I have been waiting for a long time for a shootout of the Big PIMs on Windows Mobile Standard. Obviously I think Extreme Agenda is on top or very near it. Especially on Standard(non Touchscreen) Devices, which I was there BEFORE the other two by a year or more( despite what the ‘review in question’ implies)… And unfortunately the PIM Shootout has come, and based on the scoring of this particular review Extreme Agenda somehow ended up 3rd. Now I guarantee that with other judges this shootout would turn out completely different, but I think its fair that in this judges eyes, the points went where he thinks they were deserved. And part of that I have to think is because of familiarity to the winning program. And a lot was because he didn’t quite do all the homework, which is understandable this would be a big undertaking.

http://www.mytodayscreen.com/shootout-smartphone-information-management/

So as a little rebuttal to the review, I will go through and tell you where we’re coming from on each of the points… You will probably want to read the review first for this to make sense…

Installation

Obviously we won because of size. Makes sense. We like to point this out any chance we can get. It actually probably should have been a bigger point gap, as PIMs are suggested to be installed into the main memory. And with PI we found ourselves having to clear off applications to get the almost 4MB necessary.

Configuration and settings

Unfortunately the review put too much basis on the Out-of-the-Box settings. I agree it makes sense to judge it here, but it just carries through most of the review.

Our design philosophy is a little different. We go for speed, usability and simplicity out of the box and in the program in general. But then you can tweak the heck out of it once you feel comfortable with the program.

We have designed the settings screen and placements almost too well it appears, as people including reviewers seem to think we have less options and customizations than we do. I think it can be argued we have MANY more options than Agenda One, but yet the reviewer actually put us in 3rd in this spot. I would guess its how its presented as being in the settings screens of the other programs almost gets overwhelming, where as we have hopefully organized it down very well, and put feature specific setups(like Search and the Spinner) in the menu only in that view.  We just don’t think the user did a good job reviewing the settings, as proof he didn’t find the ‘System Shortcuts’ so didnt really spend much time in our settings screens.

And just to Note, we have a “My View” type implementation as well like was listed for PI…

Interface Usability and Presentation

Navigation Menus – As noted in my comment, you can add Timeline View to the spinner, as well as single contacts, project view, saved views, applications and files. You can also turn on a straight menu based system or a ‘Next’ view right button system.

Presentation –  On the Day view shown in the example here is one example of leaving the program to “out-of-the-box” for this reviewers taste. How about if you configured the program to look like this instead. Yes, we end up showing more information and it can be presented much cleaner then theirs.(Note: Im not sure why he used Pocket Informants ‘Dates’ view against the other two applications ‘Day’ Views.)

And the reviewer didnt notice the display interaction and drawing being slow in PI with its default settings on? Are you sure you tested on a Standard Device? Honestly, PI was called a standout here, when in fact it is actually a struggle to even know what is selected a lot of times or what will happen if you select something. Im not sure where he got a menu, but context menus dont necessarily fit well into Non Touch Screen programs. So again, really, on a Standard Device?

And just a note as Im being totally fair here, I believe PI and AO both have Templates, just like XA…

Information Accessibility

Yes, we do integrate right into the OS as well. We went with not being as obtrusive so did not include it in the install process. This  can wreck other PIM installations you may have already done if you are trialing the programs. We do clean it up during an uninstall if you turn it on in our program. It can be found under ‘General Settings’ in Options under the System Section and gives more control on which sections you want to integrate.

For Coloring did he have status coloring or Category coloring turned on… Or…? They are in the settings as well…

Another one of those little examples that the reviewer overlooked about “Out-of-the-Box” is you can turn on Company Names in our Photo List as well(it was mentioned for PI). We just dont believe that that should be defaulted to On. We could be wrong. And what about presenting our Contacts in an Icon type Photo List. And…

Quality and Completeness of Included Views 

This section was a little confusing, but it appears that the reviewer doesnt quite grasp that you can accomplish a lot of the fancy features in PI with Category type filtering. Yes it does take it a step further, but then if you don’t use this feature, well its still in the way all over the Place. And I think he wasn’t up on our Link system, which is separate from our Projects view(try pushing action on an appt or task view; text links and linked items appear).

One thing we do consciously do, is try not to make a menu long enough it scrolls and hides options. So say for sorting(grouping), we moved it into the Sort Dialog easily accessible in the top level menu, and kept it clean. So only mentioning the Secure Wallet here just felt like PI was already the pre-determined winner. He likes the bloated menus… Personal preference.

Application Integration

We agree there are a couple things we need to work on here, but as explained in the last section, I dont think he quite followed everything available in both AO and XA…And he is obviously one who likes to have features there and visible(‘in the way’), even if they will never be used… It makes it hard to be judged when a lot of your design philosophy is so that this isnt as big of a problem… 

Conclusion 

Overall a good review and Im not saying the outcome wouldnt be the same for this particular reviewer, XA is up against some good programs. But Im still waiting for a shootout in which all the homework is done, and I can look at what is said and say, “yep he did understand…”

I guess both AO and XA are designed under a different methodology as well. They are both more streamlined and ‘reigned in’ where as PI just kind of kept going, and yes no one will argue it has more ‘features’, but with that comes a lot of bloating and learning curve problems and outgrowing of the interface. And a lot of those features the majority of users will never use… Some reviewers feel that more than others…

I guess I just cant see a spot in any of these “events” where PI should be 2 and definitely not 3 points ahead of either of the other applications. Its just not really there…

I hope you do your homework… give all the Trials a Try…