Windows Phone Thoughts: The 'PI' eater? -- A look at Agendus for Windows Mobile v1.01

Documentation
The user manual for Agendus for Windows Mobile has just been made available, but wasn't ready in time for the review. In a couple of areas though, I suspect you'll need it to explain what's happening.

Conclusions
Is this a PI or AF killer? Not yet. It's got a fair way to go to match the power and capabilities of these much more mature products. It is a worthy first release, however, and shows some promising new approaches.

As far as programming style goes, Iambic has attempted to keep more of the Palm look and feel in the product by ignoring some of the standard Windows Mobile style sheets. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since some of the best innovations in ergonomics come when you throw out the rule book (e.g. Apple). However when you do this, you have to come up with something that is just as or more intuitive that what was there before. Agendus isn't quite there yet. With all the preferences in long menu lists and some options only available from tap & hold menus, Agendus is not optimized for one-handed operation, especially on a Phone Edition Pocket PC.

It will be interesting to see where Iambic takes this product over the next few releases.

Don is an Associate Director with Fujitsu Consulting and a member of its Enterprise Mobility Community. He has been an avid 'alternative' PIM user since his early SHARP Wizard days, but still not found one thats 'just right'...