I think I last used it in version 2 or 2.5. But Now went though some buyouts and sales of the intellectual properties of the company kind of got lost in all the shuffling. It didn’t help that when Apple went to OS X 10 years ago, and included iCal and Address Book to answer the basic needs of most computer users.

Then Now Software resurrected Now and set out to refocus on Up-to-Date and Contact. The result is Now X, a combination of Up-to-Date and Contact, completely rewritten from the ground up to take advantage of the current Mac architecture. And there’s more coming. While Now X is a stand-alone Mac calendar and contact application, a server version and Windows client are under active development. The current Mac Now X client will work with the upcoming server.

So, how did Now do with the reinvention of their core product? Pretty well. Now X syncs seamlessly with your iCal calendars and Address Book contacts, and it does it in the background. I would have like to have been informed that a sync was going on when I first installed the program, something like a dialog box telling me that it was about to sync and that it could take several minutes or a progress bar or something. But the sync went off without a hitch, something that can be rare when different databases exchange data.

One of my great dislikes about iCal is the difficulty in editing events. You know, you double click on an event and have to click edit to edit the event. Now X gets it right. You double click on an event and you are immediately able to edit it. Another dislike is the inability to create templates in Address Book. When you create a new contact, you get the same old options regardless of whether it’s your boss or your brother-in-law (and I hope those are two different people for you). Address Book has one template that obviously doesn’t fit all. Now X allows you to create multiple templates, so you don’t have to deal with the toilet-paper salesman’s birthday, but you can use the correct template to make sure you don’t forget your wife’s birthday. Those are small but, I think, important differences.

The Good

This is a very Mac-like program and it’s obvious that the developers have spent a lot of time to make it that way. One of the things I look for in a Mac program is whether or not I need a manual to use it. I purposely do not read any read mes or instructions other than basic installation instructions because I’m convinced, as a Mac support specialist, that no one reads those anyway. This program was easy to install, easy to use and easy to understand. And for those of you who like to get complicated, it can do that to. This is a powerful contact manager and calendar program. It can be as detailed and complicated as you want it to be. Yet it can also be simple for users like me who need just a basic calendar and address book.

The Bad

As I mentioned earlier, it synced, which it warned it would do, but it didn’t offer me any feedback on whether or not it was actually syncing. Also, it automatically turned on it’s QuickDay menubar item on installation. I have way too many of those things on my menubar anyway, and would have preferred they ask me if I wanted to turn that on. I also had some menubar display issues with QuickDay. If I turned off QuickDay, then turned it back on, some of my menubar icons were duplicated. I hesitate to blame that on Now because I have so many of them, but since it happened when I installed QuickDay, there’s got to be something going on here. I was a little shocked by the price (US$130 for a new license), but then, I’m pretty cheap.

The Ugly

I didn’t really like the icon. (Yeah, I know I’m being petty, but I’ve come to expect better of Mac developers and I needed to put something under Ugly.)

Now X is available via download from Now Software for $130, with upgrades from Now Up-to-Date & Calendar 4 or 5 $50.

Macsimum rating: 8 out of 10.