Filemaker has announced the shipping version of Bento, a new personal database app for Mac OS X. Early beta versions of Bento drew rave reviews for its glossy, iTunes-like interface and ease of use.
For a more in depth look at Bento see Michael's full review on Wired News. As Michael notes, "every household has a "planner," and Filemaker's Bento is tailor-made for this personality type - the hyperorganized dad who can't enjoy a vacation until all the reservations are documented in triplicate, or the wife who can't throw a party without labeled invitations and a spreadsheet tracking who's RSVP'd and who hasn't."
For the rest of us though Bento still has a few worthwhile features. For instance, in many ways creating and syncing both contacts and calendar events in Bento is better than the interfaces available in Apple's iCal or Address Book and you get the added bonus of having access to both in the single application.
Whether or not that justifies the $50 price tag (or $100 for a family pack license) is up to you, but you'd better decide soon since all those Bento betas are set to expire by the end of the month.
Filemaker has put up a series of slideshow and videos explaining Bento in more detail and offering a walkthrough of some possible workflows.
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