Bento Strides Forward - andyotter

I've returned to this Bento page hoping to find out whether it's worth my while upgrading from v1 to 3. Unfortunately, this comment doesn't offer me much, so I'll wait for others instead of finding out the hard way.

Just a quick response to "I just want to say that for those who criticize Bento, I'm not sure why that is. It is a low priced database for the rest of us":
1. "... for the rest of us" draws unjustifiable comparisons to the excellent-value-for-money iWork; a suite of 3 apps which all work well & intuitively for $79; Bentov1&2 worked so badly and so frequently defied Apple-UI intuition (and in so doing wastes hours of time cos you just can't believe it doesn't do that so-obvious thing!) that, by comparison, they weren't even worth $26 (=$78/3) let alone $49.
2. Many people criticised Bentov1&2 because all the helpful requests for a product that just did what one would reasonably expect (ie. no bells and whistles) were continually ignored AND Bentov1 users were asked to pay full product price for a minimal upgrade from an alpha to a beta product.

HAVING SAID THAT... my indistinguishable optimism is re-ignited by FM's generosity in offering a discount to Bentov1&2 users. Does this mean that it's worth the upgrade or will it be another waste of time?
I await a more detailed review with baited breath.....!

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Thursday, October 01 2009 @ 09:11 AM PDT

Bento Strides Forward - Smiling Heretic

Wow. And you also think MacUpdate users are cheap. Maybe it's not that they're cheap but just tired of getting the shaft!

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Thursday, October 01 2009 @ 04:30 PM PDT

Bento Strides Forward - barryfjacobson

"I just want to say that for those who criticize Bento, I'm not sure why that is."

As a Mac devotee of 25 years, my reaction to the Bento / FM Pro situation is one of disappointment plus sheer BAFFLEMENT.

Why? Because the Bento vs FM Pro choice is the kind of Procrustean Bed situation that we usually ridicule Windows users for being miserably stuck with.

The removal of a Database app from the AppleWorks -> iWork realm, and the total lack of coordination between Apple and FileMaker, followed by the extreme split in functionality between Bento and FM Pro, has left an incredibly huge No Man's Land where a REASONABLY useful and REASONABLY easy to learn app should exist, but doesn't.

The fact that Bento CAN'T PRINT A SIMPLE LABEL is simply insane. A database program with zero label-printing capability is simply a joke. Fancy formatting isn't necessary, but the ability to just print a damn nametag is a must.

So move to FM Pro, right? Wrong. On that side of the Apple Database app Grand Canyon, you CAN'T MAKE USE OF YOUR ADDRESS BOOK INFO. Un - be - liev - able.

And if you're one of those extremists who would like to port your data to a mobile device without going through endless shenanigans, as we used to with FM Mobile, you're SOL in that department too!

So, robbnashville, how can you keep a straight face while pretending to be mystified by the criticism of Bento? I await enlightenment.

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Sunday, October 04 2009 @ 11:28 AM PDT

Bento Strides Forward - robbnashville

I understand your issues. However, I must say once again that Bento does not do everything a full database program does. Perhaps any database program SHOULD print mailing labels; at least, I would have said so ten years ago. However, nowadays I admit that I don't print mailing labels since I no longer mail much of anything. Like most people, I email almost exclusively. Even newsletters are emailed. I know a lot of people have asked for this feature. In fact, I would have thought that by now the developers would have given up and given in and programmed it into Bento.

Of course, there are other features I would love to see. Being a very organized person, I would love to see a dedicated sort function instead of the current way of doing it, which I must admit I still don't quite like. I would also like to see a simple report generator. I'm sure some of these things will eventually appear, even though the mailing label function seems less necessary to me with each passing year.

Once again, the bottom line is that it's a $49 database intended for consumer more than business use. Certainly in today's world, these two markets do overlap and when they do, we get these issues. There's no perfect program out there. Some people can use TextEdit for their word processing needs; others need Pages and still others have to bite the bullet and deal with the evil Word ... even when they really don't need more than one or two features in Word that are not in the others.

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Monday, October 05 2009 @ 10:48 AM PDT