Very nice - easy databasing for car maintenance, other stuff

Ive been a databaser for decades. Ive built multiuser databases in RBase and Access. Starting with the first Palm then PalmPilot, Ive used mobile databases to track personal stuff like vehicle maintenance and health. The specialized databases for these purposes have usually been over the top or too fiddly. I landed with HanDBase for many years through PalmPilots and PocketPC, then for the past two years in Apple since I switched to Apple. But HanDBase was not an Apple app from day one, and the HB developers are trying to serve all the operating systems out there. To their credit, HB is a nice system, but I wanted something that would sync easily between my iDevices and iMac.

I just discovered this well thought out app. I explored it first on my iPad, then bought the iPhone version, and finally the iMac version. It works great, very solid. After a few years of development they seem to have wrung out major bugs and added very nice features. Confirms my rationale for switching to the relatively calm, predictable world of the Apple ecosystem.

Happily I was able to import my HanDBase databases into custom Tap Forms that suit my needs perfectly. Importing from another program is not a task for the impatient, requiring precise attention to detail, but Tap Forms makes it pretty easy if one follows the rules. I will continue to use 1Password for my confidential data, because I have invested so much there already and I like the way 1Password integrates with Safari, but for other database purposes I will be very happy with Tap Forms.

iCloud sync works very nicely. I had no glitches out of the box. (In Apri 2014 an update broke sync but the developer fixed it and apologized - reset process was very easy and seamless).

Tap Forms is great for average users who want to track information and find specialized apps too confining. The app does not require users to be programmers. The user interface is fairly intuitive once one gets the hang of it, but could use some simplicity tweaking here and there. The developer seems very responsive, though I have not had to use tech support myself.

Now that Bento is going extinct, I predict a rosy future in this general user Apple database niche for Tap Forms.

ChugginAlong about Tap Forms Organizer and Secure Database, v2.2