Bento has been long regarded as an outstanding desktop database application. Now, Filemaker has ported Bento to the iPhone as a brand-new mobile database solution.
Even if you don’t own a copy of Bento 2, the iPhone application can still be used as a stand alone program. With 25 built-in templates, Bento makes it easy to start your next database – whether you’re tracking exercise habits or your digital media collection. The iPhone address book is also added as a default database within Bento.
Within a database, fields can be added, moved, and modified. New fields can be set in an array of different formats, including text, number, choice, URL, time, date, and currency. Of course, new records can be added, edited, and deleted with a flick of a finger.
Bento’s search and organizational features are first-rate and decrease the time spent searching for information. Viewing records is very simillar to viewing contacts in the iPhone’s Contacts app – with a search bar at the top and alphabet scroller to the right-hand side. There’s also a universal search that looks through all the libraries stored in Bento. You can also specify in which way you want records to be sorted and displayed in the records view.
The iPhone version of Bento also tackles collections, allowing you to view, create, and add to record collections within a library. These collections are then displayed as sub-categories beneath their corresponding library in the list view of databases. Databases, or libraries, can be viewed either in coverflow or as a standard list.
While it functions fine as a standalone application, Bento’s true beauty is the ability to take your data from the desktop on-the-go. Databases can be created and modified on either platform and be synced using WiFi. Having access to your information on the iPhone not only makes Bento for the iPhone a strong product, but increases the value in Bento for the desktop.
Whether you’re looking to have access to your Bento databases on the go, or are looking for a great way to create simple databases on the iPhone, Bento is a great solution. It is available for $5 in the app store.
[Find our Post on Bento 2 here]
