in your address book. If they reciprocate, you'll stay in sync automatically with nothing to import, export, re-enter or correct. Grace notes include a best-guess iMessage accessibility field (for contacts who have a phone record flagged as iPhone) and a clear local time indicator so you don't call people at odd hours of the night. There are other clever services for parsing and importing contact information from inbound email (WriteThat.name for Gmail accounts is one example) or apps that will merge and de-munge the inevitable duplicate contacts from cross-service sync or Facebook integration (Wim deNood's Cleanup Suite on iOS, Spanning Tools on the Mac), but few that deliver dead-simple updating. If you're tired of emailing out a blast whenever your phone number changes, check out addapt's app. You can learn more about the addapt service at the company's website. As they ramp up the service, access will be invitation-only for a while; be sure to mention that you read about it here on TUAW and maybe you'll get bumped to the front of the line.
TUAW'S Daily iPad App: Pocket Informant HD
WebIS Pocket Informant is an advanced PIM that has been around for years, transitioning from the Windows Mobile platform to iOS quite nicely. The iPad version of this calendaring and task management app is particularly notable for its wonderful layout and efficient use of the entire iPad display. One feature Pocket Informant was known for, even back in its Windows Mobile days, was its many settings and options. And, thankfully, these features are carried over to the iOS application. The settings menu on the iPad has options for General settings, Appearance, Today settings, Calendar settings, Task settings, Sync setting and Advanced settings. Under each of these headings are options to change colors, views, orientation, notifications and more. It's a field of dreams for those that like to tweak an app to their personal tastes. Pocket Informant HD has the appearance of daily planner and can be viewed in either portrait or landscape view. In either orientation, there are tabs on the right side which lets you switch from calendar view, task view, agenda view and settings. Each section has even more options in the top bar. From this bar, you can add an event or task as well as switch from days, month or week view. You can also display information from an individual calendar and use a search box to find a specific appointment or task. Despite all these options, everything is neat, orderly and pleasing to the eye. For those who adhere to a planning regimen, Pocket Informant HD supports Getting Things Done or Franklin Covey ABC/1-99 Prioritization of tasks. It also syncs with multiple Google calendars, iOS calendars and Toodledo. Some users may be overwhelmed by all the options and views available, but most users will be pleased by the power and flexibility of this personal information management app. At $12.99 Pocket Informant HD is pricey, but it's worth the cost for those that rely on their calendar to help manage their busy lives. %Gallery-129441%
BusyCal Info Panel Preferences give you more event options
BusyCal is what iCal should have been. It continues to impress me the longer I use it, and recently I found a way to customize it that I did not know about previously. Event details, like the one shown in the image here, can be customized from a much larger list than what BusyCal shows you by default. To access the Info Panel Preferences, click the small white "i" at the top right of the Event Info panel. (See item #1 in the image here. Note that you can only access these when the panel is floating on its own, not from the BusyCal sidebar.) There are 18 different fields that you can use, and most of them are self explanatory (you can see an image in the gallery below), but I want to draw your attention to a few that I find very helpful. The first is "my URL" which gives you an easy way to link an event to a person from your address book. Simply drag the name from the address book to the my URL field and a link will be created (see #2 in image). Clicking that link will open their contact information in the Address Book.app. You can also drag a person (or business) to the Location, Attendees, My Notes, or Notes field. For the latter two, you get more than just a link to their name, you get address and phone number information (see item #3 in image). While you could use "Attendees" for the same purpose (and that field is shown by default), when you do that, BusyCal wants to know if you want to "invite" them or send them changes whenever you edit the event. That isn't a feature I ever use, so I didn't want to use Attendees, but my URL is almost perfect.
Chandler 1.0, the open source PIM
Little noticed amid all the hubbub about Mobile Me, the App Store, iPhone killswitches and everything else, was the news from last week that Chandler 1.0 for OS X was finally released. If that leaves you only fractionally less in the dark, here's some background: Chandler is a cross-platform, open source Personal Information Manager (PIM), and project of the Open Source Applications Foundation. The vision behind Chandler and the OSAF is that of Mitch Kapoor, designer of the original "killer app" for the PC generation, Lotus 1-2-3. Chandler has been many years in gestation, but that's hardly surprising when you look at the feature set - there's a huge amount of stuff packed in there. The 3-minute guided tour (direct link to .mov file) is well worth watching for an overview. The very first thing that catches my eye is the "Quick entry bar", which looks just like the search boxes you see in many other OS X apps like Mail and Safari. This one isn't just for search, though; it's also for rapid input. You type something, hit enter, and it instantly becomes a new item in Chandler for you to edit, expand on, and deal with later. Chandler is a free download from chandlerproject.org. We'd be interested to hear what you make of it. Via MacNetJournal
TUAW Review: eWallet for iPhone
I recently wrote a post about Ilium Software, developer of longtime mobile apps eWallet and ListPro, and Apple's delays in getting their applications into the App Store.I don't take any credit (it was pure coincidence), but about 8 hours after my post eWallet showed up in the App Store. I purchased it immediately, since I used the Windows Mobile and Palm OS versions for years and have been hoping for an iPhone version. In short, eWallet is both attractive and functional. It stores your passwords, credit card numbers, and other personal information securely with 256-bit AES encryption, and it does it with iPhone style. At $9.99, eWallet for iPhone is priced at half of the price of its $19.95 siblings for Palm OS and Windows Mobile.Read after the break for the rest of my review of Ilium Software's eWallet for iPhone (link opens iTunes Store), and check the gallery below for screenshots of eWallet in action. %Gallery-28175%
PackRat 1.3 supports new Backpack, adds more exclusive features
Backpack, the fantastic online PIM from 37signals, was recently updated with some solid new features like drag-and-dropping items from one page to another and the ability to reorder items any way you chose on a page (i.e. - lists and notes no longer have to be lumped together in their own sections). As with any web app update, desktop apps that integrate must often release an update of their own to stay on top of the changes. Fortunately, Rod Schmidt has done exactly that with his excellent offline synching PackRat app that brings Backpack to your desktop. With v1.3, Rod has updated PackRat so it can work with the new Backpack, but he has also introduced yet more exclusive features that keep making PackRat even more useful than its web-based symbiote, such as: The reminder sheet now has a calendar on it to make entering dates easier. A New Reminder toolbar button An 'In minutes from now' option for reminders. Shared pages now have a shared icon in the pages list so you can easily see what pages are shared. An Upload Changes command and toolbar button to quick upload your changes to Backpack without waiting for auto upload to kick in. Unfortunately, a few of the Backpack updates - such as reordering items anywhere on the page - haven't made it into PackRat simply because 37signals doesn't allow external applications to do this through their API. Rod urges users to contact 37signals and request this ability, and hopefully in time the company will listen and open up this functionality. Other new Backpack features like search are probably coming with a future PackRat update. As with the the recent change to PackRat's trial period, a 30-day demo is available, while a license costs a mere $24.95.
Widget Watch: Stikkit widget
Last week, Mat Lu found a Quicksilver plugin that plays well with Stikkit, the online personal info organizer that thinks so you don't have to, but there's also another method for all you Dashboard junkies out there: a full-on widget from James Adam. This widget, like its Quicksilver plugin cousin, is great for getting your stuff into Stikkit, but it also has the advantage of being a compact window into your Stikkit world. You can create or edit any number of Stikkits and sync them when you want, making this widget a sort of offline, syncing client for Stikkit.Adam is providing this widget free of charge, and you can grab your copy from his interblah.net site (love the domain Adam!).[via Stikkit's Values of n Blog]
Search your Stikkits from Quicksilver, browsers
Remember that iNik guy we mentioned, who put together a handy package of Mac OS X tools that interact with Stikkit, the online PIM that thinks so you don't have to? He swung by our original post to mention that he's posting all sorts of Stikkit tips for working with this wholly unique PIM service (which, surprisingly, iNik says works fine in Safari but not IE - how cool is that?), and so far, many of them are Mac-based. His latest tip involves configuring popular Mac OS X browsers, and even Quicksilver and LaunchBar, with the ability to search your stikkits right from the comforts of your tools of choice. iNik includes instructions for setting up Firefox and OmniWeb, though sadly not Safari since it hasn't been endowed with alternative search engine super powers just yet. Still, this is another handy trick for getting that little extra something out of an online organizer.
Packrat 0.87 released with page link editing, creation
Packrat, an offline Backpack client that I just can't say enough about, has been updated to version 0.87. Though it is another minor version point update, it features the ability to edit links, including dragging one page onto another to create a link. With all its other abilities of editing pages, tags, lists, and notes, as well as being able to create new lists and notes, Packrat is becoming a more powerful client by the day.Packrat is a Universal Binary, with a demo available, while a licenses costs $24.95.
Packrat 0.8 - edit Backpack lists, display images
In mid-April, Rod Schmidt asked for feedback as to whether he should release editing features in Packrat, his Backpack syncing client, as he develops them. From what I saw, the response was largely in favor of doing so, and yesterday Rod announced on his blog that Packrat 0.8 has taken the first step in this direction. Users can now edit lists in Packrat, then sync up the changes to their Backpack account. This new version can also display inline images (but not linked images) as long as you've already downloaded them, of course. This is a pretty big deal if you're a Backpack fan, especially since I'm fairly certain Packrat is the first app that has this kind of potential to become a true, offline-capable Backpack client.Swing on by infiniteNIL Software to grab a demo of Packrat, a license will cost $24.95. If you want to get involved or offer some feedback, be sure to check out the Packrat discussion group and and Rod Schmidt's blog for development updates.
