Bento released for iPhone and iPod Touch
Posted on 05 May 2009, at 6:00 am, by Wayne Schulz
Filemaker Inc., a subsidiary of Apple just announced this morning that their Mac only instant database application, Bento, is now available via the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch.
Bento has been out for a while and is now in its second major release as Bento2. You can see more details at the Filemaker website. Bento, which retails at $49, is a sexy personal database application for keeping track of whatever you might need. It integrates with iCal, Apple Mail, Address Book, Excel and others. It comes witha myriad of prebuilt templates for all types of personal applications.
About Filemaker Pro
What Filemaker announced this morning is a full standalone Bento Application for the iPhone & iPod Touch. That edition includes 25 built in templates from which have both personal and small business uses. Examples include Time Billing, Expenses, Inventory, Projects, Digital Media, Home Inventory, Notes, Diet Log, Contacts, Donations and others.
Filemaker Inc. is best known for their small and mid-size business application Filemaker Pro which is currently up to version 10. I wrote about it here. The latest release of Filemaker Server, which is the back end server that supports a large number of concurrent Filemaker users and also allows apps to be handily published to the web for commercial use, now has built in templates that will take your Filemaker Database and have it format and work optimally on the iPhone and iPod touch.
This provides a solution for a business to update and maintain a database in the field that is simultaneously updated on the iPhone or iPod touch (with wifi). Remember, since this is browser based, without a connection to the internet it won’t function.
Remember that FMTouch has had an iPhone/iPod touch native application for some time that runs a Filemaker compatible application locally on the iPhone/iPod touch and runs even without internet connectivity. Note that only some of Filemaker’s powerful scripting commands are supported on the device but that list is expanding regularly
Integration
You may have noticed the “Contacts” listing and wonder why you would want to use a standalone Contact application on the iphone/ipod? Well its actually integrated with the built in Contacts application. As you add/edit/delete contacts, Bento can optionally keep those maintained as well, but unlike the built in Contacts, you can add virtually unlimited numbers of additional fields to a contact as well. In its initial release it will work with Contacts, Safari, Phone Dialing, Mail and Google Maps for a truly integrated solution.
Bento will integrate with the built in camera of the iPhone and can display maps from Google Maps. You can store camera images as a field type on any record. Images from other sources can be embedded as well. When Apple releases OS3 for the iPhone/iPod, the intention is to support the new embedded voice recording as well.
Sync
Probably just as intriguing is that it will Sync wirelessly with your desktop Mac’s Bento so you can add or edit your data on the Mac or the mobile device. Remember that you do NOT need to own a Mac to use Bento for the iPhone/iPod, only if you want to sync with your Bento2 Application which is Mac Only. Note: This is done via wifi and OSX’s Bonjour architecture.
It does NOT work off premise or via cell carrier. Filemaker claims this was done due to the amount of battery life that would have been drained via an over the air sync and the fact that the app can’t run in the background anyway.
Pricing and Availability
Bento for the iPhone and iPod touch will be available today and is a great deal in my opinion for only $4.99.
Link : Bento2
This review is a guest post from my friend Mark Chinsky who is an all around smart guy. In his day job he’s a partner with Clients First Business solutions who specialize in Sage MAS90 & MAS200 ERP software, SAP Business One and Filemaker Pro development. Mark also authored a review of Filemaker Pro 10, AeroGarden Pro 100 and LED Waves lighting.
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