X1 Pro 7 (beta)

The productivity software X1 Pro 7 (free while it's in beta) pulls together your social networks, email clients, and local files into one mega inbox. Picture it! One application. One dashboard. All the vital activity and data from Outlook, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, AOL, IMAP, and even your desktop files. All indexed and searchable.

X1 Pro 7 delivers well on its promise to merge all these programs into one location where you can interact with them, ultimately helping you increase your productivity because you're no longer switching between various apps. However, I wonder if X1 Pro 7 goes too far on a conceptual level. Isn't a personal computer the place where all these things are already merged?

For certain classifications of software, I see how an app aggregator might make sense, something like TweetDeck (4 stars) or Seesmic Desktop 2 (3 stars), which focus almost exclusively on social networking and don't try to lump in file management, personal email, and business email. Don't get me wrong. X1 Pro 7 works very well, and some of its features seem to have been born of real consideration for how people generally interact with data and content. The question is whether it can improve your productivity, or if it goes too far in replicating what the personal computer and modern operating systems already accomplish.

What Can X1 Pro 7 Do?
You can download X1 Pro 7 for computers running Windows XP or later at no cost while the product is still in beta in exchange for your email address. Small and quick to download and install, the app can be up and ready to configure in just a minute or two.

To get started, you have to tell X1 Pro 7 what applications it can use. The full list of what's available is: AOL, Facebook, files, Gmail, IMAP, Lotus Notes, Outlook, Twitter, and Yahoo! mail. I had no trouble authenticating Outlook (although it had to be closed during installation) and Yahoo! mail, but it took me two tries to connect with Facebook and Twitter. Connecting with these social apps is similar to setting up any other third-party interaction with them, wherein you must validate the connection on the site (i.e., tell Facebook you allow the app and grant the permissions it requests).

When running, X1 Pro 7 looks remarkably similar to many email clients. There is a left pane listing the applications that you've added, a central pane showing line items of activity, and a preview pane that can appear either at right, left, or below. Each application name in the left pane can expand and collapse to show more or less information about what it contains. For example, the Outlook listing expands to show Email, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes. Additional subdirectories are likewise expandable and collapsible: Email opens to Inbox, Sent Items, and Attachments.

You can configure exactly which folders within your email system X1 Pro 7 will index, so for example, you might allow it to pull information from Gmail, but only the inbox and a folder called "Work-related" if you were using the app for business purposes. You might not want to be distracted by other matters.

X1 Pro 7 also gives you very good and precise control over how often the app indexes from the various apps it's aggregating. Productivity enthusiasts will appreciate the ability to restrict incoming emails from hitting your X1 Pro inbox more than once an hour?email is typically seen as a major distraction and productivity killer.

An "Everything" option at the very top of the left pane shows all the activity from all the allowed apps. For me, the Everything button flooded my list with too much activity, arresting my ability to focus on the essential tasks while culling out the inessential ones. Plus, you can't search "everything" at once; rather, searches are only possible app-by-app, although searching is fast, thorough, and efficient. The Everything view could be useful for people whose jobs require them to respond to social media activity and email with equal weight, like social media strategists, but the average office employee may be overwhelmed.

As mentioned, X1 Pro 7 can index your computer files, and it works similar to email in that you can configure it to index only selected directories or folders. The controls are super intuitive for strong computer users, but equally simple to understand for those who are less technically adept, with good and clear explanations offering guidance.

The Utility is the Thing
The least productive thing?in my opinion?about X1 Pro 7 is that it replicates email. On the one hand, the app does an extraordinarily good job of understanding how most people use email, and extending that concept to other areas of personal computing. On the other hand, I am personally not a proponent of the "email way", and would rather see a tool that does the exact opposite: lets people reach email's ends (fast, asynchronous communication) without email's means (the inbox, read versus unread messages, etc.).

Ironically, one feature I like most in X1 Pro 7 is how it displays the content of URLs shared through Facebook and Twitter (see the slideshow for an example) as if they were emails. The preview pane displays the actual Web page of the link. The "email inbox" way of thinking may be of value after all, but perhaps not in the way I or most people might expect.

Productive for Whom?
X1 Pro 7, which is still technically in beta, is well worth trying if you're tired of or frustrated with the limitations of some other aggregator apps. Its ability to merge social networking with personal Web-based email, business email clients, and file-management does give it some robust capabilities over other desktop clients. However, some users will not see the utility of X1 Pro 7, as it doesn't do anything that your computer can't already do?except enable it from one central dashboard and give you the ability to cull out some folders/directories ahead of time. And still others will see its email-like design as antithetical to productivity.

For more productivity and organizational tips, see our weekly Get Organized series of articles and videos.

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