e-Mobile Today v. 2.0 and e-Mobile Today Professional Edition v. 2 for BlackBerry Reviewed!

Posted
by
Kyle McInnes
on December 12, 2008, at 10:48 AM
in Reviews and Spotlight
. Tags: , , , , , , , , , .
Comments: 16 responses
16 Comments

KEY FEATURES

e-Mobile Today is a great app that provides you with a clean and polished view of the time, date, your call log, SMSs, e-mails, tasks and appointments – at once! You can even purchase a number of expansion packs – weather, news, and stocks – that provide you with regularly updated information, all in the same place. e-Mobile Today and its’ professional counterpart essentially do the same thing, but with a number of variations.

Generally, the professional edition offers a few more display themes and a lot more functionality.

This is what the main e-Mobile Today screen looks like. You can select from a digital or analog clock to be displayed in the top right corner. I personally dig the analog. As you can see, it also displays the date in the top left corner. Without the expansion packs, you’ll only be able to see down to the email pane (weather, stocks and news are only available with the purchase of these expansion packs).

You can also view your missed calls, an the total number of calls on that day. When you select the pane, four columns appear, showing you your missed calls for Today in the area below while giving you the option to scroll over to the left and view your missed calls for the past three days. I think the biggest difference between the regular and professional editions is functionality in general. With the regular version, you can only view these numbers, but with the professional version you can call the number by highlighting and selecting it.

You can also view your appointments and tasks in much the same way that you can view missed calls, only the panes above show you the tasks and appointments for the following three days. While you can view today’s agenda at a glance and all day appointments with appointment time, reminder and recurrence status in e-Mobile Today, the professional version goes the extra distance by allowing you to view upcoming appointments by week, and view the appointments calendar for quick overviews. Similarly, while the regular version allows you to view today’s tasks on home screen on home screen and view tasks by priority, due date & time, and completion status, the professional edition also lets you sort them by category.

Viewing emails and SMS with e-Mobile Today – regular and professional – is a pleasant experience because everything is neatly presented to you when viewing. It’s also nice to have SMSs and emails parsed into mutually exclusive inboxes. Once again, the professional version goes the extra distance – allowing you to reply, compose or view your inboxes by scrolling over one of them and clicking the menu button.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Permalink

Post Comment

  • n8d

    I looked at this before. The downside is the expansion packs. WTF? Am I buying a copy of The SIMS?

    In order for weather, news and stocks, I have to buy an expansion at $7.00/ea? Especially if you are paying $30.00 for the pro version already, so $50.00 for a BlackBerry app?

    I think it’s a great concept, but not one masses of users are going to justify dropping a Grant on.

  • n8d

    I looked at this before. The downside is the expansion packs. WTF? Am I buying a copy of The SIMS?

    In order for weather, news and stocks, I have to buy an expansion at $7.00/ea? Especially if you are paying $30.00 for the pro version already, so $50.00 for a BlackBerry app?

    I think it’s a great concept, but not one masses of users are going to justify dropping a Grant on.

  • Nick

    Was this actually a review, or a promotion piece? You’re telling me there is nothing you would change about this product, nothing wrong with it? And really, you’re cheerleading the prices? When I first started reading I was interested, but this seems like such a blatant BS article that I’m not even going to try to basic version. Honestly, did you get a free copy of everything if you wrote a good review for them?

  • Nick

    Was this actually a review, or a promotion piece? You’re telling me there is nothing you would change about this product, nothing wrong with it? And really, you’re cheerleading the prices? When I first started reading I was interested, but this seems like such a blatant BS article that I’m not even going to try to basic version. Honestly, did you get a free copy of everything if you wrote a good review for them?

  • Nick
  • Nick
  • Jonathan Brandon

    Hi Nick,

    Let me begin by saying that no one put me up to writing a promotional piece for this app.

    Now, I took a look at my rating and it has a perfect score when it should have read 4 out of 5. My bad. But beyond that, when I reviewed this product I gauged it by taking a look at how well it did what it claimed it would do. And in my opinion it passed with flying colours. Intentionality vs. outcome is my main guage.

    I was comfortable with the degree to which one can customize the look, and in contrast to the BerryReview piece, I didn’t experience noticeable battery drains – unless I indefinitely disabled standby and just let e-Mobile Today run as my home screen.

    I found that the essential difference between PocketDay Pro and e-Mobile Today Pro, PocketDay adds many, many more features, and e-Mobile Today (Pro and regular) looks much better and offers those users who desire an aesthetically pleasing run-down of the basic info they need at a glance. I do find that for things like RSS and News, I prefer readers independent of apps like e-Mobile Today or PocketDay. And I truly believe that many users feel the same way – did I mention how big of a battery drain PocketDay Pro is?

    At the end of the day, nobody likes to spend money on apps. Nobody. I take this as a given and don’t bother backtracking in every review with “oh, but, but the price…”. But I found an app I’m satisfied with, and willing to pay a premium for convenience and elegance (elegance probably being one of the main drivers behind the app’s success). e-Mobile Today provided me with all of the information I wanted and needed at a glance in the basic version, at $15 less than the battery burdensome PocketDay Pro.

    In any event, I can assure you I won’t and don’t feel slighted by your intention of NOT trying this product.

    Thanks for your comments, regardless!

  • http://admin Jonathan Brandon

    Hi Nick,

    Let me begin by saying that no one put me up to writing a promotional piece for this app.

    Now, I took a look at my rating and it has a perfect score when it should have read 4 out of 5. My bad. But beyond that, when I reviewed this product I gauged it by taking a look at how well it did what it claimed it would do. And in my opinion it passed with flying colours. Intentionality vs. outcome is my main guage.

    I was comfortable with the degree to which one can customize the look, and in contrast to the BerryReview piece, I didn’t experience noticeable battery drains – unless I indefinitely disabled standby and just let e-Mobile Today run as my home screen.

    I found that the essential difference between PocketDay Pro and e-Mobile Today Pro, PocketDay adds many, many more features, and e-Mobile Today (Pro and regular) looks much better and offers those users who desire an aesthetically pleasing run-down of the basic info they need at a glance. I do find that for things like RSS and News, I prefer readers independent of apps like e-Mobile Today or PocketDay. And I truly believe that many users feel the same way – did I mention how big of a battery drain PocketDay Pro is?

    At the end of the day, nobody likes to spend money on apps. Nobody. I take this as a given and don’t bother backtracking in every review with “oh, but, but the price…”. But I found an app I’m satisfied with, and willing to pay a premium for convenience and elegance (elegance probably being one of the main drivers behind the app’s success). e-Mobile Today provided me with all of the information I wanted and needed at a glance in the basic version, at $15 less than the battery burdensome PocketDay Pro.

    In any event, I can assure you I won’t and don’t feel slighted by your intention of NOT trying this product.

    Thanks for your comments, regardless!

  • David

    I purchased the Today Professional app after reading Jonathan’s review. I also run PocketDay and PocketInformant. I bought the Weather and News options. While not perfect, I have to lean more toward Jonathan’s views than the more negative review at BerryReview. I find no hit on battery life and I like the speed of the app (on a Bold). Sure, I would like greater customization on the news and the weather and I don’t want it to count the emails in my sub-folders. But the speed is amazing compared to where PI currently is and the general interface is really the slickest available. Will it replace PocketDay for me and will I stop running PI? Probably not, but in the two days I have been using it I find that I am using Today about 50% of the time, PocketDay about 30% (when I need to add and modify tasks and appts) and PI about 20%, though I expect that to increase as they further refine the app. But for most emails, missed calls, and checking off completed tasks I never leave Today and the general speed of use and elegant interface combined with everything being right there is, to me at least, really a step up in Blackberry programs. Reminds me of some of the better Today screen programs I used when on WinMobile. Oh, and the Tech Support has been excellent (I need OTA files) – right up there with the excellent support I have experienced from the PD and PI folks. It is exciting to have three great productivity programs (and organizations behind them) available for the Blackberry.

  • David

    I purchased the Today Professional app after reading Jonathan’s review. I also run PocketDay and PocketInformant. I bought the Weather and News options. While not perfect, I have to lean more toward Jonathan’s views than the more negative review at BerryReview. I find no hit on battery life and I like the speed of the app (on a Bold). Sure, I would like greater customization on the news and the weather and I don’t want it to count the emails in my sub-folders. But the speed is amazing compared to where PI currently is and the general interface is really the slickest available. Will it replace PocketDay for me and will I stop running PI? Probably not, but in the two days I have been using it I find that I am using Today about 50% of the time, PocketDay about 30% (when I need to add and modify tasks and appts) and PI about 20%, though I expect that to increase as they further refine the app. But for most emails, missed calls, and checking off completed tasks I never leave Today and the general speed of use and elegant interface combined with everything being right there is, to me at least, really a step up in Blackberry programs. Reminds me of some of the better Today screen programs I used when on WinMobile. Oh, and the Tech Support has been excellent (I need OTA files) – right up there with the excellent support I have experienced from the PD and PI folks. It is exciting to have three great productivity programs (and organizations behind them) available for the Blackberry.

  • BaRTiMuS

    Here is the question I always have with these apps.

    A. Do they auto start? Is there any way to make these screens default, when you come out of lock mode, standby, or when you back out to the home screen.

    B. Do homescreen shortcuts work? if you hold A on the bold it locks the phone, if you have dial from homescreen on, will it still function etc?

  • BaRTiMuS

    Here is the question I always have with these apps.

    A. Do they auto start? Is there any way to make these screens default, when you come out of lock mode, standby, or when you back out to the home screen.

    B. Do homescreen shortcuts work? if you hold A on the bold it locks the phone, if you have dial from homescreen on, will it still function etc?

  • Tanya

    David, how do u lock the screen for EMobile Today?

  • Tanya

    David, how do u lock the screen for EMobile Today?

  • Rodger

    Does it can sync to outlook?

  • Rodger

    Does it can sync to outlook?