I've been using 37signals' Basecamp to manage projects large and small for almost a year now. It's tremendously useful, and everyone I've shown it to falls in love. While the folks at 37signals have produced some great applications, they've left the extras to 3rd party developers.

I've been using Outpost for a bit, and this week I had a chance to try out Base Tent [App Store link]. While not as pretty as some of the others, it works very well.

The Pros

When first launched, Base Tent asks for your login criteria and begins its initial sync, which was much quicker than I anticipated (note that I did all testing over EDGE). Four tabs label your Dashboard, Projects, To Dos and Milestones, and they use the same color coding you'll find on Basecamp.

Below is a series of icons that let you re-sync, access the app's help pages or add and remove accounts (I only have one account, but I imagine those with more than one will appreciate being able to jump back and forth). Best of all is the option to find tasks, etc. assigned to a certain contact. Of course, the purpose of dropping ten bucks on an app like Base Tent is ubiquitous access to Basecamp.

Click any item in the Dashboard to jump directly to it. Reading and responding to messages is intuitive, though longer threads take a bit of time to load. The app includes an option to view a message title, post date and author or the full text, which is nice. Responding to a comment is just as easy as you'd expect and syncs as you publish.

The Projects page lists all aspects of a given project. What's really nice here is the option to move between projects and contacts with a click, just like Basecamp's "Switch to a different project" feature. I had a very easy time adding to dos, responding to messages and setting up appointments from the road.

The Cons

Base Tent syncs upon launch to look for changes. Unfortunately, this process commandeers the display until it's finished. Additionally, and I know this is a bit superficial, but the Dashboard screen looks a bit cluttered. I'd like for the "Completed By" text and date to be a bit smaller. Finally, I know they're going for the Basecamp "look" with the tabs, but they seem cramped in the iPhone's display.

TUAW Buying Advice

The good news is that none of my complaints are about the app's performance. Interacting with Basecamp via Base Tent, which is the point after all, is pleasant and reliable. Many of Basecamp's customers, myself included, depend on the data in Basecamp for our living.

The developers have told us that a major update of Base Tent is complete and currently awaiting approval at the App Store. At $10.00 US it isn't the cheapest solution in the App Store (nor its it the most expensive), but it's worth it.

Around here we all seem to be addicted to GTD applications (especially those that sync with online services). That's why it is only fitting that we would mention a new iPhone application named Outpost. Outpost manages your 37Signals' Basecamp projects on your iPhone.

Basecamp, as you might already know, is 37Signals flagship application for managing clients, projects, tasks, etc. However, with a native application to manage Basecamp projects I can definitely see myself using Basecamp more than I do now.

Outpost should be available on the AppStore in "early to mid August." For more information about Outpost, you can check out their website and development blog.


Thanks, Jim!

Basecamp is a popular and powerful web-based project collaboration and management service from 37signals, makers of other TUAW favorites like Backpack and Highrise. Fortunately, even though Basecamp is web-based, 37signals provides a rich API with which 3rd party developers can make all sorts of neat apps and widgets that tie into the service. A group of students did just that for a class project, resulting in Avalanche, a free Basecamp widget for Yahoo! Widgets.

While I don't use Basecamp to any serious degree, Avalanche seems to be pretty feature-filled, offering access to all your Basecamp messages, todos, time entries, contacts and milestones. Going above and beyond, however, the 37signals blog reports that Avalanche includes features not found in Basecamp, such as auto time entry, spreadsheet generation of time reports, time estimate tracking and contact exporting (which I thought Basecamp already did).

Ultimately, Avalanche looks like an impressive widget for a service loved by its vast and growing base of users. Of course, as with many other widgets, Avalanche is offered free from Avalanche-widget.org.

On Sunday, software developer Rod Schmidt, author of PackRat, the Backpack service client, posted a request on his blog. He's interested in creating a PackRat-like client for project collaboration tool Basecamp. PackRat, if you recall, is an OS X tool that lets you work offline on your Backpack data. Schmidt is looking for feedback and suggestions for a similar Basecamp client. He writes, "I think this product has even more potential than PackRat and I'd love to get some feedback." If you have some ideas, pop by his webpage and leave a comment.

After blogging the Basecamp widget, TUAW reader Mike Jacobsen wrote in to let us know about a Basecamp widget he recently launched for Dashboard, called Telescope. For now, Telescope appears to be more of a monitoring widget than anything, allowing users to:

• List current projects
• View last 25 updates (to-dos, milestones, messages, comments, files)
• Filter update list by project
• View next milestone for each project

Mike also blogged his experience with building the widget in Dashcode, and links other projects that have either produced products, such as Packrat and other Basecamp utilities. He even lists 37Signals APIs and resources in case you're a developer looking to hop on the bandwagon.

It's good to see more work being done on utilities that interact with these web services in creative new ways. My personal favorite is still Packrat for Backpack, largely because of its offline and syncing capabilities.

Basecamp is an award-winning, web-based project management service from the much-loved 37Signals, makers of the equally-loved Backpack. Since Backpack has had its own widget for a while now, it seems that Kennedia Consulting felt it was high time Basecamp received the Dashboard treatment as well. The cleverly titled Basecamp Widget offers an interface to the pleasantly simple, yet powerful, Basecamp web service, allowing you to:

• View Milestones, Todos, Posts and Contacts for your active projects
  
• Complete and Uncomplete Milestones
  
• Complete and Uncomplete ToDo items

The author has also stated that a slew of additional features are planned for the widget, depending on how much interest is expressed from the community (hint hint). So check out the widget, submit some feedback and let the developer know you care.