Requirements is 10.7 (sadly)

Since Apple/Filemaker have chosen to abandon Bento (why, I wish I knew??), I have been forced to buy Filemaker. Having worked with it for a week or so now I have to say that despite the large price difference between the two, I find Bento to be far and away more stable. While working with FM I'm finding that I get the spinning beach ball on a frustratingly regular basis while working.
While FM may have more under the hood I preferred working with Bento. Another there is no upgrade pricing from Bento to FM. If you're looking for a Bento substitute, don't leap straight into FM.

Dear Apple,

iWork is a terrific package: Keynote, Pages and Numbers.

( Filemaker mentioned below, too )

Yes these have almost fully replaced MS-Office in my work.

But, as so often occurs with Apple, the package progresses little. I am a power-user. So I am less concerned about iWork apps on iOS or the web. I am also an older user. So I recall when MacWrite, MacDraw and MacProject led the field in software innovation. I also recall how Apple let these great products in their time languish and die. Apple was in its heart, after all, a hardware company. The software had done its job. Finito.

And what about Filemaker Pro ( a package with great potential but in need of an overhaul ) which languishes even more?

Will the same fate best the iWorks apps?

If so, who will take up the slack?

The problem is, no investor with $$$ will take up the slack.

Only small under-resourced developers are left. The web-based SAS model, still in so many ways flawed (not to mention inherently insecure), has driven investors out of the desktop application space. And who wants to compete against the likes of Google, Yahoo, SalesForce, Apple, etc in that space?

We live in a world where software development is all too often driven by a mass market, lowest common denominator mentality. Those of us who are power users find our needs are met less and less. There is just not enough net revenue after the less power-needy users are taken care of. So it seems.

I do hope I am proved wrong, and a significant iWorks apps feature upgrade appears this fall. But I am skeptical.

Yours sincerely ...

Gosh, if only Apple took Filemaker seriously.

Imagine that, we'd have a fully modern relation database creation tool for the "rest of us." The current iPad app does not fit the bill.

We need something on the Mac that also ports readily to the iPad.

There are few choices these days. The fact is, the undue preoccupation with creating web applications (and marketing tools) has decimated investment in useful ad hoc development tools such as Filemaker. It's a real shame, for all of us.

Version 12 has nice theme enhancements, but like most Filemaker upgrades, most of what they upgrade doesn't have value for most common users, as they mostly target enterprise customers. The best value in this upgrade is that it works with their free iOS apps.

Power users need simple usability improvements too, and Bento's complete lack of files is too simple for anyone with slightly complex needs. Bringing improved usability like is found in Bento is sorely needed. My Filemaker suggestions that have been ignored for years:

Undo: It is easy to accidentally hit return and erase data, and there is no way to undo that once return is pressed, apart from using Time Machine. It should be easy for Filemaker to copy and remember the contents of the cell being edited, regardless of Filemaker's excuse that it is a real database that makes changes instantly so undo is impossible. Impossible, really?

Table View: add copying/pasting/deleting and selecting across multiple cells/columns, like you can in a spreadsheet and Bento. There is no way to do this otherwise and it would make working with data lot easier.