If you wanted to check your bank balance, Netflix queue, and eBay purchases from your BlackBerry or iPhone, which would you start with first? If you answered "all three," take a look at Pageonce, which we've spotlighted in this First Look video.
After logging in on your phone, you'll be able to view what is essentially a stylized RSS feed of your financial, social-networking, travel, and shopping accounts, the details of which are secured from prying eyes in a number of ways. Pageonce for iPhone comes in a free, ad-supported version and in a pro version that costs about $10. Pageonce for BlackBerry costs $10 for the same features as the iPhone pro version.
(Credit:
Pageonce)
If you're already using Pageonce on your BlackBerry, get ready for version 2.0.
On Wednesday, the Silicon Valley company is releasing an upgrade to its productivity application.
Instead of getting a fresh lick of paint or a slew of new features, Pageonce 2.0--which lets you view status feeds for your social networks, e-mail, flights, and finances from a centralized app--will simply, importantly, give you full managerial control over the app's basic functions. Starting Wednesday, you'll be able to register, add accounts, and delete them from the phone.
While the new functionality is more a win for first-time users than for those who have been around since the early beta, being able to join up and build your feed from the phone is critical if Pageonce is to virally succeed. It also seems prudent, I should add, to let people delete accounts on a mobile application with your bank balance, stock portfolio, and credit card charges.
We'll post Pageonce 2.0 for BlackBerry here when it goes live Wednesday. It will also be available over the air at m.pageonce.com for many BlackBerry phones, including the touch-screen Storm.
Updated 10/20/08 with a product download link.
I just demoed the prerelease version of Pageonce for BlackBerry, an app that will help track your personal finance and other online accounts.
For those of you unfamiliar with the product of which I speak, Pageonce (covered here and here) is a one stop shop for accessing all your online accounts from your mobile phone (as of today that's just the iPhone).
You sign up for an account online and begin filing the details for any number of personal accounts. There are templates you can choose by category, such as airlines for travel, Netflix and Amazon for entertainment, and, of course, your banking and credit card accounts. If your account type isn't there, you can add it in by hand.
After the initial setup, which can take some time if there are a lot of accounts you'd like to track, you'll be able to sign in from the BlackBerry to view your transactions, credit limits, and balance statements chronologically or by individual account.
Keep tabs on your cumulative spending.
(Credit: Pageonce)If all this inputting of personal details sounds a little scary--after all, who would lightly enter their financial information anywhere?--keep in mind that Pageonce is shielded by 256-bit encryption and that Pageonce sends you e-mail alerts of suspicious activity if you or someone claiming to be you spends above your usual levels.
In the Advanced Security tab on BlackBerry, you'll also be able to lock Pageonce to your specific device. If anyone tries logging on from another device, your account will be deactivated to keep your information secure. If you're sharing financial information with someone else, however--a spouse, perhaps--Pageonce does support simultaneous sign-ins, so you can both track your cumulative spending, stock portfolio, and due dates for your next bill.
Pageonce is a much prettier and more functional app on the iPhone, however it proves fast and easy to use on the BlackBerry. Pageonce is currently free of charge and free of advertisements, though CEO Guy Goldstein confirms that banner ads will soon premiere for both platforms. Goldstein is also toying with the idea of making Pageonce for BlackBerry a premium product in the future, so you'd best get to downloading while the downloading is good and free.
While I am personally slow to share my bank account numbers and other sensitive data, those with more expansive comfort zones will find Pageonce a useful tool, especially if you travel often and have limited opportunities to check your statements online.
You can download Pageonce for BlackBerry by pointing your mobile browser to www.m.pageonce.com.
Personal organizer PageOnce has a great iPhone application that I think many will find to be incredibly useful. Like its desktop sibling, PageOnce for iPhone is a feed aggregator the likes of Netvibes or MyYahoo. The only difference is that you're feeding it account information for utilities and services to get a quick overall view of your various balances and spending activity.
I've been using the application for the past few days, and have come to rely on it almost exclusively to keep track of bank accounts, mobile phone usage, and my Netflix queue. In fact, it's currently the only way to track your Netflix account short of visiting Netflix.com or another Web-based queue manager in Safari (although this is coming soon), but will do far more if you're willing to spend the time plugging in all your accounts.
PageOnce for the iPhone keeps each feed in its own container and opens it up like a nice large pop-up that can be scrolled through and dismissed with a quick touch on the screen. You can see all types of accounts that have been up through PageOnce on the Web. Missing, however, is a way to add new accounts from your phone. This will hopefully make it in later editions.
Privacy nuts should be a little wary of putting this much of their personal login information in the cloud, but the good news is the application can be set to forget your password every time you exit, keeping it safe if your phone is lost or stolen. Also, as mentioned in previous coverage, PageOnce uses bank-level security to keep accounts from being hacked.
Below is a demo of PageOnce for the iPhone and iPod Touch in action.
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