ReplyButler – Review

Our rating:

By: Tommy Kammerer

Version #: 1.0

Date Released: 2008-08-13

Developer:

Price: 1.99

User Rating:

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This is a utility that I have been looking for quiet some time and I am happy that it has finally arrived on the Apple Store.

ReplyButler is really one of those "One Hit Wonder" utilities that make life just a little bit easier by allowing you to quickly and easily send one of eleven pre-determined email messages. To use it you just open the application, wait for the splash screen image of the butler to disappear (it took a minute for me to learn that it will disappear if you wait a second), touch the message you want to send. It then automatically adds that text into brand new e-mail that will open up and wait for you input the address of the recipient. How simple could it be?

For example, despite my best efforts I often find myself running a minute or two later as I go from one meeting to another. I can quickly send a message to my assistant telling her "I am running 5 minutes late please tell my appointment that I’ll be there, my apologies to them." (Hopefully I don’t end up having to use this one too often.)

The app ships with eleven preset messages that you might find useful, but they can quickly and easily be edited in whatever way you might need.

Creating unique replies is accomplished quite easily by opening up the application, navigating to the message list, touching the "edit" button at the top, tapping the right-facing arrow on the message you want to change and then typing it the way you want. You can name each reply message (they call it a "snippet"), as well.

It works quite well and the fact that it is fully customizable makes it an extremely useful application for anybody who, at times, means to send out specific e-mails that are similar once after the other. For that reason I was happy to pay the $1.99 that this application costs.

There is only one thing about it I don’t like and only one that needs improvement. I can’t stand the icon image. This is an application that needs to be on the main screen of my iPhone and the picture of the butler is not one I want on my phone. It is a small picky thing but- hey- I spent $1.99 on this.

The improvement is this- Since I will likely only need this app with a select number of commonly emailed individuals I would love a version of this app that allows you to set up 10 or 20 specific email address from which you can choose. That way I could fire up the app, select the message, select the email address (instead of typing it). It would make shooting off the reply emails even faster.

Note: The app is quite similar to QuickSend. I gave QuickSend a 1 for two reasons.

A. The canned messages cannot currently be changed.

B. The "Send To" email address are selected through a scroll-wheel. With 1700 email address in my address book that is more cumbersome than just writing an email.

ReplyButler overcomes both those limitation.

Quick Take

Value: High. Would prefer if it were a $.99 app.
Would I Buy Again: Yes
Learning Curve: Low
Who is it for: Anyone who needs to send quick emails that are often the same
What I like: Ability to create your own email "snippets", works well
What I Don’t: Nothing

Final Statement: Great app. I have been looking for something like this. Thank You!