Fantastic Replacement for Bento
When I realized that Bento would soon be obsolete on my computer, iPhone and iPad, I was hard pressed to find a replacement. I called Filemaker and learned that with future OS updates from Apple, eventually Bento would not run on my iMac Mavericks OS. I’ve created hundreds of records on Bento and use it for my home business. I was distraught and didn’t want to pay the high price tag for Filemaker, but felt cornered. I downloaded the trial version and imported my Bento files. The learning curve is STEEP and it’s far too complicated for my expertise. That’s when I started checking for other options and stumbled upon a forum mentioning Tap Forms as a great app with most of the features that Bento offers.
I began working with the trial version of Tap Forms. All of my Bento forms imported beautifully. All of the data had to be sorted again to my liking, and while the layouts are not as “fancy” as Bento’s layouts, I’ve found that I actually prefer the simplicity and speed of using the Default Layout in Tap Forms; a feature that didn’t even exist in Bento! I can still create layouts, duplicate layouts, etc. so that one form can have multiple layouts. This is a feature I use with my Christmas Card list where I track who I send and receive cards to every Christmas, so I need multiple layouts for each consecutive year.
So, this is where my review gets really good! I began having trouble with certain features being inaccessible in the menu. I shot off an email to customer support, thinking it would take days before I got a response. Not so with Tap Forms! I received an email within an hour! Brendan walked me through many steps and he was so responsive that upon the realization that there were some hiccups with my older OS X.9 (Mavericks), he spent his weekend rebuilding Tap Forms and sent me links to download a newer version! Whoa! What software company has EVER done that for me before? ABSOLUTELY NONE!! And I wasn’t even a “paying customer” yet. Mind you, I was using a “trial” version at this point!
Over the course of the next five days, Brendan and I corresponded on a daily basis: me reporting things not working properly, and him either fixing the issue or teaching me the correct thing to do. I have to say, this company is REMARKABLE!! For customer service alone, I give Tap Forms TEN stars! I sincerely can’t say enough good as to how responsive he was, as well as anxious to receive feedback for improvement of the app.
Last night I purchased all three apps… iMac, iPad, iPhone. I’ve synced all of my devices and they are working fantastically together. I love many things about Tap Forms, especially that my contacts sync with my forms by adding a “contact field” as well as a “location field.” These are two things that Bento didn’t support. I’m thrilled to find a replacement for Bento that I think will even surpass the features that Bento offered as Tap Forms continues to offer future updates and users submit enhancement requests. Another great feature is that Tap Forms syncs with the cloud, instead of a manual sync (which I had to do with Bento).
Anyone who is in the same boat as me and wants a great app for any and all databases, don’t hesitate to grab Tap Forms. I don’t usually write reviews, but this was one time I felt I must share my awesome experience with the developer and my pleasure with my crossover from Bento. A five star app for sure!
jill54 about
Tap Forms Organizer, v4.0.3