[NTLK] (OT) Thinking about 'joined up' productivity on Mac/iPhone

[Jon Scordia]

Hi list. Trying not to dip into the iPad/iPud debate here!

However I've been reading some of your comments with interest and  
thinking about, for me, what makes the Newt uniquely a Newt.

Clearly it stands head and shoulders above other 'personal organisers'  
or Personal Information Managers (PIMs) in the brilliant way that your  
address, diary, to-do information and the like is all cross related so  
you can easily be productive, managing and cross-relating everything  
about your working and personal lives in a hugely time saving manner.

I'm no tech-Newt but I understand we have the shared 'Soup' of data to  
thank for that.

So I've been thinking about what Newt DNA I'd like to see stuffed into  
my iPhone (which cannot do this joined up cleverness) or a  
'productive' iPad.

To be honest I don't think this essential DNA is Einstein, or HWR. I  
think it's this manipulatable Soup of personal data.

Then I started playing with Bento 3 on my Mac today. I was watching  
the intro video and realised that this could well be what I'm looking  
for. Bento 3's ability to dip into all of the other iLife  
applications' databases of addresses, calendar events, iPhotos etc;  
it's links to the 'cloud' via Mobileme and it's apparent ease of use  
(OK, I'm going to have to shape it to my needs and there's a clear  
learning curve) make this look like something well worth exploring.

http://www.filemaker.com/products/bento/features.html

Filemaker make the Bento Mac OSX app pretty complete, and also an  
iPhone Bento app which I've found to be rather dumb, really just  
downloads and displays Mac databases without the cleverness.

But with the iPad in existence and the iWork/iLife apps looking like  
working well on it, you can bet that the likes of Filemaker will see  
the promise of something in the middle between their current two  
platforms.

And then I think we'll have a contemporary contender for the  
productive PIM crown.

Lets just wait and see!

I'd welcome your comments though.

Cheers

Jon