Bento
is the little brother of FileMaker Pro, a lightweight but easy to use
$50 database program for the Mac with a design clearly inspired by iTunes. The relationship between FileMaker Pro and Bento is not unlike Final
Cut Pro for professional movie makers versus iMovie for consumers.
Bento has just released Bento for iPhone, a $4.99 iPhone app that brings an easy to use database program to the iPhone. It comes with 25 pre-designed database templates, or you can make your own. The app works with the built-in iPhone apps including Contacts, Mail, Google Maps and Safari. For example, this video from Ryan Rosenberg, FileMaker's VP Marketing & Services, shows you how you can use Bento on the iPhone to track additional information about your contacts, integrating with the information in the Contacts app:
I suspect that Bento on the iPhone would be most useful if you are also using Bento 2 on a Mac because you can sync databases between the two. I wasn't sure how many attorneys use Bento 2 in a law practice; it would really work best for a solo attorney, or at least an attorney who wants to work on his or her own, because Bento doesn't allow multiple users to access the same database (unlike sophisticated databases such as FileMaker Pro or Microsoft Access). But then New Orleans attorney Kris Wilson alerted me to the ElectricLawyer blog run by San Francisco attorney Grace Suarez. Grace has been interviewed about her use of Bento 2 in her law practice, and her blog includes lots of posts about using Bento in a law practice such as this post on using Bento to manage clients and this general aricle on using Bento in a law firm.
If I get chance to spend some time with Bento for iPhone, I'll post a review. In the meantime, if you are an attorney who already uses Bento 2 on your Mac, then I suspect you will want to get Bento for iPhone immediately to keep your databases with you at all times.
Click here to get Bento for iPhone ($4.99): 
