Usually, when developers create a new software, their main purpose is to fill one of the many gaps created by Microsoft in the Windows Mobile platform. Not to replace the applications that you use on your desktop. So when one such software comes along and actually does that (not intentionally I guess), even users who do not use it will know about it. And the software that I am talking about in this case is WebIs’s multi-award winning title: Pocket Informant.

Intro

Pocket Informant 8 is one of the most feature-packed applications out there. So much so that if I were to talk about every single one, I could make it into April’s series. It supports a whole series of Windows Mobile version, from Pocket PCs to Standard, from WM2003 (for Pocket PC) to WM 6.1 (for both Pocket PC and Standard) and almost all sorts of display resolution that currently exists. Even if it doesn’t, you can be sure that Alex and his team will be working to bring it on-board. That’s because Pocket Informant is heavily updated (about once a month on average) to rid of any bugs and improve the user experience.

The version that I am currently reviewing is 8.02 Build 1164 which is the latest available right now. It retails for $29.95 which some might find a bit pricey but after going through this review, you might see why $29.95 is actually a steal for this application.

When I started this review, I was wondering how I should go about it. One route was to discuss all the features listed. The other was to discuss how it could help you. I decided to go for the latter because I am a firm believer that a powerful software is no use if it does not help you.

Setup

Installation is rather straightforward for this application. At just under 4MB for installation size, it is rather big to install on the Main Memory but that is where it is recommended. Sure you could install to Storage Card but I would not recommend it.

After installation and launching the application, you will be presented with the above screen which asks you to choose which role you want for this application. What this does is make available (or unavailable) certain features, depending on your needs. You could choose Pocket Outlook With Benefits where it consolidates your PIM without giving you too many options that confuses you, which is perfect for those starting out, or you could even choose Power User where you get to experience the power of this application. For those who plan to use this for mainly for tasks or appointments will have an option for each as well.

What I like about this version of Pocket Informant is that it allows you to choose whether Pocket Informant should be the default Calnedar, Task and Contact application. This means, even if you tap on the default icons for any of those functions, it will still bring you to Pocket Informant. However, if you prefer to use another program as your default Contact application for example, you can make the changes during setup as well.

Settings

This is just one of the many areas that Pocket Informant shines (and can give you a headache as well). Just about anything that you want to customize can be done here. From fonts to colors to how the application behaves. Depending on the role that you have set earlier, certain settings may or may not be available to you. So far, I have yet to find a tweak that I needed to make that was not covered in the settings so I am pretty happy with that.

Views

Because Pocket Informant performs a lot of functions, it uses Views to help you navigate. Again, what you see int he screenshot above may not be what you get on yours because I am running mine as a Power User. Those with a numpad can easily navigate from one view to another by pressing the corresponding number beside each view. Or you can just tap on it. The options available are Events, Agenda, Day/Week, Week, Month, TimeLine, Journal, Notes, Tasks, Contacts and Search. All of which I will show you just how they would make your life easier to manage.

Ever wanted to know how many days before a certain task is due or before your next appointment with the dentist? While you could do the former from the Tasks screen, appointments were a different story, especially if they were in the distant future. This is where events come in.

You can track both appointments and tasks from a single screen. Just tap and hold on an appointment or task and choose to add it to Events and the next time you enter this view, you will see how many days before it’s due. So the next time you need to plan something (like that anniversary or birthday dinner), you can stay on top of things much easier.

Similar to Evens with the exception that you do not need to add it to the view. As long as the appointment or tasks takes place or is due within the said number of days that you’ve set up Agenda, you’ll see it here. Perfect for those who like to see what their schedule is like for the next 2, 3 or even 31 days.

This is actually as zoomed in as it gets for your daily activities. Remember the good old days when you would enter your appointments in your paper journal and then select the duration of time? Well, this is what happens over here. You get to see, in greater detail, just how packed your day is. One great way use I find for this view is to look for free time in a given day but I am sure you have other uses for it too.

Similar to Day/Week but it shows you all the appointments you have for the week. Not really useful for me because I am running a qVGA screen resolution but those on VGA will find that you can see a lot more information and find it useful. If you are a user of icons, this view would serve you well, even if you are running on qVGA.

Ever wanted to know what’s in store for the month? While Agenda can do this and lists out all the appointments and tasks in detail, the month view takes a summarized version. It shows you, in terms of time bars, when you are busy and the tasks count due. If you use icons a lot, you can also see what kind of events are coming up. Need a more detailed itinerary? Just tap on the day in question to pull up a list of your agenda. Or if you need to compare certain days, just highlight them and Pocket Informant will zoom into them for more comfortable viewing.

What if you wanted to compare categories instead of dates/days? That’s where TimeLine comes in. And you can even use it to track several projects (if you put them into categories) so you can see which days are taken up a lot of time for a particular project and maybe re-arrange them for a more balanced week. To really maximize this view, you will need to have your appointments added to the category that you are dealing with in TimeLine. Otherwise, all you get is a blank screen (like what you see above).

Ever made a phone call and then forget what it was about at the end of the day? If you used the Journal feature of PI8, then those might just be a thing of the past. Think of a journal as a note that you can attach to anything (a task, appointment or phone call) or to nothing at all. It’s like your thought or summary for the day. For example, using the same phone call, you could program PI8 to create a journal with each entry so you enter details about the call and remember later on what was discussed.

The confusing thing is that you can attach notes as well to these same items so it is really up to you how you want to go about using this feature. Or you could not use it at all if you choose not to. The thing to keep in mind is that you will need JournalSync (from WebIs as well) if you want to sync those journals to your Outlook.

Not as souped up as PhatNotes but it does add some nice features over the default Notes application you get with Windows Mobile. These include formatting (bold, underline, italicize), alarms, colors and even adding categories. If you are an avid note-taker and did not get PhatNotes, you might want to check out PI8’s Notes feature. It might just be the thing you need.

One my my used-features is Tasks and you’ll be surprised just how powerful this gets. For starters, you can create what is called Hierarchical tasks. These are tasks consisting of parents and childs. Say you have a task of fixing up the garage. Int he past, you might have to create a new category just for that one task if you wanted to keep track of it properly. With this feature in PI8, you actually set that task as the parent, and everything else that will help you complete the task as a child. These could include, cleaning out the trash, painting the walls, repairing the door and so forth. What’s great is that if you have 5 child tasks and you complete one, your parent task will reflect that it is 20% (1 in 5) completed. And it automatically does that with each completed child tasks. So the next time someone says your tasks ain’t moving, you can show them it actually is.

But that’s not all. Another useful feature which I use is the Task Status. This let’s me set how the task is handled. For example, if I have passed the task to someone else, I can choose Delegate so I can still remind myself to check with them on its status. Or I could mark it In Process and set how much of the task is completed. I could even forward it or mark it completed where necessary. How’s that for a great way to manage your tasks?

No PIM would be completed if it does not handle your Contacts and PI8 does this as well. So what can you do with this feature? For starters, you could change the contact data preference. That is the data that you see beside each contact, sort of like a default data. You could change this to a work number for your Boss, a mobile number for your wife and even an email/IM address for your overseas friends. Set it in any way you like.

The Call Log feature that comes with Contacts is great too. While Windows Mobile 6’s default phone application has something similar, you can now view the Call Log of a particular contact, right down to how many minutes were for incoming and outgoing calls. And if you want to send a text message or email, just tap the corresponding data and (if you have set up your phone properly), it will bring you to the appropriate application to do your composing.

Having all these data would not be useful if you could not find them easily and quickly. Which is where the Search function comes in. What’s great is that you can choose how to search, be it only appointments or contacts or both journals and notes. There are even parameters like date and privacy that you can toggle.

The Search feature is available in almost every View so you could search for a particular contact instead of scrolling down the list. But in situations where you need to search across several views (features), you will find that this feature is a great one.

One useful feature I just found out with this version is that of Soundex. Basically, this searches for similar sounding terms in contacts. So if you were looking for Smith but you had saved it as Smyth, it would bring up that result as well.

Too bad I am not able to search for free time.

Other Useful Features

While the views/features highlighted above already makes PI8 stand out, there are a few others worth mentioning as well.

Time Bars

These are the bars that you see at the top of Day/Week view as well as those bars in the middle of the box in Month view. It actually gives you a glimpse of the activity status for the day.

For example, in the Day/Week view, it actually shows which hours you are looking at with the bolded lines at the end of each representing the start and end of your work hours. The middle bold line stands for noon.

In Month view, the top bar represents AM while the bottom, PM.

With that in mind, you get a graphical representation of how packed your day is and what activities you have in store. While I use the default (Free, Busy, Out of Office, etc), you could customize this to your schedule for even better management.

Time Zones

Ever had an appointment in another timezone and not sure how to enter that appointment’s details? Well PI8 makes it easy for you. Just set the appointment in the timezone it’s in but before you hit save, make sure you change the timezone which is located towards the bottom.

Once done, you will see the appointment in your timezone but when you head over there and switch the timezones on your device, it will automatically be updated. For example, if I am in a -5hr timezone and I set an appointment for 11am at a -8hr timezone, it will show that the time for that appointment starts at 8am. When you switch to the -8hr timezone, it will change back to 11am. Not to worry about confusion because it will be formatted differently.

One Hand Use (Touch Mode)

It’s all the rage right now and WebIs has also incorporated that into PI8. You can enable scrolling (they call it Touch Mode) in any or all the views so that instead of using the scroll bars, you can just scroll across the entries like you would on an iPhone. It’s pretty smooth and you can familiarized (and enjoy it) very quickly as well.

Entering time	Entering date

How about entering numbers? Well when you have numpads as big as those, how difficult can it be to enter them with your thumb? This numpad comes up when you have to enter the time in appointments, which is really useful. Selecting dates can be a little bit trickier though but still doable with the finger.

Linking

You don’t usually have appointments with strangers do you? You tend to know the person you are meeting with, even if they are your clients. Which means, you would have their contacts. Now imagine you are setting up a lunch meeting with them. You can now link their contact details to that appointment so that when you look at your appointments, you can contact those involved easily.

Weekly Planning

That’s what WebIs calls it but it consists of Daily Notes, Mission Statements, Goals and Compass/Roles. This is a nice touch for those of us try to accomplish certain tasks or who just want to keep track of progress.

That’s where Daily Notes come in. It’s like a Journal entry where you could write just about anything that happened to you that day.

Mission Statements and Values are phrases that you enter to help you remind yourself what you belief in in times where you are faced with a conflicting situation.

With Goals, you can set one up and add the steps needed to accomplish it. You can even set up appointments and tasks to go hand in hand with your goal.

Compass/Roles are based on the 7 Highly Effective Habits so if you practice this, it would definitely come in handy.

While one may argue that these features are what you can already do with the rest of PI8, for example Goals could be handled with Tasks, I feel that having them in a separate category is a nice touch where you can just focus on it. At the end of the day, it’s your PIM so use it in the way that works best for you.

Templates/Macros

Macros	Templates

Sometimes you have very similar data to enter. This could be a tasks that happens every now and then or a certain type of appointment. With templates and macros, you can quickly fill up these data. Just set it up once and the next time you need to create one, you’ll find that it can be done very quickly.

Online Update

You already know that this application is updated pretty regularly but how can you keep track of it? One way is by using the integrated upgrade check. It connects to the site and checks to see if there is a newer version available. If there is, it advises you to download and install it. If not, it will let you know as well. No more having to check back at the website to see if you are running the latest.

There Are Others As Well

These are not the only features that PI8 offers. In fact, there a lot more than what has been mentioned in this review. If you are interested to find out more, just head over here here.

Summary

What I Like

• Very powerful PIM that really help you organize your life.
• Great support from WebIs.
• Integrates with FlexMail and PhatNotes if needed.
• Able to easily set the roles/features so that application is not too daunting for beginners.
• Linking between different features.
• A lot of settings allowing one to customize almost everything about the application.
• Smooth operation.
• Search feature is powerful and efficient.
• Rich Text Editor for better note taking.
• Handles timezones very well.
• Update application to check (and install) newer versions of the applications.

What Could Be Improved

• Add ability to search for free time.
• Unable to use DPAD to add Steps in Goals.
• Edit Before Dial setting does not work as expected (not able to edit a number temporarily before dialing it).
• Not able to sync ot Journal without additional software.

Conclusion

As you can tell, I really love Pocket Informant. I have been using it since I started using a Pocket PC and it’s served me really well. When you consider how much it cost to buy an Outlook License (about $90 on Amazon.com), the $29.95 that you are paying for a license of Pocket Informant is actually a steal. On top of that, you can do a whole lot more with Pocket Informant that you possibly could with Outlook on your desktop.

We all got ourselves a Pocket PC because one of the reasons (or the only reason) was to better manage our lives right? Then this is the application that helps you do just that. Your PIM should be linked for better usage and that’s just Pocket Informant does. Give it a trial if you are not convinced. Those who already are can spend the $29.95 to get a license here.

Tags: commercial software