Review: Apple's Bento -- A Database For The Rest Of UsReview: Apple's Bento -- A Database For The Rest Of Us

Hello, my name is Mitch Wagner, and I'm addicted to productivity tools. I find nothing quite so satisfying as organizing my to-do list and downloading new productivity software. Prioritizing my work is ever so much nicer than actually doing it.

So I was very excited to learn that Apple's Filemaker business unit is releasing Bento, a personal-productivity app and database for Mac OS X Leopard. The software -- named for a kind of Japanese box meal served on a compartmentalized tray -- is designed for any work where a lightweight, easy-to-use, desktop database can be a worthwhile tool: Homeowners can use it to record their possessions and collections, micro-businesses can use it to manage their inventories, and everyone can use it for individual project management.

Bento is now in public, feature-complete beta -- you can download Bento it and use it for free until the product ships in January, when it will be priced at $49.99. It requires Mac OSX Leopard.

I've been playing with Bento since its public release Tuesday. I found it to be a powerful, versatile, easy-to-use single-user desktop database . Moreover, although it's still in preview mode, it's stable and feature-rich enough to use in production. However, it's not so easy to use that it's self-documenting -- if you want to get any real value from it, you have to read the documentation.

Getting To Know You
Bento includes a user guide and links to the Bento Web site, where you can view four instructional videos, totaling about 13 minutes. This includes an introductory video, which plays when you first start the program. The videos do a good job of explaining Bento's functionality, getting you to the point where you can start working and learning about Bento on your own.

The user interface is inspired by iTunes (which Apple is using as the model for the UI for many of its applications, including the Leopard Finder). Bento uses a three-panel display: On the left is a narrow column called "Sources" which contains a list of Libraries and Collections (more on those in a moment). In the center is a broad area containing the current collection or record you're working on. And on the right is a narrow column containing a list of fields that you can drag to the center to customize your database. These fields include text fields, numbers, drop-down multiple choice boxes whose values you create yourself, times, dates, currency, e-mail addresses, IM addresses, and on and on and on.

Bento's method of classifying your data can be confusing until you get used to it. A Library is a set of data relating to a particular activity, such as managing contacts or tracking projects; Bento can contain multiple libraries. A Collection, meanwhile, is a subset of library records, sort of like a playlist in iTunes, group in Address Book, or album in iPhoto. For example, you could create a Library that consists of an inventory of all the contents of your home, and Collections breaking up your possessions by room, or by type -- furniture, clothing, appliances, and so on. As with iTunes playlists, individual records can appear in multiple collections; a collection is a filter to sort your library.

The smallest item of information in Bento is the individual record. You can delete fields from a record, re-arrange them by dragging and dropping, or create new fields using a simple wizard. Bento lets you search through records using text strings, or by fine-tuning with complex search parameters -- you can search on the values of any field in the database.

Integration With Other Apps
Bento integrates with the Mac's built-in iCal calendar, Address Book, and iCal Tasks list. It doesn't copy those apps' databases, nor does it alter them -- you can access your calendar, contacts, and tasks either through the Mac built-in apps, through Bento, or switch between the two. Any changes made in Bento to Address Book records appear immediately in the Address Book app, and vice-versa. The same is true for iCal and iCal Tasks.

That's a very handy feature. You can even link to a subset of your address book to a specific database -- for example, when planning an event, you can add a database table containing the names of all the invitees, and another with the people collaborating with you to organize the event. You can do the same for the task list and calendars. And you can add custom fields to your address book, calendar entries, and task lists -- fields which appear in Bento, but don't appear when viewing the entries through the native Mac apps.

What Bento Is Really For
However, for all its power, Bento has limitations.

First, it's not scriptable. Nor is it a multiuser database that can be shared over a network. It's just not designed that way.

And Bento requires Leopard -- which seems a bit early, consider that the operating system has been out less than a month. Filemaker made that decision to allow Bento to take advantage of some features of the Leopard, including Address Book and iCal integration, Leopard's drawing and animation systems, integration with Spotlight, and some in-line image editing. Nonetheless, the requirement will drastically limit Bento's popularity for some time.

Bento has considerable overlap with Apple's iWork application suites -- especially Numbers, the spreadsheet app. Many people use spreadsheets as small databases, and Bento may not be worth it for them; however, I expect Bento will find loyal users based on personal work style.

But perhaps most important, Bento falls down as a personal task manager. The application does not contain any easy way to get an at-a-glance view of active projects that you're working on right now, and what still needs to be done on each project. Tasks are spread out all over individual libraries and collections and in the iCal task manager. Bento doesn't give you a single dashboard for an instant answer to the questions, "What do I need to do today? This week? Right now?"

I don't see this as a failure of the product, but, rather, a failure of marketing. The Bento home page advertises the software as a tool for "your personal organization and productivity needs." The press release says it's "designed to help Mac users organize their lives by giving them one place to put their important information, from contacts and calendars to projects and events."

That gives the impression that Bento is a productivity app, like iGTD or the Web-based Remember The Milk -- which it really isn't, except in the way that a spreadsheet or word processor is also a productivity app. Bento doesn't organize your life, it organizes your stuff. Reading over that marketing material again, I can see that's what Apple meant to say -- but, still, I wish they'd been more clear about it.

On the other hand, organizing your stuff is a big part of organizing your life, and Bento looks like a powerful, inexpensive tool for doing just that.