Alright folks - we have a lot to talk about in this triple threat of applications from SplashData, so lets get right down to it.

First up is SplashID. SplashID answers the age old questions of how do you keep track of all those passwords rolling around in your head?! How do you keep track of all your credit cards, business cards, bank accounts, 401Ks, IRAs, and who knows what else? Better yet, how do you keep all that information with you at all times, ready to recall at a moments notice?

SplashID can help you do that, and do it securely with strong (256-bit blowfish) encryption so even if you lose your phone, you can fell safe knowing someone can’t just open the application and get at your stuff!

One of the best features of SplashID is that you really can have all of this with you at all times - and this carries over to the other apps we’ll look at - because all three applications also have a desktop component which you can sync your data to. Which means you don’t need to fumble with entering all your card numbers and passwords on the iPhone keyboard… everything can be input into a wallet and then simply sync’d to your iPhone. Don’t mistake how huge this is. Besides the hours you will likely save yourself entering data, you aren’t locked into relying on the iPhone to safely manage this data by itself, nor are you locked into just using the iPhone since these SplashData apps are also available on WinMo and Palm!

Another great feature is that while there are a ton of pre-entered types of "cards" you really are only limited by your imagination. Just as easily as putting in a credit card, you could secure granny’s secret pecan pie recipe or your entire library of purchased software licenses. What this application really boils down to is private information management and the feature set of SpashID is unmatched by anything in the appstore right now.

Key Features:

• Unlimited number of customizable record types and categories
• Password generator
• Desktop Sync
• Clickable URLs
• Field masking to keep passwords safe
• Customizable fields

I don’t know about you - but I’m a list maker. I make lists for darned near everything from chores I have to accomplish around the house to ideas for things I want to see come to the iPhone. The problem I’ve always run into is when I have a list, without fail that list is somewhere else (like not with me) and I’m stuck trying to find something to scribble on so I can (hopefully) remember to add to my list later. Reality is 9 times out of 10 that little scrap of paper (and my idea) end up forever lost to my washing machine because I forgot the note was in my pocket. So, if you’re like me and you don’t happen to carry a moleskine notebook with you like its religion - SplashShopper may just be the answer.

Don’t let the name scare you off here. SplashShopper is another excellent application from SplashData which you could easily say has been mis-named. Yes, it is a shopping application first and foremost. It excels at making boring lists of things you want to to buy at the store (like tomatoes, avacados, Frosted Flakes, etc… or super exciting lists like office supplies!

But that’s really not all SplashShopper can do - check this out:

As you can see SplashShopper is a lot more than a simple shopping list manager. SplashShopper can handle everything from emergency preparedness to travel checklists and To-Do management with the added bonus that all the things you see here come pre-populated so you don’t even have to go through the nightmare of entering in all this data yourself. And in a slightly re-occurring theme, sync is another strong suit of SplashShopper. With the add-on desktop application data entry can all be done from your workstation and then you can let application sync your lists for you.

Key Features:

• Unlimited lists with different categories, custom fields and icons
• MANY pre-populated lists including pricing
• Ability to share lists
• Wireless sync to desktop

Finally - our last application today is SplashMoney. SplashMoney is actually one of the most unique applications in the AppStore for one main reason - while it can sync to your desktop it can also sync to your bank account and pull all the recent transactions down so you don’t have to enter them by hand!

The list of supported banks is huge and I think you’ll be hard pressed to find one that isn’t on the list especially if you’ve got a large bank that you do business with like Wells Fargo. For a lot of people this is a big deal - and while I don’t manage the money in my household anymore, when I used to it was a big pain in the you know what when I forgot to enter in a purchase, so I can definitely see the benefit of having it done automatically. The best part it of all is that you don’t have to worry anymore about the balance being out of whack when you forget about the couple bucks you spend at Conoco buying a coffee and snacks - because even if you do forget - I promise you the bank won’t!

There’s so much more that you can do with SplashMoney that telling you about all of it here is simply just not practical, but in a general sense you can track everything from checking and savings to credit cards and car loans - basically if you can spend or store money in an account - SplashMoney can handle it for you.

I didn’t have a useful screen shot of this one, so I had to borrow it from the appstore - but one last really cool feature of SplashMoney is the reporting. If you’re anything like me - at the end of the month you look back and wonder "Where’d all my money go?!" - well with the reporting features its pretty easy to graphically understand where you’re spending all your income. In times like we have right now this is incredibly useful in helping determine where you can best cut some of the pork.

Key Features:

• Wireless Bank Syncing
• Supports most account types: checking, savings, credit card, cash, asset, liability, money market and line of credit
• Blowfish encryption so your data stays "your data"
• Print registers and reports
• Live currency updates (iPhone/Touch exclusive feature)
• Support for categories, classes and splits

Alright, let wrap this up with a few key points.

1. All three apps will run you between $7.99 and $9.99 each for the stand-alone iPhone version. If you want to sync to your desktop you will need to download the version designed for your OS (Windows or OS X). Each desktop version will run you $19.95 - however if you own an existing version the iPhone Desktop version is free. Free trials of the desktop software is available.

2. There is Lite version of SplashID which supports up to 15 cards so you can figure out if SplashID is right for you - and I highly recommend you give that a try before buying.

3. Click the iTunes pricing images above to be taken directly to that application’s appstore page.

4. Its important to note that SplashData and the applications listed here are not newcomers to the mobile software arena. In fact there’s over 500,000 SplashID users worldwide - so you know these applications are tried and true, and most have won multiple industry awards.

5. Links to some reviews we’ve done one JAMM. Keep in mind these are links to WinMo reviews of these SplashApps but they are in depth and offer quite a bit more detail about the applications. Most feature sets are very close in each application, but I think you’ll notice the iPhone versions are lot better looking!

SplashID Review

SplashShopper Review

SplashMoney Review

• Enhanced user interface with simplified navigation
• Improved search and look-up functions
• Landscape view
• Number pad login
• New browser window to make log-in to websites on the iPhone easier
• Updated Mac and PC desktop software

Another much-anticipated program has made it into the iPhone App Store - the 1Password password manager / digital wallet application.

I’ve been using this app on my Mac, and on the iPhone via its secure bookmarklets - for some months now, and have been very much looking forward to seeing the full iPhone native version.   I’ve only just installed it, so no thoughts on it yet, except that I’m glad to see it. 

eWallet and SplashID are already very worthwhile apps in this area - now it looks as if we may be spoiled a bit with several good, solid choices for protecting our confidential data on the iPhone.

1Password is available now in the App Store, and is FREE.

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In these first few days of the iPhone App Store I’ve been spending lots of time getting to know a ton of new apps, like many of you have.  I’ve focused on a lot of ‘productivity’ sort of apps - task managers, voice recorders, password wallets, and similar.

Good news is there are some very worthy and impressive programs out there in this category (along with some duds of course).  I’ve already found a number of apps that I enjoy using.  What I’ve also found though is that the vast majority of them are currently working in effect as ’standalone’ programs - with anything you do with them saving to and remaining only on the iPhone.  On the iPhone where you are unable to access *data* that you store in an application anywhere outside of each individual application, that is. 

This is a huge weakness thus far in these apps.  In fact, it cripples them for me in many cases.  If I spend time entering a number of important sets of login details for web-sites in a password manager app, I need that information to be available to me not just on the iPhone and inside a single app, but back on a laptop / desktop machine and / or via a browser as well.  I need data to be portable / syncable / instantly available wherever I happen to be.

If I create a new task while I’m in a coffee shop that I need to remember later on today, as often happens, I want it to follow me to my laptop later when I can do something about it - not sit only on my iPhone waiting for me to look back there in order to remember to act on it.

Anyway, I’m sure you get the gist - with many of these apps, to be truly useful they need to be ‘everywhere’ apps in order to be genuinely useful and  productive.

So far, I’ve found two apps that are lapping the field in this area - OmniFocus for tasks management, and SplashID, a password manager program.  Both of these have got sync working - and working very well indeed - right out of the gate, as soon as they hit the App Store.

I won’t bore you with setup details on each in this post - the notable thing with both of these apps is that they made setup easy, a process that took somewhere around 10 minutes (including the download and installation of companion desktop apps) and worked straight away without a hitch.

Best thing about their sync offerings - they are both wireless!  No need to be USB connected at all.  SplashID is tied to the wireless network, so not going to follow me out into the world, but that’s fine - I can sync whenever I like when at home from the computer or the iPhone. 

OmniFocus is even better in this area - offering a range of sync options including iDisk if you use MobileMe, as I am doing.  I can happily sync from out there at a coffee shop, and find all my tasks consistent back on my laptop as soon as I sit down with it.

Big kudos to both these publishers for getting this so right, so quick.  At the same time, a quick thought for other developers whose apps have not got sync going yet - Hurry Up.  Hurry Up a lot. 

I can appreciate that there may be a stack of good reasons why it is difficult to get sync into a Version 1.0 App Store release, and that Apple is almost certainly not helping or making things easy in this area.  Absolutely I can, and I feel for the developers struggling with this.  But … its just human nature I think that we’re going to work more and more with the programs that are *fully* functional right now, the ones that let us do *everything* we want to do, and get to our data every time we want to get to it.

Even knowing that a developer has promised an update soon, in a few weeks, may not be enough in some cases right now.  Each day that one app is partially crippled by a lack of sync ability, is another day to get to know a competitor app (that can sync) a little better,  To enter a little data into that rival app, and hence get a little more tied to it as well.

Hurry up productivity apps publishers - get desktop/ web / wireless sync going - like yesterday please …

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SplashID is an easy-to-use program that offers fast and secure encrypted storage of passwords, serial numbers, and any other type of valuable personal information that must be kept confidential. The app is available either as a stand-alone program or as part of the SplashWallet suite, which also includes the latest updates. SplashID is available now for all Palm OS 4.0 and newer devices for $29.95 or as part of the full SplashWallet suite for $59.95. A trial version is available to download and versions are also available for Windows Mobile devices as well as Windows and Mac PCs. You can also read our SplashID review.

SplashID is an easy-to-use program that offers fast and secure encrypted storage of passwords, serial numbers, and any other type of valuable personal information that must be kept confidential. The app is available either as a stand-alone program or as part of the SplashWallet suite, which also includes the latest updates. SplashID is available now for all Palm OS 4.0 and newer devices for $29.95 or as part of the full SplashWallet suite for $59.95. A trial version is available to download and versions are also available for Windows Mobile devices as well as Windows and Mac PCs. You can also read our SplashID review.

More good news for those looking for good password manager programs for the iPhone, and for the many fans of SplashData’s range of mobile applications.  SplashID - a top selling password vault and secure data manager app for smartphones on virtually all the major mobile platforms - is coming to the App Store, and so are SplashMoney and SpashShopper.

SplashMoney is a personal finance manager that offers wireless connection to bank accounts (US only currently).  SplashShopper is a list manager type of program specially tailored for organizing all sorts of types of lists.

All of these apps have been very popular sellers on the various mobile platforms they already support - and should have an immediate following on the iPHone.

Here’s a look at some SplashMoney and SplashShopper screens:

SplashData says one of the major distinguishing features of their iPhone apps will be their ability to sync wirelessly with desktop companion apps using their proprietary SpashSync tool.  That is a big plus and a potential big factor for a lot of people when choosing programs in any of these categories like password / list / finance management.

SplashID, SplashMoney, and SplashShopper should be out on or around the opening of the App Store, but there is no word yet on pricing for them.

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• SplashData, a longtime and very popular developer for Windows Mobile and Palm, is bringing the SplashID (secure information manager), SplashShopper (list organizer), and SplashMoney (personal banking manager) apps to iPhone.
• Fiery Ferret, AKA Bridger Maxwell, has ported his shareware game Lumen to iPhone. The iPhone version has access to 1,200 user-submitted puzzles.
• MobileAge is readying Blackjack 21 and touchTile Mahjong for iPhone and iPod touch.
• Hey Mac Software will soon let you move data between Macs by transferring files to and from your iPhone wirelessly. Briefcase is the name of this program, expected in the Fall.
• Like Things, the task manager from Cultured Code? Think of Things touch on your iPhone or iPod touch. Nice.
• MyMote is an open-source iPhone application designed to provide remote functionality for Mythtv front ends. What's Mythtv? An app to turn Linux computers into a Tivo-like DVR.
• Tebeka Software Developments is porting Pocket Luach to the iPhone. Pocket Luach is a Windows Mobile application that allows users to browse a Jewish calendar, create and manage Jewish events (wedding dates, Bar Mitzvahs...), and do date conversions between Jewish and civil dates.