iDatabase for Mac is exactly what this title says: a database application to be run on Macintosh computers. Do you need a software program to produce and maintain an inventory of your household possessions? To produce a file listing all the members of your organization with the information relevant to contacting them, identifying them? Do you need a program to help you keep track of when your auto needs its periodic servicing? Such needs may be readily met with iDatabase, a Mac application that is low-cost and easy, for the most part, to run.

iDatabase is acquired from Apimac's Web site with a straight-forward download process. Its download produces the relevant "disk image" from which the contained icon is moved to your Applications folder to install it. Opening iDatabase by clicking on its icon in the Applications folder or the Dock gives you a simple window. At the window's bottom is a mini-window with a plus-sign (+) and a minus-sign (-). Clicking on the + opens a left-side box listing the names of 22 templates available for you to install for your use. The list also includes "None"; more about this below. Here are the 22 templates: Accounts, Books, CD Collections, Classes, Computers, Contacts, Customers, DVD Collection, Events, Expenses, Inventory, Movie Catalog, Membership List, Mobile Phones, Notes, Pet Care, Projects, Recipes, Records, To Do, Vehicle Membership. Each of these templates has already-installed fields ready for entry of relevant data. If none of these templates suits your need for a particular kind of database, you can produce your own by clicking on the "None" to start building a new database. At the top of window are three "buttons": Open, Use, Define. Clicking on "Define" produces a list a of 14 field-types: Small Text Field, Large Text Field, Number Field, Date Field, Time, Date and Time, Image, Choose, Separator, Calculation, Email, Link, Checkbox, Password. The fields among these you believe will be needed in the database you are building can be dragged into the large area that will be the display area for each record you build.

If you already have a database with content you wish to install in iDatabase, you can import its content into iDatabase if that older database can export a csv (comma-separated values) file. The import does not, however, include field titles in the transferred file, only the fields themselves and their content. I should note further that one import I carried out from a .csv file I had compiled with Filemaker Pro did not include a field with Web addresses.

So who should consider acquiring and installing iDatabase? If you do not already have a database suiting your needs, iDatabase may be a good choice. It is substantially cheaper than other widely-known database applications and is, in general, easy to run. It does not have the aesthetic-elegance of Bento . It does not have potentially-useful complexities of an application like Filemaker Pro. It is — you might say — a "plain-Jane". Any downsides? The main one is that it does not provide an adequate manual that can guide you clearly in building your own variety of database. The support available from the Apimac Web site is little better. You may have to blunder around a bit with building your own variety of database, but the odds are that you will eventually get built what you want. Another relevant point is that the import process requires some decisions that are not explained, as far as I could see, in any available source.