Catamount Software

Time is one of our most valuable assets and it's a shame to waste it looking for things that are misplaced and forgetting things because the details of your life are out of order. This week's Five Apps will help you gain control of life and get yourself organized once and for all. Completion is a task manager that's quick and simple to use. It doesn't overwhelm you with complexity which makes its easy to get your tasks organized and stay committed for the long term. The workflow is simple. You add tasks and assign them to a project like work, personal or household. Each task lets you specify a date, set a priority, add a note, and assign it to a group. You can then use the group, due date and priority information to sort each list of tasks. When you have completed a task, you can delete it forever or mark it as complete which archives it for later retrieval. It has an attractive, colorful interface that makes Completion a pleasure to use. Pocket Informant is a contact, task and calendaring application for the iPhone and iPad. It's a productivity app on steroids that supports multiple calendars and syncs to a variety of services including Toodledo and Google calendar. The best part of Pocket Informant is its long list of customizations and settings. If you can see it on the screen, you can likely change its appearance and configure it to your preference. It's meant for the power user who doesn't mind spending a few hours tweaking it to his or her liking. Once you get it set up, you'll have 75% of your life at your fingertips. BillMinder for iPhone lets you organize your bills by recording payment, amount and due date information. The app has a calendar and a list view that'll let you see which bills are past due and which are due in the future. If you need some help remembering when each blll is due, you can setup reminders that will alert a set number of days in advance. You can also sync bills between your iOS devices and back your data up to the cloud for retrieval if your phone is lost or stolen. Payment from within the app is made easy by its integration with DebtMinder (also made by the developers behind BillMinder) and Pocket Money. Billings Touch is an invoicing and Read More

OS X Lion isn't out yet, but it could be hitting the Mac App Store as soon as next week. For many Mac users, the decision on whether or not to upgrade to Lion is boiling down to one incompatible app -- Quicken for Mac. We've been hearing from our readers for several weeks that Quicken is the sticking point. In this post, I'll discuss what your options are to control your personal finances with a Lion-compatible Mac app. You'll be glad to know that Intuit's flagship app isn't the only game in town. Intuit sent out a note to "Valued Quicken Customers" over the last few days stating that Quicken for Mac 2005, 2006, and 2007 will not run on OS X Lion. Intuit offered some solutions that had TUAW readers steaming: The slimmed-down, next-generation app will work on Lion, but it doesn't have all the features users of the standard Quicken are used to. Intuit is even offering a 50% discount, but points out that you need to make the move before you upgrade to Lion since the app won't import your old data under Lion... This is Intuit's replacement for the old Quicken Online, and it's a web-based personal finance site. However, there's no way to move your existing Quicken data to Mint.com. Great thinking there, Intuit. Brilliant idea, Intuit, if you have a Windows machine handy. If you're in an all-Mac home, forget it. If you want to run Windows 7 under Boot Camp on your Mac just to run Quicken Deluxe, you have to get a license for Windows 7 ($188 for Windows 7 Home Premium Full Edition on Amazon) and Quicken Windows ($35 for Quicken Deluxe on Amazon). Running a virtual machine under Parallels or VMWare adds additional cost. Why not take this time to move away from Quicken altogether? Here are my suggestions for other apps that will take your existing financial data into the world of Lion. Probably the best solution for most Mac users moving to OS X Lion is iBank 4 (US$59.99). It's available on the Mac App Store, it imports files from Quicken for Mac or PC, and it even has a mobile companion (iBank Mobile, $4.99) for tracking expenses and monitoring account balances. Feeling anxious about moving your data from Quicken to iBank? Don't be -- they even have a set of online video tutorials to set your mind Read More

Apple's iPad has taken the tech world by storm - released in April of last year, the company shifted 3 million units in less than three months and almost instantly snatched a 95% share of the tablet market. With Christmas just past, a new wave of consumers have been getting their paws on the must-have accessory. One of the first things a new Apple-device owner will want to do is load up on apps, but with nearly quarter of a million in the official store, it's not easy knowing where to start. We've separated the wheat from the chaff to bring you ten of the very best money apps for the iPad, forming a great mix of handy finance calculators, bill tools and money-saving utilities... if you've just paid full retail price for an iPad, chances are you could do with a money-saving app or two! Methodology: While we've tried and tested all of the below as well as taking into account popular press reviews, each of the apps on this list have been given an average of at least 3 stars reviews by 100 (or more) customers in the UK app store. Since we recognise that no product is infallible, to keep things fair we've listed the few flaws in these otherwise great apps for your consideration. To download any of these apps, head on over to the Apple App Store on iTunes or direct through your iPad. This step-by-step guide explains how to download apps in more detail. You may also like to check out our top financial app picks for each of the three main smart phones. If you want a personal financial manager which not only looks great but takes next to no effort to run, you could do much worse than PocketMoney. Amongst its neatest features is the 'budget bar' panel, which shows a customizable visualisation of your outgoing by category; at a glance, you can see exactly where your money is going each month and ultimately identify areas for savings. On that note, PocketMoney is also good at presenting the 'bigger picture' - all your savings, accounts, investments and transactions are laid out in a concise manner. With this much control, it's little wonder that the latest version has been met with entirely positive reviews in the app store (and there is a lite version to try free if you're still not convinced). Cost: £2.99 Read More

Finishing up our series about using your iPhone to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions, today we’ll be looking at iPhone apps that will help you save money. 2009 was no one’s idea of a great year from a business standpoint, except maybe for Apple. I imagine that many of us are looking at our bank accounts after holiday spending sprees and figuring out how we’re going to be a bit wiser with our money. Thankfully there are a ton of good choices to help you manage your money on your iPhone whether it’s saving on the things you buy or keeping an eye on your budgets. Note: All links point to iTunes store. Price: $4.99 (free lite version also available) Rating: 3.5 Stars If you want to manage all of your finances on your iPhone, PocketMoney is the app for you. It supports multiple accounts and acts as a simple check register, but also includes the ability to create and manage budgets and allows you to get a good overview of your spending with attractive charts. You can also export your data to back it up or import data from a desktop application. Price: $2.99 (99 cent lite version also available) Rating: 3.5 Stars The premise is simple, track your debt and set up plans to pay it off. The interface is attractive and easy to use. You can also see what your debt ratio is and track how much you’ve been able to pay off. If you don’t like the default payoff approach, you can create your own custom payoff plans as well. Getting rid of that high interest credit card is a great way to start saving for the new year. Price: $1.99 Rating: 4 Stars The perfect comparison shopping app, simply scan any barcode to get a list of competing prices from a variety of sources. You can email yourself a list of scanned products for comparison shopping later and you can add custom URL’s to search for if there’s a retailer that’s not in their database. Price: $4.99 Rating: 3.5 Stars The companion to the popular Mac desktop finance manager, iBank doesn’t offer as wide a range of features as some of the other finance applications out there for the iPhone. It more than makes up for these deficiencies, however, with easy to use transaction entry and over the air synchronization. If you want to manage your budgets Read More

My favourite personal finance app and simply one of the best ones out there in the App Store has just received a MAJOR update. With the release of PocketMoney 3.0, Catamount Software have added tons of new features. Even the previous version earned a Kiss It rating in my review and with the latest release it’s simply a crime not to pick it up. Granted, the major updates – Themes, Receipt Photos and Built-in Charts are available as in-app purchases for $0.99, $0.99 and $2.99 respectively, but still – there are lots of features that are available for free. More info after the gap. Version 3.0 is a major update of PocketMoney. We focused on improving the user interface to make it prettier and easier to use. We centralized preferences to remove clutter. We added the highly requested email backup and web browser based file transfer options in addition to SyncDocs. Overdraft accounts will automatically create a transfer from your overdraft account to current account when your balance drops below zero. Reports display counts and percentages, and have a period picker to make viewing reports based on time quicker and easier. Reports also tally up subcategories into their parent category. Added icons for most of the major banks around the world. New QIF Option Export for MS Money users to split QIF files up into individual accounts. The 3.0 update also includes speed improvements, bug fixes, and other features often requested by users. PocketMoney Charts Add-on: Includes Net Worth and Cash Flow summary charts to give you an overview of where you stand financially. Pie charts are built-in, pretty, and no longer require Google Charts. Shaking your device will show and hide charts. (Requires In-App Purchase to unlock the charting features.) PocketMoney Themes Add-on: Enable Themes for a wider variety of colors and fonts. Color themes include Money Green, Silver Bullion, Royal Purple, and Coffee. (Requires In-App Purchase to unlock the theme features.) PocketMoney Photo Receipts Add-on: Never lose a receipt again. Attach up to 3 photos to each transaction. Store the receipt, warranty, image of the purchase, or whatever. Receipts can be saved to your photo album or emailed. (Requires In-App Purchase to unlock the photo receipts features.) Read More

Leena Rao currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City. She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was... → Learn More Chorus, the recently launched iPhone app that helps you discover other apps, is revealing the most recommended apps from their community. Developed by envIO Networks, Chorus is sort of like a mobile social network based around the apps that your friends have downloaded and lets you tap into your existing social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, to share with your friends. The app features real-time feeds from your designated friends (those who have also downloaded Chorus and whom you have friended) displaying the apps they are downloading, and what they are saying about them in the app. Chorus’ technology will match your favorite apps against those your friends use, building a personalized and relevant list of recommended apps. Chorus will also ask your a series of questions to determine the types of apps your like. And you can share your favorite apps through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and also invite them to test out Chorus. envIO is now releasing the most popular and recommended paid and free apps in its community over the past month out of mote than 25,000 purchase and download attempts. Top 10 Most Recommended Apps Among Chorus Community: Top 10 Free Apps for November 2009 based on buy attempts: Top 10 Paid Apps for November 2009 based on buy attempts: Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Sponsored Ads Read More

iPhone App $4.99 Our Review By Kevin Stout on June 3rd, 2009 Rating: :: UGLY, BUT USEFUL I think everyone can use some budgeting help in economic times like these. I used Balance for a long time, but I needed something more complex. PocketMoney was that solution. Developer: Price: $4.99 Free or “Lite” version?: Yes – Version Reviewed: 2.2.1      Visuals Rating: iPhone Integration Rating: User Interface Rating: Re-use / Replay Value Rating: Overall Rating: I think everyone can use some budgeting help in economic times like these. I used PocketMoney for a week and found out that I spend about 50% of my weekly income on fast food/dining out. Needless to say, I’m going to be paying close attention to this app to help with my spending. PocketMoney is basically an all-around account-tracking tool. The paid version allows you to keep track of an unlimited amount of accounts through your iPhone. Be warned, this app DOES NOT connect with online bank tracking websites – you must manually enter each transaction into your phone. For a college student like myself, I was able to track my Cash, Checking, and Savings account. But the app leaves a lot of options for anyone who might want to use this app including: Credit Card tracking (keeps an eye on your limit), Assets, Liability, and Online accounts. In addition to tracking accounts, it allows you to create budgets, add repeating transactions, create a password to protect your information, make split category transactions, and generate pie charts (via Google Chart). Paid vs. LITE. Lets start with the differences between the paid version and the “LITE”. Despite being a free version, PocketMoney LITE comes packed with most of the features included in the paid version, with a few restrictions. The free version only allows tracking two accounts and two repeating transactions, so if you’re someone who only wants to track maybe their Checking account and Cash and only has one or two repeating transactions, maybe the LITE version is for you. There are a few other minor restrictions, the only significant one being that you cannot split categories for transactions in the free version. Meaning if you went to Walmart and bought groceries but also saw a DVD you just had to have, you wouldn’t be able to categorize part of the transaction in groceries and part in maybe a Media or DVD category. To be honest, I Read More