I’ve been a fan of the VIPOrbit contacts app for iOS since it first launched, but two things get in the way of its true potential—well, make that one thing now, thanks to vipSync.

First, a little background on VIPOrbit: It’s a relationship manager more than a contacts app. It allows you to maintain your contacts, classifying them into one or more “orbits”, and to track connections among your contacts.

Just as I learned when using the Sage ACT database (which was co-developed by Mike Muhney, founder of VIPOrbit), VIPOrbit is only valuable if you actually use it. If you dabble in it here and there, it probably seems underwhelming. However, if you make it your primary contact, calendar, and communications hub, its ability to keep your life and calendar in order is impressive.

What are the two major issues with VIPOrbit? First, there’s no way to make it the default app for contacts, calendar, placing calls, or any of its other functions on your iPhone. Unfortunately, that’s a limitation of iOS itself and unless Apple changes the way apps can interact with its OS, there’s no fix. In the meantime, making proper use of VIPOrbit requires more conscious effort because calls, texts, calendar events, and other relevant actions will use the built-in iOS apps by default.

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