I really don’t like to review products unless I am really moved by them and feel that they serve as a great example of integrating into the mobile lifestyle.
ContaStick is one such app for Series 60 phones. It basically is a one-handed operated UI to access all your contacts to call, sms, email, or edit the contact. The app is smooth and quick, integrates without having to learn a new mode, and is easy to install. And it fits so well as another way folks can interact with their contact data.
I use it all the time now.
There were at least three gotchas for me, though.
1) I kinda had to teach myself to search using the first or last name. It’s way much faster, but you kinda need to keep thinking of the letter you want to follow in the UI. This is really an extra ‘good feature’.
2) It can be set up to have a quick start key press that would open the app from anywhere. Unfortunately, they chose only one combination – pencil key, joystick click. That so happens to be the way to copy text, so I had to disable it. This is an ‘oops, useless feature’. They should find other key combos.
3) It seems to re-index every so often, but I haven’t figured out the logic. But, sometimes it bothers me by re-indexing every time I open the app. But, hey, this is really the only thing that I can find wrong with this that mildly bugs me. And I’m picky!
Link: ContaStick.
ContaStick is a a radical new Phone Book application which dramatically increases the ease and speed of selecting a contact from your address book.
This is done with just 3 or 4 movements of the joystick on average. And then it is just a matter of one more flick of the joystick and you are calling, texting or emailing them.
