Top 6 Basecamp iPhone Clients: Hyper-Collaborative Project Management Applications
by Bill French on 14/06/09 at 1:20 am
Bill French is an information architect specializing in Internet applications. He is also the co-founder of MyST Technology Partners and Senior Editor for iPhoneCTO.
At MyST Technology Partners we’ve used Basecamp (from 37 Signals) since long before there was an iPhone. This is a phenomenally simple, yet effective collaborative project management system for small and medium sized companies, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that a few Fortune 500 companies are using it as well.
Basecamp provides a simple approach to team messaging, document sharing, tasks, and milestone management. It also provides a collaborative system for document authoring by multiple authors. Projects can be created in seconds, tasks can be assigned across a team with instant notifications, and project documentation can be quickly shared and easily updated. But one of the best features is the API – it’s wide open and highly reliable – a foundation that has resulted in the development of many third-party iPhone clients. While there are many Basecamp iPhone clients, six clients worth looking at include:
- Encamp, $9.99
- Groundwork, $3.99
- Basetent, $9.99
- Outpost, $12.99
- Projects, $9.99
- Mothercamp, $0.00
At MyST, we’ve tested and used all these clients with the exception of Groundwork which is about to ship a major update. We’ll give it a close look as soon as it is released. Only Basetent offers a free lite version. Each of these clients provide useful integrations with Basecamp, but the user interfaces vary greatly. As such, it’s not easy to say which one is best for you or your organization. Setting aside price, each of these clients provide unique mobile project management experiences that elevate the value of of both Basecamp and the iPhone.
Your business operating requirements may also dictate which iPhone client is best for you. For example, I use four different Basecamp accounts with multiple projects in each – this requires a client that can easily access and switch between multiple accounts and across projects in each account.
Some of these Basecamp clients include user interfaces that intentionally depart from Apple’s iPhone Human Interface Guidelines. However, the departures from usual and customary standards are likely related to an attempt to mimic Basecamp’s user interface as much as possible. Basetent provides the most similar interface to the Basecamp experience. Personally, I like big buttons and check boxes; they seem to help me be more productive with my phone. As such, I prefer Encamp or Outpost from a user interface perspective.
For my work, Encamp meets my requirements best since it supports rapid switching between Basecamp accounts, a key requirement when I’m away from the office and my work context is changing frequently. Encamp also allows you to access archived projects, a feature that none of the other clients we tested supports.
Of the apps we tested, only Mothercamp had stability problems. During one session, the application locked up with an unhandled exception which required a reinstall before it could be used again. Otherwise, Mothercamp was a fairly good experience.
On the horizon (currently in beta) is Kompass for Basecamp, a cross-platform mobile interface that will support Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Blackberry. The compass website suggests they are developing a “portal” application for Basecamp, so it’s not clear that they will offer native cross-platform applications of a common web interface experience for mobile browsers. In any case, this is additional evidence that Basecamp mobility is emerging as a successful collaboration tool for businesses.
iPhone app reviews
Sep 25th, 2009
Basecamp is such a simple yet useful tool for anyone. I love it around the office for it's document sharing abilities. This saves me time and is just as convenient for the recipients. I am excited for the Kompass for Basecamp. I have actually never heard of it, but I will now be looking into thanks to this article.
Eric Fransen
Feb 18th, 2010
I'm excited to give an update on Kompass (http://www.kompasshq.com). We are in active in development and expect to start our invite only beta testing before April 1st. Any questions let me know.
Thanks!
joshuatessier
Mar 4th, 2010
If you're in the market for an iPhone app for Basecamp, check out http://headquartersapp.com/. It's the 'get things done' Basecamp application for users on the iPhone. It's extremely useful and is often quoted as “more intuitive to use than Basecamp” itself and it sports a beautiful, unique UI.
joshuatessier
Mar 4th, 2010
If you're in the market for an iPhone app for Basecamp, check out http://headquartersapp.com/. It's the 'get things done' Basecamp application for users on the iPhone. It's extremely useful and is often quoted as “more intuitive to use than Basecamp” itself and it sports a beautiful, unique UI.