Since the day I started using the iPhone the one application I missed more than anything was Handy Safe, the application I was using on my previous Symbian S60 smartphone to store all my passwords and private information in a secure way. With the amount of web logins I have it is impossible to remember them all and I am constantly having to get my passwords reset via email, which is a pain.

With Apple finally releasing the App Store I instantly searched for a similar application and SplashID from SplashData seems to be the only one to make the cut off date for launch release. I instantly downloaded, paying a not too pricey, but not insignificant £5.99 (or $9.99).

So, was it worth the investment? Is this the secure storage application we've all been wating for? Read on to find out...

OK, let me explain why I think SplashID fails completely as an iPhone application!

Lets start with my last phone, a Nokia E61, this phone arguably is more feature packed than the iPhone, with the exception of a camera (which is pretty woeful on the iPhone anyway). The problem is that the interface is a slow complicated mess of shortcuts and key presses and even multiple ways of doing the same thing. The iPhone in comparison is a joy to use, no doubt it has less functionality, but it has all the important areas covered and they are available for use easily and quickly.

In short, the iPhone (and some would say Apple itself) lives and dies by it's user interface, the swishing, swiping and pinching really does make a difference and is the only reason the touch screen interface works at all.

This leads on to the first thing that wrong with SplashID, Apple use a variety of mechanisms to get round the fact that you do don't get any physical feedback when you push a button, the most important of these is speed, keep everything snappy and you are never left wondering whether the iPhone noticed. Of course the iPhone does have limited horsepower so it also uses a system of smoke and mirrors to give the illusion of speed when it isn't there.

Launch any built in application and it zooms into view, this gives you instant feedback so you know the iPhone registered your finger press and it also makes it feel quick, unlike the E61 which although providing physical feedback on it's hardware buttons, would always wait a bit before launching. What you may not know is that this is slight of hand by Apple, the zooming into the application is actually done before the application is ready, and it achieves this by storing an image of the screen as it would look once it has started and showing this immediately on activation, only once the application is fully launched is this replaced with a working interface.

SplashID tramples all over this illusion by replacing this image with a pointless splash screen that advertises Splash Data every time you launch the application, why? I know what application I launched, and I know what it does, and I even know who programmed it, why do I need to be reminded of it every time I look at it?

OK, get past this and you get to the second howler, the password screen.

When I moved from the E61 I thought that the lack of a physical keyboard on the iPhone would be it's downfall, but as it turns out I find the touch keyboard is actually an improvement. Again, this is down to Apple and their design, the keyboard is less precise than a physical one, but with the system constantly checking for what it thinks you meant to write instead of what your digits are actually hitting you end up with a pretty accurate and fast system.

What it isn't good at is entering passwords, the system only works when it can spell check as you type but obviously this needs to be turned off for password fields. The result of this is that you have to very carefully point in exactly the right place for each character, hardly convenient for checking your secure data while out and about. A pin system with larger input buttons would be much better, I know this is not quite as secure but usability has to be taken into account.

Unfortunately the user interface doesn't improve after that, here is the screen to add a new item:

Seems simple enough, push on the icon top left and you can assign a pretty icon to the entry, OK so it takes two presses on the selection screen when one would do, you need to press the icon required and then push save at the top, but that's a minor point.

OK, what is the field next to it, name? description? No idea, but it does have a little arrow in it to suggest it's clickable so you press it, it flashes and nothing happens. Hmmm, OK lets fill in the rest of the fields, they don't follow the same interface as the icon selection, now we just need one tap to select the category/type.

Now lets add a date, we get this screen:

What do we put in the edit here field? a date? a description? lets try a description. Then move to the Date field, select that and you can edit the field, but what should I put in there? another description? a date? Actually it turns out the Date field is the field description and the top field should be the actual date, which you can select with the icon to the right of it. Terrible interface design.

OK, lets go back to the main screen, oh hang on, now we have no description for the entry:

It looks like that unlabelled field must be the description, but I already tried that and it didn't work. To cut a long story short, you have to double click that field!  None of the others, just that one! Why? Unknown.

This inconsistent design flows all through the application, extra key presses when not required, the same types of field behaving differently on the same page, all in all a very frustrating experience.

There is some advanced functionality on offer here, the ability to sync wirelessly with a desktop client (not included) potentially being the most useful, but I have not tested that feature, I am not tempted to shell out an additional $19.95 on the desktop client.

I think I should at least try to defend SplashData a little, I'm sure that they were working to some very tight deadlines with beta versions of the development kit and they obviously felt it was important to get their application out for the App Store launch. Unfortunately this has resulted in a very poor user experience.

I hope they manage to turn it around, I'll keep an eye out for the updates and report any significant improvements back here.

SplashID at the App Store