Comments on: Lack of Updates

By: bma

bma — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:55:55 +0000

Daylite may be a more ‘robust’ PIM option for those in need…

I suspect the many small business users cannot afford glitches despite the promise of this application & its suitability…

By: Bruce Wofford

Bruce Wofford — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:29:04 +0000

Ditto Jack’s situation applies to me. I was just told of Bento an hour ago and I haven’t even downloaded the trial. I’ve just replaced an aging XP desktop with an iMac, which I did fully realizing Apple’s target user has never included the person from a corporate environment who became spoiled by robust PIMs like Outlook. With over 4,000 Contact and half as many Calendar records, I’m not about to reduce my expectations to that afforded by Address Book and iCal. So, like other posters here, I’m enthused to see products like Bento to validate my perception of this void. However, after reading these posts, I will temper any enthusiasm with caution before embracing this product.

By: MegC

MegC — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:26:43 +0000

Can’t believe we (Bento 1 users) have been treated this wayby FM. Very, very bad PR! Early September I made the switch from PC to Mac and Bento was up there in the dream. Sour taste now, especially if FM are following the ‘Apple Model’ in new software releases. Although I find this hard to believe with the number of updates, patches etc I’ve already received from them.
My retail business doesn’t advertise but relies on repeat customers. If I sacked all my original customers like FM are doing, I’d be closing my doors! R.I.P. Bento!

By: Jack L

Jack L — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:44:37 +0000

I recently bought my first Mac since I used an Apple II in 1983. One of the things that held my back was 20 years of data in Q&A, a database the Symantec stopped supporting in the early 90′s. I was thrilled to find Bento – at first. As I learn about its limitations and the lack of response to customer suggestions, I’m having second thoughts. I’ve successfully converted my various DBs, but haven’t paid for a license as yet and will likely wait to see if the mythical upgrade becomes reality and whether it brings Bento up to what my 20-year old Q&A provided.

By: Gary Wolfe

Gary Wolfe — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:24:46 +0000

FileMaker, Inc. needs to reconsider such a stupid decision as having users pay the full price again. I feel that I was gipped, cheated, etc. by the first version, which operated well below the hype. A plain spreadsheet organized things better, easier, and faster than Bento. What assurances are there that Bento 2 is that much of an improvement over Bento 1. I want a simple database type program, but it needs to live up to the hype and actually work. As a home user I’ll never spring for the price of Filemaker so if that is what they are after, good luck.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:31:48 +0000

Unless you bought Bento version 1 in the last few weeks (sorry, I’m not sure of the exact cut-off date) then you have to pay the full price again. Not a popular decision by FileMaker Inc.

By: Rosalyn Williams

Rosalyn Williams — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:26:12 +0000

How do we upgrade? Is it free? Very frustrated.

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:34:42 +0000

I’m not sure if there will be an upgrade to the 1.0v2 release in terms of bug fixes, etc. but I do know that version 2 should be coming along shortly, certainly before the end of the year. Unfortunately I don’t know if this will be a full-price upgrade, free for version 1 users or a involve a partial payment of the total price to upgrade.

I’m also not able to say what will be new in version 2 nor whether it will please people or add to the exasperation but you can be sure that I will be writing a full and frank review of it once I get a copy.

By: Eric Bickmann

Eric Bickmann — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:26:51 +0000

I think a consensus has been reached for anyone with more than a file system requirement… I liked the way Bento presented itself in its initial roll out. The software made an Apple type roll out, but frankly 7 months later the Apple is pretty tasteless at the core.

I think that for the most part the type of enhancements that most of us are looking for are not radical improvements and might have been included in the initial software, certainly so many month later with an upgrade.

I’ve searched for rumors of an upgrade, but there is not even a hint of an upgrade. Like so many others, I’m moving on as well.

Print controls, sort and filter options and a merge to Pages should be simple enough to accomplish for a serious software provider. Heaven forbid a data to iWeb function!

Maybe the plan is that they are trying to drive us all to Filemaker. The problem is that there is a real user friendliness in making the move to Filemaker, which made Bento so promising.

By: Wayne Gates

Wayne Gates — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:20:14 +0000

Have to agree with all of the above and hope that Filemaker are getting very close to releasing either a new version, or at least a bug fix version for Bento.
It is very disappointing that software with such promise has been left so long without at least fixing some extremely annoying problems.

By: Woody

Woody — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:02:14 +0000

I thought Bento was going to be just what I needed, but after waiting and waiting for Filemaker to fix a few things I begain to feel like I had paid them 50 bucks to be a beta tester and was getting nothing back. I have moved on and started to find other solutions. Not found it all in one App, but at least I’m getting things done and not wasting time waiting on Bento. I was hoping to be able to sync Bento with my IPod touch,, No luck their either. With all the updates Apple has put out lately, Leopard,IPhone, IPods and Pro Apps, I would have thought File maker could have at least put out a point upgrade so we could print out a decent report.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 10:40:53 +0000

I too started very enthusiastically with Bento but have been dis appointed that bugs such as the “collection sorting update” have not been addressed with a minor update.

It’s hard to see why Filemaker are not at least putting out bug fixes.

By: Roseann H.

Roseann H. — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:10:32 +0000

A third agreement – while initially promising, I am still searching for another option. I am spending too much time on such things as trying to alphabetize Collections, only to find out it’s a silly bug (you apparently have to close and reopen the application for the re-sort to be refreshed in the view). This is absurd when I have 30+ collections to organize. And the lack of export / print funcationality – oh my! Bento is clearly more eye candy for home users and “lite” business users but when push comes to shove, I can’t see using this for organizing the complex lists, events, and relationships I must maintain.

By: George Holcombe

George Holcombe — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:17:05 +0000

Yes, I agree. I’m looking around for something more adaptable than Bento and less expensive than Filemaker. You can get so far in Bento and the ease of use is exhausted by the lack of function particularly with printing. They really ham-strung what looked like a good app.

By: cal

cal — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:27:12 +0000

It is my experience, having been in the IT industry for 22 years, that ISV’s, and even large corporates such as Apple and Micro$oft, address bugs in less than a 7 month time frame – particularly something as glaring, crucial and obvious as the CSV export.

The lack of support has left me wondering whether I will bother with a Bento upgrade if I have to pay for it… Filemaker have shown a lot of disrespect to their user community by continually ignoring them.

I love how easy it is to create simple databases using Bento – for more complex stuff I use cocoa or MySql, but for something like an Exercise Log it is perfect. But as soon as I wanted to print something I had problems. All I wanted to do was print the table view to take to my Personal Trainer, but the columns seemed to come out in some random order. Now printing is a very basic requirement – one of the most basic – so to have Filemaker ignore it for so long leaves me feeling that I just need to get over it and find a product that meets my requirements…