Like Calendar, Contacts in Pocket Informant is highly customizable with a deep level of detail provided on each contact.  While the default Contact application in Windows Mobile 5 has improved significantly over previous versions, Pocket Informant takes these enhancements and furthers them with ability to create appointments or tasks from tapping-and-holding the contact and allowing contacts to be grouped by department, city, state or zip code.  With Windows Mobile 5, Pocket Informant also supports photos with contacts.

Tasks in Pocket Informant are similar in layout to the included Tasks application in Windows Mobile 5.  However, beyond the GUI, the similarities end.  With PI, you can filter your task based on categories, start or end date, those that are overdue, and those tasks which are in progress.  Likewise you can also sort your tasks a variety of ways including start date, due date or priority.

For those who are familiar with time management tools such as Franklin Covey, Pocket Informant allows you to utilize some of those features with tasks by allowing you to set an alpha and numeric priority to your tasks.  If you use Outlook with Frankly Covey’s Outlook add-on applications, this priority is translated over to your tasks when you synchronize your data.

The Notes application of Pocket Informant is terrific in its organization and ease of use.  When the Notes applet is opened, a directory of all of the notes that are available is displayed at the top of the screen.  At the bottom, when a note is opened, a preview of the note is displayed.  Like the other applets in PI, notes can be sorted by name, date, size as well as creation time.   

The note writer is outstanding as well, allowing you to type, draw or audio record your note.  Likewise, you can auto insert information from a contact into a note such as an address or phone number as well as the time in which the note was created.

Finally, the search application in Pocket Informant is outstanding.  By typing a search word in the search tool, you are presented any contact, calendar, task or note that have that keyword in them.  This search function is particularly handy when trying to find an old contact or calendar event.  What makes the search feature all-the-better is its speed.  It is amazingly fast and by default sorts all of the hits found by type (Calendar or contact for example).  Also, you can filter your searches to only look for particular items such as only calendar events or calendar and tasks only and so forth.  This powerful search tool and its flexibility speak to the outstanding work that the WebIS team has done on Pocket Informant.

It is hard to find something not to like about Pocket Informant 2005.  The application is well written and performs exceptionally well.  The amount of customization that can be done to the application is dizzying and truly turns Pocket Informant into a Personal Information Manager. 

Support for Pocket Informant is provided by email with test support emails responded to within 12 hours.  Additionally, there is a tremendous amount of information available to you through the forums on the WebIS site as well as FAQs. 

Pocket Informant 2005 is now in Revision 4 and is available through the WebIS website for $24.95 (US).  WebIS offers a 30 day trial period on Pocket Informant, providing you an opportunity to try the application before buying it.  For more information, visit the WebIS site at http://www.webis.net. 

If you are a serious PIM user on your Windows Mobile device, Pocket Informant 2005 will likely become a must have application for you.  Its speed, customization and rich feature set make it a pleasant addition to any device.

Clinton Fitch ~ MVP-Mobile Devices
Principle
Clinton Fitch (Dot) Com! (http://www.clintonfitch.com) & HPC:Factor (http://www.hpcfactor.com)