TUAW Review: Bento for iPhone

FileMaker, Inc. provided one of the surprise announcements of the last couple of weeks with the introduction of Bento for iPhone and iPod touch. Designed a both a standalone database management application and companion app to the Mac version, Bento for iPhone is an inexpensive, well-designed, and usable app for collecting, searching, and displaying information.

TUAW has been able to put Bento for iPhone through its paces both as "just" an iPhone app, and as a synchronizable add-on to the desktop Bento. Check out my review of the app by clicking Read More.
TUAW readers who were listening to the TUAW Talkcast on Sunday, May 10th, are aware of the discussion that took place during the show. A few of us were describing apps that we've installed on our iPhone that we're not using, or are not likely to use. For example, several of us brought up the fact that we were initially enthused about Evernote as a common, cloud-centric location to keep all of our digital stuff. However, some of us find ourselves not using Evernote for one reason or another.

I commented that I felt the same way about Bento based on my use of version 1.0 of the desktop application. In the old days of System 7, I used FileMaker frequently, not only for large flat-file databases but for personal databases that weren't really covered by any of the included Mac apps of the day. With the advent of OS X, I stopped using those databases. When the desktop version of Bento arrived I thought it might be time to try another database app, and since it wasn't as complex as FileMaker, I figured I'd be using it constantly.

I was wrong. Instead of capturing my time spent on consulting gigs in Bento, I found myself using my time-honored system of capturing the start and end times for work on an iPhone or Post-It� note for future invoicing. When it came to