Say you're looking to determine the exact calendar date of your favorite holiday or sporting event. Or perhaps you're scrambling to remember how many days are left until your next birthday or anniversary celebration. Wouldn't it be great if there was an easy way to import this information directly into your BlackBerry Calendar? If that sounds useful to you then Mobatech's Datepedia is your app.
Datepedia version 1.0 has already been out for a few years and was previously reviewed by Ryan Blundell back in 2008. And now, almost two years later, Mobatech is ready to release version 2.0 (see press release) and CrackBerry.com got an exclusive first look!
What's New?
So what makes Datepedia 2.0 different from the previous version? Well, besides an overall improved interface, the best feature is the new color-coded Calendar View that provides a quick and intuitive method for viewing holidays and other special events.
Importing Personal Dates
This new version also provides users with enhanced features for managing birthdays and anniversaries. Such features as the ability to import information from your existing Contacts by simply pressing the '+' icon from the main menu screen and then click the 'Import from Contacts' button.
You can also easily export dates by pressing the BlackBerry Menu key, and then choose 'Export' from any Events List or individual event screen.
Manually Adding Dates
Of course you also have the option to manually add dates within the app. Here you can see the app stays consistent with its good looks and even offers a descriptions field so you can remember Grandma prefers to see you instead of a card in the mail.
Setting A Reminder
Setting a reminder within the app is seamless and actually flows through the native BlackBerry Calendar system. And when you choose to export a particular Datepedia event you're prompted to set a reminder.
You can also set 'Default Export' options from the main Settings screen. So you could say "always export to the 9am time slot with a 15 min reminder".
Quirks and Surprises
What would make someone buy this app when it's just as easy to find the same info elsewhere? You could essentially grab the same holidays from a Google Calendar and sync from there, but what if you're not a Google user?
Let's be honest, the BlackBerry native Calendar is not the slickest thing out there when it comes to viewing/searching for events by category (holidays, birthdays, etc). And the Month View only shows dashes to represent events on certain dates. Datepedia offers a color-coded Calendar View, listings by category, a powerful search tool, etc (even a built-in description for each of the religious holidays).
Another neat feature is that Datepedia automatically calculates the number of days until the event and then displays the birthday or anniversary by number of the days remaining (e.g. Sam's 31st Birthday or John and Susan's 5th Anniversary - 33 Days Remaining, etc).
Pros
- Slick user interface
- Color-coded calendar view to easily find important dates
- Countdown to important dates
- Support for all BlackBerry smartphone models.
- PlayBook version is on deck.
Cons
- One con is that events are not dynamically updated over-the-air. Although Mobatech states they will be regularly providing event package updates that can be installed as an update via the app stores.
