Outpost - A BaseCamp Mobile Technology and Project Management Application

Outpost can be simply described as a project management application for the iPhone. It brings the utility of Basecamp for iPhone and iPod Touch users. Basecamp is among the most reputed contemporary online project management solutions software. 37signals has the reputation of creating uniquely-designed web applications that offer productivity blended with user-friendliness. Basecamp has been their outstanding performer, offering the most comprehensive and economically-priced projects management tools.

Within seconds after tapping into Outpost, the presence of Basecamp functionalities becomes evident. Outpost’s layout defines navigational comfort and user-comfort. The design has been created using a combined approach with SDK default format along with a bit of colorization that is featured in the Menu Bar. Many Basecamp originals, like the comments icon, have been used. However, what makes the Outpost an outright performer is its exhaustive set of core functions.

When the Outpost application is started, a simple welcome screen, along with many smaller listed fields welcomes the user. As a user, you would need to add the registered Basecamp credentials such as the URL. Once you are through with this, all the data from your Basecamp account is migrated to the iPhone. This data transfer is quite fast. Just like the web applications in Basecamp, Outpost applications have been formatted to easily distinguish original, project-defined activities from those that are preferred by an individual user.

At the outset, it may appear that the syncing function is a bit slow, but this is not the case — just remember that the data is being synced ‘on the go’ and this is bound to take a few extra seconds and then, this application is supported offline. Again, the syncing function has been smartly customized to ensure that the often-used projects are synced faster and this happens in the background, while you can continue working on browsing listed project activities.

Navigating various team projects is rather easy and flip rotation is offered to provide the convenience of accessing projects with the minimum of touches. There is a bottom bar that lists all the project-related activities that are assigned to you. This can be used along with the navigation to keep viewing all the other project activities that have been distributed among various team members. Further, you can customize the view to highlight certain portions like a bigger list of recent project changes that have been introduced.

Outpost offers the facility of using several Dashboard views (screens). This gives you a better overall project status view, in terms of recently-conducted team activities, project tasks marked under your name, along with a list of impending project milestones. The project listing is based upon when they have been downloaded and which ones were the latest to be worked upon, i.e. the most recent project information is always easily observable.

You also have the option of adding personal comments to incoming messages, project milestones and to activities listed under the ‘to-dos’. The comments can be further personalized by using Gravatar icons.

For those who are searching for an iPhone application that provides Basecamp features in an undemanding yet efficient way, Outpost is perhaps the only logical choice.