FunContact is one of the newer titles from VITO Technology as part of their iWindowsMobile site. The site aims to upgrade your device to the next generation of Windows Mobile. Judging from the site, this means that your device should be easy and intuitive to use. The site itself is easy to navigate but do the software for sale stand up to the test? More specifically, is FunContact the kind of software that should be in the next generation Windows Mobile?

Introduction

FunContact is currently at v1.0 with an update coming shortly. It is basically a contact list management program that allows you to easily go through your contact and take required action. It currently comes with a 14 day trial for you to test run and a $19.95 price tag. Supporting versions of Windows Mobile from 2003, there should be no problem running this software on most devices.

Eye Catching

When I first wrote about AstroNavigatorII, I claimed that it had one of the best interfaces out there. It seems that VITO Technology agrees and decided to use a similar interface for a contact management program and FunContact was born. Like the former, FunContact comes with 4 large buttons at the bottom of each screen which are programmed among 4 groups/tasks. This makes the task of navigating through your contact list very easy.

Contact List

Tapping on this button gives you the contact list, all at one shot. You can use your finger to scroll up or down to the contact of your choice. Or you could also press the letter on the right corresponding to the first letter of the name you are looking for and it will bring you to that position of the list. To ensure that you chose the right letter, the tapped letter will appear in the center of the screen and will change accordingly if you move your finger up or down. The scrolling is kinetic so if you were to move your finger up to down quickly, the list would scroll fast. Even when your finger is removed, the list continues to scroll, slowing down before coming to a stop, very much like in real life.

When you see your desired contact, tapping on him will cause the screen to flip to show you his details. Picture, company, job and numbers will appear all at one shot and you can just tap on the number that you want to call. If a text message is what you want to send, then there is a button beside each number allowing you to do just that.

Favorite Contacts

The star that you see beside each name is a shortcut to adding that as a favorite, similar to the star that you see in Google products such as Gmail and Google Reader. Clicking on it will add the contact to your list of favorites, so the next time you need to look up the contact, you can just go to your Favorite list.

This button links to your favorite contacts. It’s like a folder of your favorite contacts. There really is no other feature here besides that.

Call History

Tapping on this button will pull up your call history. To the left of each number is an icon as to what type of call (incoming, outgoing or missed). To the right of it is the date of the call and the duration. If the call was made today, then instead of the date, it would show the time. The number or contact that you dial will also be shown and, if it is a contact, it will show you exactly which number you dialed (home, office or cell). Tapping on any of these contact/number will dial it as it is.The scrolling mechanism also works in this option, which is a blessing considering how long the call history can be.

Settings

This last button calls up the settings. Unlike the other 3 buttons, it does not have its own screen but instead brings out pop up of the settings you can change. Besides that, you can also add a new contact with this button and also register the product (if you have already purchased it). While the startup of the software is not one of the fastest around, you can choose to minimize it when you are done through the settings button, making calling the software the next time around, a much faster action.

The Downside

Considering that FunContact is till at v1.0, I am very impressed with it as a contact list. However, in the area of management, there are some flaws which I hope the developers can fix/overcome in the next version:

• While I can edit the numbers, I am not able to change its ‘type’.
• Adding a new contact uses the generic contact list software which takes a bit of the experience away. If they could integrate this function within the software, it would be awesome.
• I had some problems with ‘nameless contacts’ when I first used the software and I later found out that it was due to the sync-ing of my address book with Windows Live Messenger. Maybe an option could be added to move such contacts to the end of the list or remove it altogether?
• Adding the option to send a text message from the call history would be a great option for those calls I missed because I have to attend to something else.

Summary

Pros:

• Large icons/names make the stylus redundant when using the software.
• Scrolling mechanism makes it easy and quick to scroll through contact list.
• Easily adding and removing contacts from the favorite list.
• Built in keyboard makes text entry very fast.

Cons:

• Refer to ‘The Downside‘ above.
• Slow to startup (developers are working on this).

Conclusion

For something that we use everyday, we seldom think about how we could make it easier. Thankfully, VITO Technology has done just that for us with FunContact and now navigating through our contact list could not have been easier. It’s not a full contat list management software currently but being very early in development, things can only get better. It does, however, make your life much better when you need to deal with the contacts and for that, I would definitely recommend that everyone gives FunContact a try.

**Update**

Stand a chance to win a copy of this great software. Check out this post to find out how.

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Tags: commercial software