Filed under: Enterprise, Software, Features, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
TUAW review: Daylite 3.9, Daylite Server, and Daylite Touch
Marketcircle's Daylite is a popular business productivity management application for the Mac platform, and it was recently updated to version 3.9. While this sounds like it might have been just another version upgrade, it was actually a major update to Daylite. Coinciding with the release of Daylite 3.9, Marketcircle also released Daylite Server and Daylite Touch, two new components that bring the power of Daylite to the iPhone and iPod touch platforms.We'll be talking with Marketcircle CEO Alykhan Jetha (AKA A.J.) this Sunday, April 19th, at 10 PM EDT on the TUAW Talkcast, so be sure to listen in and bring any questions that you'd like to ask A.J. about Daylite.
Daylite 3.9
As I mentioned in the intro, this is a huge update to Daylite. In the past, Marketcircle used OpenBase as the underlying database engine for the application. With Daylite 3.9, they've moved to PostgreSQL, another open-source object-relational database management system. The change has made Daylite much faster and responsive.
The application (US$189 per license, including Daylite Mail Integration) can be downloaded and used for free for 30 days if you're curious. According to a recent blog entry by Marketcircle's CEO Alykhan Jetha, the company has set download and sales records since the release of Daylite 3.9.
If you're not familiar with the application, think of it as a single place to see all of your information about contacts, organizations, groups, projects, tasks, calendars, opportunities, appointments, and notes. Everything can be linked to everything else. In my business as an Apple Consultant, I use Daylite to not only keep track of my clients, but every conversation I've had with them. For projects that I'm involved with, I can look at every phase and assign myself or others tasks, then follow up on the status of each task whether I'm doing it or have delegated it to someone else.
The Daylite Mail Integration piece, included as part of the Daylite Productivity Suite, is an indispensable part of my work. Any email that is sent to one of my clients is captured in Daylite as an activity, so I can see every email that I've ever sent to a client without searching through Mail.app -- instead, I just call up the client's information, click on Activity, and I have a nice, sorted list of every email.
The great thing about Daylite is that you only need to go to one application to see all of this information. The only complaint I often hear from my clients is that they feel that Daylite has a steep learning curve. After hands-on training with the clients, I make sure that they watch the Daylite video tutorials for reinforcement of the messages.
There is only one other app that I consider to be similar to Daylite, and that is Contactizer Pro (US$119) from Objective Decision. Having used both, I feel that Daylite has the edge in terms of usability, speed and stability, as well as utility for large (up to 50 people) workgroups.
If there is any gripe I personally have about Daylite, it has to do with syncing. Like many applications that use Sync Services to link themselves to Apple's built-in programs such as Address Book and iCal, it's way too easy to have Daylite repeating calendar events replicate themselves multiple times. I'm not sure about you, but I really don't need to have 50 tasks telling me when Thanksgiving is. While I know this isn't entirely the fault of Marketcircle's developers, I wish that Daylite had a better way of handling duplicate repeating calendar events than just going through them one at a time to delete them.
Daylite can also be integrated with Marketcircle's Billings application, XSilva's Lightspeed POS system, FileMaker Pro, and MoneyWorks.
Daylite Server
In the past, if you wanted to run Daylite for a workgroup, you installed Daylite on a Mac or Xserve, then had other Macs on the network log into the "server" Daylite machine. Now there's a dedicated server application for Daylite, which is used either when using Daylite in a workgroup or when using Daylite Touch (see next section of this post) to use an iPhone to synchronize remotely with Daylite.
For organizations that have been using Daylite for a while and wish to upgrade to version 3.9, there are detailed instructions available on how to migrate data from an older version. It's not an overwhelming task, but people should definitely read the instructions before moving ahead with the migration.
Daylite Touch
The crown jewel in the Daylite lineup is the new Daylite Touch app for iPhone and iPod touch. Daylite Touch is an outstanding example of how to include a huge amount of functionality in an iPhone app without making the user interface difficult to use.
- Home -- shows any current notications, appointments and meetings for the next two days, and a button for settings. A gray arrow points at the next event on your calendar, making it impossible to miss the next item on the list.
- Objectives -- this is where you can enter or track any projects that have been created to achieve some objective. For each project, there's a process pipeline consisting of a number of steps. Each step has tasks, appointments, or notes associated with it, and these items can be delegated to other Daylite users in your organization.
- Contacts -- This is where your contacts and organizations are listed. For each contact, you can list the traditional information that you normally put into your Address Book, but you can also create new tasks, appointments, or notes that are linked to the person or organization. As with the traditional iPhone Contacts app, a single tap provides the capability to send a text message, email, or call someone.
- Calendar -- The calendar displays your appointments and meetings in one of three different views. The first is a simple list view, showing the current date at the top of the list. Each entry has a colored dot next to it denoting the category in which the entry belongs (work, home, etc...). There are also day views (showing one day in detail at a time), and a month view that displays the month at a glance as well as the current day events. The
- Tasks -- If you're a GTD fan, this is the screen you'll use the most. You have an Inbox for tasks that you've just created, lists of completed and uncompleted tasks (or tasks that need to be done "someday"), and ways to categorizing and delegating tasks.
The only negative with Daylite Touch, and the one sore point with many Daylite owners, is that the app is quite expensive. Looking at Daylite Touch in the App Store (click opens iTunes), you'd probably think that this is insane, since the app is shown as a free download. But in order to sync Daylite Touch with Daylite Server, you need to purchase a US$49.99 annual license for each iPhone. In defense of Marketcircle, I often point out that this is only about 14¢ a day for an impressive application.
Conclusion
Daylite is a powerful and flexible application for individual users or companies, providing integration of all of the data that's required to run a business. It's in a class by itself -- there's literally nothing that can come close to the productivity tools that are built into Daylite, Daylite Server, and Daylite Touch.
For more screenshots of Daylite, Daylite Server, and Daylite Touch in action, check out the gallery below. Be sure to join us this coming Sunday night, April 19th, for the TUAW Talkcast with special guest Alykhan Jetha, CEO of Marketcircle.
In the interest of full disclosure, please note that the author is a Daylite Certified Partner.
Gallery: Daylite 3.9 Review
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
motech said 10:47PM on 4-17-2009
i love triple play.
the server, client, and iphone client software is amazing.
it tremendously helps my productivity.
with the amounts of information i am forced to deal with,
im so happy to have something that truly helps me, and my company.
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Moonir B said 11:00PM on 4-17-2009
Anybody have any slots left please? email me at m o o n i r b[at] g m a i l . c o m
I would appreciate it, as my phone is dropping calls, and would like to see if maybe this would fix it!
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Greg Mudd said 11:18PM on 4-17-2009
We love Daylite and upgraded immediately to 3.9 and Touch on our 5 iphones. However the contact portion of Touch can only load 100 contacts at startup. It is not nearly usable for databases that have 1,000 contacts. You also can't choose groups to display smaller subsets of your contacts. This part of the program needs to be updated to be as functional as Address Book. Good first effort.
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AJ said 11:33PM on 4-17-2009
Greg,
Daylite Touch can handle thousands of contacts. What you are seeing is "batches" of 100. For performance reason, when you have over 500 contacts, we batch them by 100's. Just like Mail, scroll to the bottom and hit the "load more" button. To get to a contact quickly, tap a few letters in the search field at the top - it searches all contacts.
Greenie said 11:18PM on 4-17-2009
I'd love to use Daylite for my small business . It seems like a great tool. However, my salesman and I travel a lot for extended periods of time. It'd be hard to keep up to date on data.
Does Marketcircle offer to host a database for customers so we can get to it quickly on the road and sync up? Or any other suggestions?
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erichd said 9:44AM on 4-18-2009
That's Daylite Server.
erichd said 10:36AM on 4-18-2009
Wait... Server isn't a hosting situation?
What justifies the $50 annually?
Aren't all the additional costs of running the server borne by the user? What is Marketcircle doing to get $50 every year?
Greg Mudd said 12:03AM on 4-18-2009
Hey AJ thanks for the reply. While there are 1200 contacts that are in my Daylite Touch contact list, the only way to look thru the last names that begin with the letter S appears to be to scroll to the bottom 7 times and hit the load 100 more contacts 7 times and wait for each load. This has to be done each and every time I start the program. This is not as user friendly as Address Book. The search function does work like you said but I can't always spell. We use groups in Daylite and they work so well in Address Book that we were disappointed that Touch didn't have the same functionality (yet). The other sections (calendar, tasks, etc.) of Touch work better than other options on the Iphone. Also love the 30 day trial period.
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Marni Melrose said 11:06AM on 4-18-2009
If you would like to see Daylite Touch and Daylite in action, I have done a 30 minute trailer of one of my training videos. It will really give you a good idea of how it all works together.
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=280143215
Shine On,
Marnï "The MacAngel" Melrose, B.Msc
Apple Certified Technical Coordinator
Master Certified DayLite Partner
http://www.macangel.com
http://twitter.com/macangel
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matt Carey said 5:44PM on 4-19-2009
This really does sound like a paid advert for Daylight and not a piece of impartial journalism.
The cost of daylight touch PER year and PER phone is bonkers IMHO. It is certainly putting off people I have spoken to.
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Will said 4:21PM on 4-25-2009
TUAW has been worsening for awhile but this led to me removing it from my rss feed.
Andrew said 5:24AM on 4-30-2009
The product is overpriced and too heavy on the feature side for freelancers and small businesses.
The server-client architecture makes sense for any mid-scale business and above, with a sales force that's on the road a lot (that market segment doesn't tend to be on Macs, however). It's too heavy for a small outlet or a freelancer - a classic case of breaking a fly on a wheel.
Daylite's much-acclaimed "pipeline" function is not actually that great, as it doesn't really allow for forward planning: Tasks can only be assigned to the current pipeline stage, not to future ones. Why there needs to be an annual subscription for something that is a product not a service is beyond me - erichd, I second your question: what are Marketcircle doing in return? Fine, they continue to improve the product, but that applies to any good software developer.
In conclusion: If you run a small business or work as a freelancer, a combination of "Things", "Midnight Inbox" or "OmniFocus" with iCal and a few other tools will serve you just as well, sync smoothly without any trouble and cost you next to nothing.
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Athol said 9:42PM on 6-16-2009
I purchased the package after a short trial but found it too cumbersome to use. I had issues with contacts syncing and I just found the interface too windows like, i.e. not the same intuitive type of interface you'd expect from a mac application.
At this point I am no longer using the app, but I'm still looking for a decent alternative. The hosted apps are good, but expensive and I haven't found any that are decent single machine alternatives.
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Ryan said 1:13AM on 7-10-2009
In regards to the above poster, and the one above him, I agree. I too have searched far and wide for the ultimate, sexy, powerful business database to manage people, projects, and do my billing. I did pretty much find it. More on that in a minute. First though, kudos to Daylite for a valiant effort. They really have stuck with this product and have made it better over time.
BUT....
While there is a lot of power built into it (relational database, linking contacts to projects, organizing all your tasks, etc.), it is a bloated version of Microsoft Entourage. MS are the ones that invented the interface that you see in Daylite. So if you feel that Daylite looks like a MS product... but it does look pretty good. I always did like Entourage, but, of course, not enough to use it!
Anyway, I have been one of those individuals who has checked into Daylite's website for the past several years, and kept sampling their latest offering. After 1 year of not visiting their site, I just downloaded the free trial of v. 3.9. Nice, very nice, but still the old Daylite we all know and loathe. Bloated, byzantine...
Yes, their is a huge learning curve, and the bloat does subside once you know what everything is supposed to do. I am still going to try it a bit more and see how it goes.
The problem with all of these programs, however, is not only the way they are put together - the way they display information - but the very concept upon which they are based. That is, GTD. GTD has some good principles, but is largely irrelevant and dogmatic in its thinking. For instance, breaking things up into tasks, sub-tasks and contexts is not exactly how things in reality get done. Is it really worth inputting all that information - in such complex ways - when you will likely do things in completely different orders, and not even consult the list anyway?
I know that there is utility to the way apps like Daylite capture information, but only on those large, complex projects. And for most of us, those are few and far between. Forget all the complications associated with GTD, and just keep a list of your tasks in order of priority, because that is how people do things in reality. They don't sit there and start working away through hierarchical lists of tasks and sub-tasks: they are answering the phone, getting pulled away on other more pressing issues, changing specs of projects, etc.
That is why I use "The Hit List" and "Things" is also worth mentioning (iPhone app as well). With the Hit List, it is a simple prioritized list of things that need to get done. Easy entry, simple interface. For To Dos associated with an Email, I use MailTags (awesome little Mac Mail addon). With MailTags, I can add a To Do entry to iCal right from the Email itself. The To Do entry in iCal will have a link to the source Email from which it was created. Doesn't get much easier/better than that. MailTags also lets you add a note which can even replace the subject line of the Email. That is powerful. Instead of a meaningless subject line after having exchanged several emails with a client "Re: Project 3343 Price Quote", you can change the subject to something that truly captures what is currently being discussed, like a task "Get back to client about progress by tomorrow".
So, while Daylite does a nice job of trying to link everything together, for those of use in the real world who live and breathe inside of Mac Mail, a combination of the Hit List, MailTags and iCal do a better job in my opinion.
As for the zen of business databases, check out Studiometry or Contactizer Pro. Both are not as pretty as Daylite, but seem to be better at billing and the stuff that we really need in our day-to-day business lives.
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Donovan Roddy said 3:01PM on 7-10-2009
I have to agree with defilm and certain aspects of finding the right CRM. I've been running a small 5 man team with each person in a different part of th US and other areas internationally. I will say Daylite had very few bugs when I used it as an individual project with billings (billings works great but lacks on features) but as MarketCircle pushed out Daylite server to allow teams to collaborate easier I've only had headache after headache with the the program. For instance, the way they handle licensing is awful, at times if you don't log out prior to closing daylite it will tell you that all your licensing are in use so the person who has access to the Daylite Server has to log in and wipe any local databases in order to get it to work properly. Another thing you may experience is Daylite will continuously crash if the system crashes once and you try to reconnect to the database. The only work around I've found for that is to create a temp database, connect to it and then delete it and then attempt to reconnect to the database that was crashing. The newest bug I've found since the latest build release 3.9.3 (As of July 10, 2009); I have daylite set up as an automatic start up program as with mail, if Daylite has not started completed I receive an error with my mail application saying I can only connect with one database at a time. If I don't use daylite as the start up program Mac Mail starts perfectly each time. Some may say it's a Mac Mail issue (I believe this is a Daylite Mail Integration Issue), being that its an OS native application I think Daylite needs to look into it and give their subscribers on possible issues and keep their customers in the loop which they fail to do (being on twitter and trying to cut bad buzz about their products doesn't count). Another thing potential buyers should be aware of is if you're purchasing this platform to work for teams Daylite currently has it priced at $189.00 but it's $449.99 with support 'Which You Will Need' because for MOST USERS who just expect software bought to 'just work' out of the box you won't find it with this product and if you didn't purchase the support Daylite expects you to wait 3 days for them to respond to any issues you have and if you're like me I can't wait 3 days or more to have data that is critical to my business working. I questioned Daylite Staff on that issue and their reasoning was because they released a new product (Daylite Touch for the iphone) they couldnt answer support questions as fast as they used to because they were busy with the new product, so in other wards what they are saying is we're going to be concentrating on the potential new wave of customers (more revenue) and put the customers that have already purchased on the backburner... temporarily... Ask yourself this question, when Microsoft or Apple pushes out a new product do they do stuff like this to their existing customers...?
The bottom line, I'm really upset because Daylites possible capabilities is the best in this realm for Mac users, I've seen the rest and I was really looking forward to using this with my team and being that I've purchased multiple licenses, plugins, hosting & computers It's been a very bad experience. And I will continue to point out all the issues I run into in the hopes that people will not make the same mistake as I did or until Daylite corrects these issues and pays attention to the people that have already paid and not just potential new revenue.
Donovan Roddy
1.702.448.3435
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