Pocket Reference

The iPhone, in its dual function as a digital organizer, has the capacity to do a number of things in the effort to simplify the user’s life. With different programs you can schedule your days, create to-do lists, and even us GPS navigation to find your next location. One of the new applications from the App Store is Pocket Pedia, an application that allows you to catalogue different collections you own.

To do this you first go to the Collections tab and select the little “+” symbol in the upper right hand corner to create a new Collection. There are three types available for this, the regular catalogue, the wish list, and borrowed items. Once you have created one you can then go to the Amazon search tab, select what type of item it is, what country it is from, and the search by title on the Amazon.com database. Here the item will show up, and when you select it you can see all of the product information that is available to the consumer. From here you can add it to your Collection. If you want to go back to the result of the search you entered you simply click on the Results tab on the bottom.

Pocket Pedia is not a bad program; it’s just a slow and horribly inefficient one. In the time it takes for you to search and add one item you can type most of your DVD collection into a word processing program. More than this, it is just an advertisement for Amazon.com, and the success of your search depends on its Amazon availability. You are also limited to the type of items you can create Collections for. All you can choose are books, DVDs, CDs, and games. It also runs incredibly slow, and the search mechanism often misfires on what you were searching for.

The big plus for this program is that it is free, so you can easily try it out and then delete it if you don’t like it. If you have a small list of items to put on a Wish List or if you have borrowed the list than it can be a nice reference tool. It can also be a good way to check the product details on certain items, especially the formatting and special features on DVDs.

You are not taking a huge risk by downloading it, but don’t expect much. You would have better luck doing the same function on a list application such as Zenbe.