You carry enough around with you as it is, and it would be great to lighten you load by minimizing the things you carry and remember on a daily basis. i’m talking about the cards you keep in your wallet and the logins and passwords you have to struggle to remember.

Say, you’re already carrying your iPhone around with you, aren’t you? Why not just put them in there?

Well, that’s exactly what the fine folks at the St. Petersburg Softwarehouse had in mind with SPB Wallet.

Security!

Before you even get into your wallet, you’ve got to enter a password (which you’ll set up when you first launch the app). This screen is straight-forward, but I would like an easier way to input numbers and other symbols aside from what the default iPhone keyboard offers. I found it cumbersome to always type in my alphanumeric password so I ended up changing it to “dood” for the duration of the review. It wasn’t secure, but it was a lot easier to type than…hey, I’m not telling you!

The Concept

Unlike address books and task lists, you can’t really convert a real wallet into ones and zeroes. SPB’s software isn’t going to hold any dollar bills or carry any loose change, but it can hold a lot more than whatever your keep in your pocket or purse.  It takes a bit more effort to put a card into it, but once that’s done you can rest assured it isn’t going to drop out or get left behind for somebody else to find. You also have the option of carrying multiple wallets around without any downsides. I tried carrying two wallets around before and let me tell you, it was a strange, uncomfortable, and bulging experience. Sometimes things are better when they’re digital.

Cards and folders and lots of templates

Wallet is basically all about cards and folders. Cards are sorted into different folders like “Web Accounts” and “Credit Cards”. Enter a a username/password or a credit card number and you’re good to go. Web Accounts can also be assigned a URL so that Wallet will auto-fill the login info via the built-in browser or mobile Safari.

Once I finished inputting all of my cards and accounts I gave myself a pat on the back for really utilizing the wallet.

Then I looked at the templates.

Woah. There are templates for pretty much any piece of information you could ever have to store. It’s rather overwhelming at first, and then at second and third as well. There are templates for passports, travel visas, voice mail codes, and even the garage door. If for some reason you find something without a template, you can even create your own. You have control of everything from the card background to the number and types of fields. In fact, you’re probably going to want to fiddle with the template settings since the default ones look a little bland. This fact surprised me since everything aside from the cards fits right home in the iPhone UI, but I find the card templates stick out like a sore thumb. This is all just semantics, though.

Field by Field

The aspect of the program that really keeps me from becoming a true Wallet convert is the field system. In order to create a card you’re going to have to fill in the username or account holder field and then the password field, and so on. I’m guessing it might be insecure to use the iPhone’s crappy camera to optically recognize my various cards, but entering my card information one field at a time feels far too time consuming. Even for something as simple as inputting my JAMM info requires a minimum of ten taps (aside from typing in the data). Multiply those taps by the number of web accounts I have and Wallet becomes a real timesink.

There is a $10 desktop client to help speed things up, though. Typing the fields out on a full keyboard is a lot faster and you can even capture card info from your browser – but again, that’s on the computer, not the iPhone. This seems to be the case with all digital wallet software I’ve used (SPB Wallet and eWallet)  – desktop clients don’t come free with purchase.

Syncing

Here’s something your real wallet can’t do: magic. If you ever feel the need to back up all the cards (from device to desktop, or vice versa) you can do so via the Wallet desktop client. Syncing happens over wi-fi and finishes relatively quickly, and I appreciate how much thought SPB has put into making the process as secure as possible. Syncing requires the two computers be paired, and pairing requires you to enter a code on the desktop which will only appear on your iPhone.

The search bar

SPB Wallet’s search function is powerful and fast and it’s pretty thorough to boot. Searching for a particular username is a given, but I was surprised to find that the search extends to every field on every card. This means that finding out which PIN number goes with which card is just one search away.

Conclusion

SPB has created a fast and efficient database for anything with numbers or a name that you might need to remember. Just like their offerings on Windows Mobile, SPB’s Wallet is ridiculously easy to use but still offers a lot of customization under the hood. I do wish that there was an easier way to input information other than tackling it field by field, but I’m not sure there’s an easier way short of great optical character recognition or including the desktop client with the purchase of the iPhone app.

I think the Wallet imagery could be improved upon with more emphasis on the look of the cards, but it’s still a fast and stable app, which counts for a lot more than looks. If you’re looking to lighten the load in your back pocket and don’t mind spending the initial time it will take to break the app in, then check out SPB Wallet for the iPhone.

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You can pick up your own copy of SPB Wallet for $9.99 on the App Store. If you’re interested in the desktop client, you can buy that for $9.99 from SPB’s website.