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Overview
A handheld personal manager that allows users to manage and encrypt sensitive information, like account numbers, credit card information, passwords, even a diary and to-do list, all for on-the-go reference and usage. It can also be wirelessly accessed for back up and restore procedures.
Functionality
iDB Datamaster does not aim to be your complete mobile database solution. What it does offer is a method for carrying sensitive and important personal information in a safe, password-protected environment.
Users can create databases in seven different categories: Accounts, Credit Cards, To Dos, Checklists, Diary, Logs and Notes. When creating new entries within any database, you can fill information into a fairly comprehensive template for each category.
This means that you can add information into templates for the above categories, but that you do not have the ability to create your own templates (more on this in the review section).
While iDB can be easily backed up and restored over a wireless network by using any web browser to access your mobile iDB software’s url, it is not easy to add information into iDB from your desktop.
This has to do with the lack of desktop software for iDB. Everything is most simply punched in through your mobile device. You can input material from your pc, which is much easier than through an iPhone keypad, but it involves starting the desired database on your mobile device, then wirelessly backing it up so that you can open the file on your computer in Excel or Numbers and then add your desired new data into a cryptic spreadsheet.
Yeah, not that easy. A simple desktop application that could to all of that for you would dramatically improve the process.
Aside from this flaw, the mobile program is very user-friendly.
The Accounts and Credit Card options allow you to effectively store information that can be hard to keep track of, like frequent flyer numbers, or those elusive “secret answers” to those “secret questions” that credit card websites love to ask, or your membership number at the gym, library, or rental car company.
The To Dos in iDB are impressive and very comprehensive, allowing you to set the due date, priority and track your progress on each item.
The Checklists were also multidimensional, allowing for extensive notes to go along with each listed item (so if you need to grab more economy-size cereals from Costco, you can just type “Costco” in the checklist, then in the note section can put your whole shopping list).
Searching through the encrypted files isn’t as time consuming as it is made out to be (although the time delay will likely increase with the amount of encrypted information that iDB is asked to search through).
Review
If you can get over the biggest flaw of this app—the lack of user-friendly desktop software—iDB is actually quite a powerful and worthy product on its own.
This application is very useful as a personal on-the-go database and manager. It’s good for storing personal numbers and other sensitive information in an encrypted format and in a way that can be wirelessly backed up and restored to your mobile device. It may not have all of the flexibility that you might want, but it does the job of keeping you on top of your personal information.
How many times have you misplaced frequent flyer numbers, or membership information? iDB is an organized and safe option for keeping that information in an organized database. Inputting it on your iPhone is not as bad as it sounds and the process of remotely importing it is not that horrible either, although it could and should be much better.
Some users have complained about their inability to create their own templates for iDB, but even if that was an option, it seems to be a little too cumbersome of a task to deal with on your iPhone. It is important to keep in mind that iDB is not meant to be your complete database solution, for storing 1,000+ entries about movies, with reviews and actor information, for example.
Surprisingly, the best aspect of this app was its To Dos component, which functioned like a complete task manager. Its ability to prioritize, track progress, due dates and notes for each entry was very impressive and better than many stand-alone task-manager programs out there. This, along with the other database capabilities in iDB are enough to make it a good buy.
At the same time, there seem to be a couple of useless database categories. Diary, Notes and Logs all seem to be virtually the same thing, with the exception of the time stamp on the logs (although I found that to be incorrect on my iPhone and could not figure out how to change the time settings).
Summary
This is a good app for keeping and editing your information on-the-go. It has some problems, but seems to do enough things well to be a good purchase, although it is slightly overpriced.
