Fun Contact 1.0 Review

November 25, 2007

It goes without saying that most Windows Mobile users have contacts - lots of contacts.  In doing a quick survey around my company of those who use mobile devices - Blackberry, Palm or Windows Mobile - the majority people indicated they had at least 200 contacts and most were in the 500 contacts range.  Clearly management of these contacts becomes important fast when you are dealing with that large of a number!

While the built-in Contact manager of Windows Mobile is adequate, it does have some short comings and graphically, let's face it, isn't very exciting.  VITO Technology has changed that with their new contacts application Fun Contact.  Fun Contact, which is distributed from the iwindowsmobile website,  is a good step forward over the default contacts application and provides quick and easy scrolling, the ability to email or SMS a contact with one tap and can even allow you to sort your contacts by your favorite people.  Further, you get a nicely developed interface that smooth scrolls much like Spb's Pocket Plus 4.0.  All-in-all Fun Contact is a nice piece of software that can make contact organization a bit easier for everyone.

Fun Contact is installed on your Windows Mobile device via ActiveSync or Windows Mobile Device Center and requires approximately 1.4MB of storage space on your device.  While Fun Contact can be installed on a storage card, I recommend it be installed in your device's main memory as PIM-like applications seem to respond much faster than when installed on storage cards.  Your device must be running Windows Mobile PocketPC 2003, 5.0 or 6.0.  Once installed, Fun Contact automatically becomes your default contacts application and does not require any other intervention by you when it is installed.  If you uninstall Fun Contact it will revert back to the default Contact application.  Once the application is started you will see your contacts listed.

Figure 1:  Contact listed in Fun Contact

At the bottom of the display in Fun Contact is the menu which allows you to select the different views of the application while along the right side of the display is an alphanumeric list for easy scrolling through your contacts.  Think of this right hand list as a very quick scrollbar for your contacts.  Just touch the list with your stylus or fingertip then drag up or down to select the letter you need based on the contact you are looking up.  The letter you have selected will be displayed in the center of the screen making it easy to see where you are in the alphabet.  This easy way to navigate your contacts is quite handy although it is a bit sensetive.

Figure 2:  Right hand scrolling list for searching in Fun Contact

The bottom menu provides you access to the three key ways you can use Fun Contact as well as the menu to adjust options within the application.  The first button is used to display all of your contacts on your device.  Here you can use the right hand list to scroll through contacts or use Fun Contact smart scroll feature which allows you to "flick" up or down in your list of contacts for quick and easy scrolling.  This is much like the iPhone multi-touch system although clearly simpler in function.  Once you find the contact you are wanting to view, tap it and it will be displayed for you.

Figure 3:  Contact displayed in Fun Contact

When you display a contact in Fun Contact you get what you would expect to see:  Phone numbers, email addresses, titles and department information and with a tap of the contact button in the middle of the menu bar at the bottom of the display, can open the contact in the traditional Contact view to see all of the information related to that contact.  What Fun Contact allows you to do is with a single tap send a SMS to the contact (using the large SMS button) or email, pre-populating the Send To field with the appropriate phone number or email address in the native applications.  Likewise you can tap a phone number to call that contact directly without having to open the phone application separately.

Fun Contact is not only a contact viewer but is an editor as well.  When you display a contact you can press the edit button (the pencil icon) and can edit phone, email and other basic information.  This ability, although limited versus the native application of Windows Mobile, makes the application the one-stop for contact viewing and managing and does it in a far more attractive and easy-to-use interface.

Figure 4:  Editing a Contact's Information in Fun Contact

One unique way that Fun Contact allows you to view your contacts if through marking a contact as a favorite.  If you look at Figure 3 you will note that there is a star by the name of the contact.  If you tap that star it will be filled with a gold star, indicating that it is one of your favorites.  You can have an unlimited number of favorites but I would recommend keeping this just to your top ten or fifteen contacts that you reach out to most often.  Once you have done this and are viewing contacts in the main display of Fun Contact, you can tap the star button on the bottom menu and now only the contacts you have designated as a favorite are displayed. 

Figure 5:  Favorite contacts displayed in Fun Contact

The last major feature of Fun Contact is the call log.  While this is somewhat similar to the phone log in your device, Fun Contact does spice things up a bit with a nice graphical indicator of missed calls, placed calls or received calls.  From here you can also tap the contact and call them directly, eliminating the need of multiple taps.

Figure 6:  Call Log of Fun Contact

Having used Fun Contact for several weeks now it is hard to see myself not using it going forward.  It has made contacting those on my contact list quicker and far easier with the ability to SMS or email them with only a tap or two versus using the native Windows Mobile applications.  While the application does have some growing room, it is a solid start and bears the intellectual fingerprints of VITO Technology.  It would be nice to see a bit more advanced editing in future releases such as the ability to add photos to contacts and edit beyond phone numbers and email addresses.  In order to more advanced editing you will still need to rely on the native applications.  From a performance perspective Fun Contact performed well both on faster processors such as the one in my O2 Xda Zinc as well as the slower T-Mobile Wing.

Fun Contact is available for $19.95 directly from the VITO Technology iWindowsMobile website or at the software store at Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com!  You can save 15% off of the price by using the coupon code CFFUNCON at the store when you check out.

What I Like:  Clean, fresh interface; easy scrolling; one-tap SMS, email and calling features

What Needs Improvement: More advanced editing features

Rating (5 Scale):  4.5

Clinton Fitch, MVP-Mobile Devices
Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com!