Secretary – Review
By App Type: Uncategorized
Our rating: 
By: Secretary
Version #: 1.0.0
Date Released: 2008-10-24
Developer: Daniel Crowley-Wilson
Price: 2.99
User Rating:
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One of the most anemic areas of the iPod and the iPod touch is the implementation of the address book. It is so remarkably basic that it is all but unusable except to find a number or e-mail address. Sad, since it could do so much more. It’s rather hard to understand why more functionality is not built into it.
As a result, I recently have been finding myself increasingly looking for different solutions to fill in the gaps with regard to the address book, task management, and even the phone dialer. I’ve tried many but have not yet found a fully satisfying solution. That was among the reasons I decided to try this application last week.
The description of this application sounded like something I’ve been hoping for for quite awhile. I want something that allows me to keep track of contact that I have had with my contacts. In other words, when I opened the contact information to make a phone call I want to be able to jot down a few quick notes so that my increasingly porous mind will be able to look back and remember specific details of conversations that have a long way. Sure, there is a notes field in the contacts list but it is just a wide open text area with no way to sort, date or search it.
The application itself is rather simple. In this case it is a good thing since that will help speed up locating a contact in adding to the notes I need. I was immediately impressed by the fact that my contacts loaded almost immediately. This alone was impressive since I find that many applications that make use of the contact information can be painfully slow. I like the fact that there is a nice, large, search field at the top of the screen. Nothing is more frustrating than having to scroll through the entire alphabet to find your contacts.
After selecting a name a new window is opened that simply offers you a notepad. It presents a limited number of options. That’s a good thing too, for once again I should note that simplicity in an application such as this is a good thing. You can search for a word in the notes, add a new note, or edit notes that you previously created. When you create a new immediately time and date stamps it and gives you the first few words of the note.
All that is super. It works. It does what it says it will do well. I have no complaints on that front. There are, unfortunately, two major flaws and they are the reason I’ve been removed it from my iPhone. First, when you pull up a contact all you can do with it is added a note. You are offered the option to make a phone call or send an e-mail. That means that if you are using this application to make notes about a phone call you need to first initiate a phone call, go back to your home screen, open up this application, and make your notes. That’s ridiculous. That’s not a timesaver but simply another layer of complexity on top of everything else.
The second problem is that there doesn’t appear to be any way to backup the notes that you’ve made. As a result, you end up having a list of notes connected to specific context and sorted by them but not creating easy access to contact them and not having any way to backup all of these notes, which one must presume are important enough to have made in the first place, so that if your iPhone gets stolen, lost, or crashes you’ve lost it all.
None of which makes a whole lot of sense. And it makes even less sense an application that costs $2.99. Thanks, but no thanks.
Quick Take
Value: in its current form, very little
Would I Buy Again: no
Learning Curve: low
Who Is It For: people who want to make notes on various interactions with their contacts but have no need to back it up to any other device
What I Like: simple interface, easy to use, loads quickly
What I Don’t: everything else
Final Statement: I wanted application that allows me to make numerous notes, time and date stamp them, and easily search within my Notes database. I don’t get a lot to ask. What’s clear, however, is that this application is not the solution.
Secretary extends your existing Contacts, transforming them into a Customer Relationship Management Database to record information about the people and businesses that are important to you.
Each Contact is a gateway to a date sorted list of notes. Scroll through the records, or search through your notes by keyword to find data you previously recorded.
Notes that don't fit into the summary screen can be expanded by selecting the individual item.
Please send bug reports to the support email address.
O U R T A K E . . .
