Apple Bento Review

What are people saying?

1. Ben said on January 8th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

   I checked this out a little bit ago. Looks like it would be really good for home inventory… and inventory in general.

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2. Jim Turner said on January 8th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

   I like the dueling review. Kind of a good cop bad cop thing.

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3. MsInformation said on January 8th, 2008 at 7:26 pm

   Everything about it looks great. The packaging, the design, the name are elegant, clean, functional and witty. I’ve always admired how Apple knows who they are and consistently brands that way.

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4. zxspectrum said on January 8th, 2008 at 7:36 pm

   “the other thing…;\”

   stop dragging your girlfriend into your Geek mode.

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5. Loren Feldman said on January 8th, 2008 at 7:42 pm

   zx,
   Shes one of us she loves the mothership. Don’t worry I wont fuck up her vibe. Hows the baby?

   Reply
6. lux said on January 8th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

   Non-geeks don’t think, ‘Hey, I need a database for that’ when it comes to their personal stuff. They might buy a home inventory program that’s built on top of a database, but they don’t know (or care) about the database aspect. They care about what the program does for them.

   Also, Filemaker is technically an Apple subsidiary; they generally try to keep some separation between the two companies so I don’t see Bento getting pulled into iWork or iLife.

   I might be wrong, of course: I work for a company that could be considered a Filemaker competitor so I am not 100% objective about all this.

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7. Chris Baskind said on January 8th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

   I didn’t see Bento coming. Neat idea: I think I’ll go play. You’re right — being a consumer product, you’d expect iTunes integration at some point.

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8. fuck said on January 8th, 2008 at 9:12 pm

   is this woman your mom ?

   Reply
9. Christina Warren said on January 8th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

   I got to play with the pre-release back in November (I wrote about it for either TUAW or DownloadSquad, can’t remember which one now) and I agree - it’s a very, very cool application. There are a lot more tasks that can be tackled using a database program than most home users think - and making the product easy to use and the interface and compatibility and dead-on is the key to helping people become more productive.

   I’ve been using it for the last two months as a wardrobe database (I have so many clothes, I often forget what I own) to sort and inventory items by brand, type, size, color, dry-clean status, length, occasion-type, etc. It’s made packing (a task I hate) so much easier.

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10. Loren said on January 8th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

    I agree Christina very cool little app.

    Reply
11. Roast Beef said on January 9th, 2008 at 6:04 am

    Long time no talk my brother

    Reply
12. Beth Nagengast said on January 9th, 2008 at 8:30 pm

    Hey there,

    Enjoyed your video on Bento. Just to clarify that Bento does have mathematical and relational capabilities. If you want more details, I’d be happy to send them…

    Check it out at http://www.bentotrial.com
    - Beth at FileMaker

    Reply
13. pvonk said on January 14th, 2008 at 9:21 pm

    I’ve been reading the Bento forum for several days now (also have Bento), and the conclusion I’m reaching is that Bento is all glitz but little substance. If you read the forum, you’ll find countless people asking how to do such and such - the “official” response is often: “Bento doesn’t do that now, but I’ve sent your comments to the development team for consideration.”

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14. Thunk Different said on January 14th, 2008 at 10:45 pm

    It’s cool. you get what you pay for, y’know…

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15. Robert M. said on January 27th, 2008 at 6:51 pm

    PLEASE do note the ENORMOUS restriction of BENTO : it is not truly relationnal IN PRACTICE. When you include into a form a link to a record in another set of datas here is what goe on :
    - you cannot double click and jump to the linked file, so if you view the invoice, you cannot jump to inspect the client..
    - you cannot search for records using values of linked fields, so you cannot list invoices of client X!
    - you cannot choose which data to view : you can only view a table form.. so you cannot incorporate the adress on an invoice!

    So I doubt they will greatly improve that, cause it would considerably reduce the value of Filemaker big brother app..

    SO so.. this is only good for STRAIGHT FILING, and it’s great for that, but although the idea of incorporating the adress book is great, you cannot really do anything with these adresses.. a little.. catch in the eyes!!

    Hi from france..

    Reply

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