Product Reviews

Conjure doesn't seem to know exactly what it is trying to be. Does it want to replace the desktop as a place to do work, or offer a space for storing and managing notes, links and texts? On the other hand: is it trying to be a personal journal?

It is capable of all of these things. Trouble is that it isn't spectacularly good at any of them. In every case there are other software tools, many free, that do any of these better.

It's one

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thing to populate a Conjure page with files, text, pictures and so on but on the whole they are either short cuts to other things, or temporary storage for the data until it gets moved elsewhere. You might want to jot a quick note in Conjure but you wouldn't want to write a document there.

We found ourselves frequently switching back to the Finder, which prompted the question: what's the point of it? It added an extra layer of complexity to our workflow rather than speed things up.

It's buggy, too: adding links to files and applications was possible by dragging them in from a Finder window but once added, the links didn't work. No good as a launcher then.

Conjure attracted our attention because the central idea - replacing the desktop with a simple alternative - seemed innovative and full of potential. Sadly that potential is let down by the poor quality of this early release. The chances are that few will be prepared to pay anything at all for this product as it stands, let alone the price that's being asked.