Birdsoft Contact-ing

Review: Contact-ing
How much information have you got in your Contacts? At last count I had over 175 contacts with anything from just a phone number or email address to a list of details as long as your arm. Judging by recent threads on 4WM I'm at the low end of average. In addition to this, since the advent of Office XP and WM5 I've added a handful of photos to my Outlook Contacts too. The added support within WM5 is certainly welcome but doesn't go far enough, so into the void strides Birdsoft Contact-ing.




Supplier: Birdsoft
Product: Contact-ing (Advanced Today Screen Contacts)
Version Tested: v2.02
Cost: $14.95
Lite version also available = $7.95
Trial version available on the website
Tested on:O2 Xda Mini S (VGA screenshot using O2 Xda Exec)Contact-ing from Birdsoft offers a wide array of options for displaying your contact details directly on your today screen in either text list or image format. On a standard Windows Mobile PDA device this means that you can get easy access to your contact details, on a Phone Edition device the picture is even better, a double-tap is all it takes to quick dial the default number

Birdsoft have provided both a windows installer and a cab file on their site to allow you to choose your method of installation.

Overview

The basic Today Screen layout for the Contact-ing interface is of a selection of images or text contact entries whose filtering is controlled by a series of tabs which reside above the contacts themselves.

There are a variety of options for how you display your contacts, personally the photo view is my favourite way of displaying the contacts but if you prefer to have a text list, or you haven't got any photo's in your contacts (I ended up scouring my photo folders to populate my contacts because of the extra functionality) then you can do that too.

In fact, there are a number of basic display options available from the Options Screens (see screenshots below), amongst these are the ability to choose if you want to display the contact's name and whether to include the icon which depicts the type of contact information is set as default (i.e. home, mobile, email etc). One of the most useful options is to select to search on first AND surnames, this comes into play with the filtering of which we'll discuss in detail later.

The menu screen images can all be clicked to view a larger version

Features at a glance
List from Developers site
Today Address book with 2 Great Interfaces:
Image Mode showing Contact's Image and More.
List Mode with Main Number Display
Filter by Company or Category
Full Tabbed interface - Use company, category, or alphabetical tabs
Complete D-Pad Navigation for One-Handed Use
Birthday and Anniversary Reporting
Main Number Display (direct dialing or web or email support)
Contact Extension Support
Small Footprint
Supports All the Latest Technologies:
VGA Compatible
Full WM2005 Support
Full Landscape Support
Full Square Screen Support
In Use
Once you've got Contact-ing set up exactly how you want, it becomes a joy to use from the Today screen. One handed operation using the d-pad is pretty close to faultless allowing you to move between filter tabs and also between the actual contacts, selecting a contact with the d-pad central button takes you to the standard contact page for that person.

In addition to D-pad usage, a tap and hold on the contact produces a fly out menu (see image to right) and even more interestingly for Phone Edition owners, a double tap dials the default number for that contact.

As I mention in various places in this review I have actually been forced into tidying up my Outlook contact data to take full advantage of the filtering features of Contact-ing, this is probably born out of the fact that with a full screen Outlook client it is quite easy to navigate my contacts. Therefore in many ways, to my mind, Contact-ing is the perfect application of the Outlook contact fields.

Options:

The options icon available from the Today Screen allows you to set up some very useful filtering options; this is where Contact-ing really excels by allowing you to select exactly how you want to display your contacts, to do this it leverages more of the standard Exchange fields. Once again I found myself dipping back into outlook and using fields that I'd either never touched before or if I had then only half heartedly. For instance, I found that I had actually only set the category of a couple dozen of my contacts and so I quickly went through and indicated all the personal, business and favourites to allow me to take full advantage of this funtionality. This also prompted me to clean up the company names that I had entered, to ensure that I had used exactly the same format/spelling for all employees of particular companies.

You can also use these options to select whether you wish to display the "abc" tabs, wherein lies the result of the option that I mentioned earlier in the review. i.e. you can either filter alphabetically for just surnames or for both surname and first name (so Joe Cole would appear in the "J" section with David James). Which option you choose is down to personal preference but it's good that you get that choice.
Support/Development:
In the relatively short time that I have been aware of Contact-ing, and indeed Birdsoft for that matter, the developer has been extremely pro-active in the development of the application, adding features as well as fixing the few minor bugs reported. From browsing through the Birdsoft website, the developer has an interesting range of products which tend to indicate a decent level of ability on their part, always encouraging when you are using a new product.

As for future development of Contact-ing, if Birdsoft decide to stick purely to the Today Screen you'd imagine that there isn't a great deal more that they could fit in, should they decide to develop outside of today screen however (i.e. full page photo dialler/contact) there are plenty of options available.
VGA Support:
The screenshot to the right demonstrates Contact-ing in use on an O2 Xda Exec in landscape mode, it does look very nice on the VGA screen, especially in image mode of course where the quality of the photos is sweet.

Pros/Cons
Pros
Great integration with the standard Contacts fields
Very easy to use
Simple to configure
True one handed operation from the today screen
Well behaved Today plugin
Good selection of options
Intelligent use of its Today Screen footprint
Fully VGA and landscape compatible
Cons
Images too small on a QVGA device to easily use with podgy fingers rather than the stylus
Despite good use of space it does still take up a lot of your Today Screen
More expensive than other Today Plug-ins






Conclusion

4WinMobile Rating : 85%

A really good addition to your Today Screen, especially on a Phone Edition device and it has certainly found a permanent home on my MiniS.

The tight integration with Outlook fields makes me think that this is exactly what Microsoft would design were they to make a Today Screen plugin for contacts ...... well after about three or four versions they would.

As a today plug-in, Contact-ing is superb and it's difficult to pick fault with what it sets out to do, for future development it will be interesting to see where Birdsoft take it.

There is a niggling feeling that it is slightly overpriced for a today screen plug-in, which may seem like nit-picking at this cheap price however for example iLauncher costs $9.99, this is reflected in the overall score of what is a very good application.
Contact-ing Lite (not reviewed) is also available, this version has less functionality than its big brother and therefore a cheaper price-tag. The main difference in the lite version is its lack of filtering and the tabbed interface which obviously leads to a smaller footprint. If your needs are less demanding then the Lite version is certainly worth a look.