Brad's favorite apps worth paying for: Pocket Informant

Yes, your PDA, cellphone, BlackBerry, or whatever it is you carry around in your pocket probably came with a calendar and contact manager. And they probably suck. Pocket Informant doesn't.

This personal information management suite was originally designed as a complete replacement for the PIM applications that come with Windows Mobile. It's now available for iPhone and BlackBerry devices as well.

The Pocket Informant calendar is nothing short of awesome. It offers agenda, day, week, and month views that are quite frankly more useful than anything you'll find in Outlook or Google Calendar. And they just happen to fit beautifully on a small screen. You can easily see at a glance how much free and busy time you have in a day. And you can link appointments to contacts, set reminders, and show tasks from your To Do list in your calendar.

Pocket Informant's search utility also puts the built in Windows Mobile search function to shame. Results appear almost instantly, and you can find top level information like a contact's name or phone number, or results that are buried down a bit deeper like a name mentioned in a note attached to a calendar item from a year ago.

Pocket Informant for Windows Mobile costs $29.95. The BlackBerry and iPhone/iPod touch versions are each $20.

Tags: calendar, commercial, contacts, favorite-apps, mobile, PIM, pocket-informant, webis