Elegant organizer and database creation app

If you’re the kind of person that has to track several projects, events and tasks at once, then Bento can prevent the need for a separate applications for each task.

Bento organizes all of your important information in one place so that you can manage contacts, coordinate events, track projects, prioritize tasks, and more. It’s easy to use, extremely well designed and the interface is clearly presented. The aim of Bento is to make the changing of schedules, projects and calendar appointments as easy as drag-and-drop.

Naturally, it’s also fully integrated with Address Book and iCal and initial criticisms of Bento were that it was nothing more than a glorified version of both. However, the fact that you can create databases with several different templates means it’s now much more than this. It may not have the power of a MySQL database but it sure makes creating them easy and the choice of templates is excellent. Everything from importing dates and contacts to creating a new database features a setup wizard to you’re never left in any doubt about how to do it.

The latest version has been considerably enhanced. The ability to print mailing labels has been added as have tons of great new templates and the ability to export Bento files. This means you can collaborate and share Bento projects with other bento users. However, note that you should backup your database before upgrading to the latest version as some users have reported loss of data during the upgrade process.

If you want to bring all of your organizational tasks under one tool, or need a user-friendly way to create databases, you can’t do much better than Bento.

Provides bug fixes and updates related to OS X 10.7 Mountain Lion and Retina displays. Migrates data stored in the Bento iPhoto library to a new Bento Photos library and disconnects from iPhoto. You will still be able to add images from iPhoto to Bento media fields If you purchased Bento 4 from the Mac App Store, please download an update from the Mac App Store when available

Changes

• Provides bug fixes and updates related to OS X 10.7 Mountain Lion and Retina displays. Migrates data stored in the Bento iPhoto library to a new Bento Photos library and disconnects from iPhoto. You will still be able to add images from iPhoto to Bento media fields If you purchased Bento 4 from the Mac App Store, please download an update from the Mac App Store when available