[MW Forums]

SOHO Organizer combines contact management, calendaring, note-taking and print functions together. more

[AndrewRodney]

Seems like a big disappointment to me. I had Personal Organizer (as well as The Now suite). One really great thing about PO was one integrated application for contacts and datebook. With SOHO, youve got two applications (contacts and datebook). Worse, it appears that you cant (yet) import your PO data into SOHO. And the calendar application relies on iCal. Guys, if I wanted to use iCal, I wouldnt be using PO or Now Up to Date. From what I saw, their new calendar application is simply a place to enter events which get pasted onto iCal. Lastly, I own StickyBrain (love it). It appears their SOHO notes is this glued into the other modules. For now, Ill stick with Now Contact/UpToDate. I may have two apps but at least UpToDate isnt iCal.

[hmurchison]

I've ready Jerry state muliple times on the forums that they still working on the conversion tool from PO. I understand your frustration but damn Chronos can't win here I've heard vitriolic responses because they were late shipping SOHO Org and when they stated that they would be late with the import tool now they're getting bashed on that. It's coming folks.
It's going to take some further work. We're talking about a ground up rewrite in Cocoa here. I'm just glad their ready to ship..there will be inevitable bugs but I'm going to support them with my next Mac purchase. Chronos has bright people..they'll have the app purring in no time.

[macworldly]

I was looking forward to SOHO Organizer... and after trying it out, I was let down greatly. Here is a copy of the comments I sent to the folks at Chronos:
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I just gave a try-out to SOHO Organizer. I know that many hours have been committed to this product, and I don't discount that the best of intentions surrounded it. However, all that being considered, cannot compensate for the problems of your product.
1. Calendar - This is not a calendar program at all. It is a mask over iCal. iCal is the slowest calendar program available for the Mac, laying another program over means waiting for both programs start in order to enter an event. If I try to enter an event from SOHO, from the time I click the button to add the event until the time the entry form for the event pops up took, 17 sec., 23 sec., 16 sec., 24 sec. respectively over four different tries (this is with iCal already launched). Way too slow.
2. Contacts - Fares better but the multicolored frame boxes within the window are neither attractive nor useful. The data text doesn't stand out from the label text.
3. Overall - I don't understand the purpose of the program. It uses the iCal calendars, the Address Book's address, etc. It allows you to sync them, and keep 'em synced to the program over .Mac. Why wouldn't I just use iCal and Address Book to start with?
I was really looking forward to this program, and I am so let down.
Perhaps, I am the anamoly on this one -- and perhaps others will really appreciate this product. The Mac market is yearning for Calendar program that syncs (possibly without a $99 .Mac pricetag attached) and is available from more than one person computer.
Using Foldershare and Now Up-to-Date that is possible. Using Trumba and synching it with iCal does it also. Perhaps down the road SOHO Organizer can address all of this.
Good luck in all of your future endeavors.

[AndrewRodney]

-->Overall - I don't understand the purpose of the program. It uses the iCal calendars, the Address Book's address, etc. It allows you to sync them, and keep 'em synced to the program over .Mac. Why wouldn't I just use iCal and Address Book to start with?
Exactly! I agree that theres been a lot of work here but its a deal breaker.
Worse, as a Sticky Brain user, installing this suite totally hosed my database after doing an uninstall to get rid of the product. Couldnt even launch StickyBrain (and to reinstall). Them my original database was hosed. Thankfully, I had just backed up my database to my .Mac account.
I was really looking forward to this new product hoping to move from Now. Thats not going to happen.

[mebeaster]

You are NOT the anomoly on this one. This program is a major disappointment. Upgrade and upgrade pricing usually mean more features and enhanced functionality. Not here. This program layers a minimally enhanced interface on stripped down calendar and contact programs (iCal and Address Book). Nothing is really enhanced. Nothing is faster or easier to use. None of the wonderful features of the intergrated, intuitive and intelligent PO are included. The wonderful colored visual interface that made keeping tabs on multiple "tracks" in our lives is gone. In addition, I can't see why they offer the ability to "upgrade" to both SOHO Organizer and StickyBrain 4 when SOHO Notes is essentially identical to StickyBrain 4. i don't get it. What were these guys thinking about? The inability to use all of your calendar and contact info (gathered over years) from PO at the time that you buy SOHO organizer makes calling this an "upgrade" a boldface lie! I've finished with paying cash for promises of repairs, patches & more features "in the future." Too bad, PO was such a wonderful program. I'm going to miss it (see my review of PO in VersionTracker)

[kranbollin]

Personal Organizer 4.5 is showing its age, but I'm very attached to the way it handles tasks, and cannot find another PIM the does it like PO 4.5. This new SOHO thing is a disaster, as noted above. I will keep using PO 4.5 until some new version of OS X eventually disables it.

[mebeaster]

I think if the SOHO suite had been very good or better, few would be complaining. However, to offer such a poorly designed program and then have it unable to import from its predecessor (afterall, an "upgrade" means, by definition, that prior users can continue to use their database) is inexcusable. I've searched my brain for reasons to defend the developers of one of my favorite programs of all time (PO), but I just can't find any.