Filed under: iPad
First look: OmniFocus for iPad
Copyright 2010 The Omni Group. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
With OmniFocus for iPad just now hitting the App Store, I haven't yet had as much time as I would like to use the application to its fullest potential. My initial interaction has, however, been positive. Costing a rather steep $39.99, OmniFocus for iPad brings another professionally priced tool for professionals into the App Store iPad arena.
OmniFocus offers a way to create to-do lists on steroids. You can brainstorm out ideas, then start organizing and classifying them into separate projects, tasks, and "contexts"; contexts allow you to make tasks relevant to where and when you are working on things. Items related to working at home will not intrude into your "Office" context, for example.
As you organize your to-do elements, your data can used locally, be synced to your local desktop, over the air to Mobile Me, and so forth. So if you're progressing with your work on multiple devices, your task completion and ideas can move with you. That means if you're used to working with OmniFocus on your personal computer or iPhone, that data can now integrate with your iPad using a native app that takes advantage of the iPad's extended geometry and native features.
As with the previous Omni products I've looked at, OmniFocus has really thought about the new user. Like Omni's other iPad apps, OmniFocus immediately draws you into the application and teaches you how to use it from the ground up. Their "Welcome to OmniFocus for iPad" series of Inbox items describes how to use their product and get help along the way. You'll quickly start adding new inbox items, assigning due dates, and attaching items to projects.
The GUI has been very well built. This really feels like a proper iPad application with an expansive workspace that doesn't need to cramp or fold itself to fit onto an iPhone screen. I had a few very minor quibbles with the design (for example, why does the "create new item" button look like it's a toggle that's paired with the Inbox, when it's not?) but for the most part everything seemed solidly laid out and, if you excuse the pun, focused on getting the job done.
OmniFocus is not going to be a tool for everyone, especially with its high price tag. It's clearly aimed at serious business users who need a fully-realized task management tool that allow you to build, manage, and visualize projects. Although I have not spent a lot of time using this application yet, my initial reaction is positive. Features like the calendar-driven Forecast screen where you can explore your due dates and the beautiful collapse and show grouping elements in the Projects and Contexts tables highlight how much work and thought has gone into this app. So, in a nutshell: expensive? Yes. Worth it? Very possibly, especially if you are Omni's core business user demographic.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Erik said 9:22PM on 7-30-2010
Looks great.
However, after dropping $80 for OmniFocus and $20 for the iPhone version, another $40 really hurts the wallet. I'm not saying it's not worth it, but... OUCH.
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ABCNEWSER.com said 9:29PM on 7-30-2010
$40!?! I am now even more happy that I chose Things for iPhone, iPad, and Mac last month. I was right on the edge between the two, as they seem to have very similar ratings for the iPhone in the App Store. OF didn't have an iPad app at the time, so I chose Things. I guess I just saved myself $60.
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phormality said 2:51AM on 7-31-2010
Things doesn't have automatic sync via something like MobileMe, you need to use WiFi which kills it for me. I don't want to remember to open Things on my iPhone and Mac before leaving the house everyday to get them in sync. With OmniFocus I can be out, pull out my phone, iPad, or laptop and it will sync with the latest data. I purchased Things on the desktop and iPhone, but I ending up calling it quits because of this.... also, I'm a huge fan of nested lists which Things doesn't have. I can have folders, with projects in my folders, then sub tasks of tasks inside of OmniFocus which I really like.
brent said 10:34PM on 7-30-2010
Pocket Informant has the same functionality at a fraction of the cost.
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Norman said 6:56AM on 7-31-2010
Syncing over 3g is really a must have. I don't understand why companies that have the money and manpower like the guys behind THINGS never got that integrated. I really don't understand it. Can s1 tell me what their problems are?
Gazoobee said 10:54PM on 7-30-2010
I don't want to be too negative, but I must say that one of the biggest surprises for me in regards the iPad is how *little* I like any of the Omni apps and how awkward I find them to use, considering that I love the desktop versions and both own them and use them a lot.
I was really looking forward to the iPad versions and thought I would love them to death. It turns out they are pricey, and cumbersome instead. Cannot recommend.
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David Chartier said 11:22PM on 7-31-2010
I find it interesting how tastes can differ so widely. By comparison, I find OmniFocus for Mac to be clunky and not designed nearly as well. OmniFocus on iPad and iPhone make me want to do most of my task management on those devices, instead of the Mac version.
Marcelo Rodrigues said 11:50PM on 7-30-2010
This is another sad example of missing the target on pricing. The app is merely manipulating a data structure and displaying the results. There is minimal amount of coding involved here so the costs in programming labour is emphatically not driving the high price. Now someone must have spent time drawing little graphical thingies in addition to general layout, and don't forget the marketing costs -- but what infinitesimal fraction of forty bucks was it? OK, so the costs of producing the app has nothing to do with it and the product manager decided he/she wants to charge what he/she thinks the market will bear as in the old NeXTSTEP days. Perhaps the target audience identified was that elusive group of professionals which the article refers to as "serious business users." Well, wrong platform Omnigroup, this is a platform for not so serious casual users. Given that the costs are so low you might as well divide the price by at least ten and the app will sell like hot cakes to -yes- casual users.
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Mel said 12:23AM on 7-31-2010
I like OmniFocus and have been willing to do the work to get a complex program to work smoothly (I use Mac desktop version and iPhone version). I wanted to like the iPad version, but if I use it I will be working in 3 very different paradigms for one software product! The mental work to do that is not worth it.
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studio said 12:28AM on 7-31-2010
Wow great program but priced too steep for me.
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studio said 12:30AM on 7-31-2010
Ah, when is Tuaw going to get an iPad version for their app?
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othernet said 1:03AM on 7-31-2010
I have tried nearly all of them - Things, Awesome Note, Paperless, 2Do, Pocket Informant... you name it. But I still come back to OmniFocus. It is pricier than the rest but if you want something really solid and less fluff, this application/app combo really does the job. Solidly syncs with my desktop, iPhone and iPad.
I know it is designed more as a GTD/task list app, but it has become my "go to" app for nearly everything. Clipping bits of info from web or text with right-click on the desktop, sending emails for action from Entourage, bookmarking with "Send to OmniFocus", and I love the picture attachment feature which gives you a visual reminder when you need it.
The biggest missing feature for me was the ability to send tasks via email for delegation but the iPad version implements this feature now. Although, it is a bit silly now when you can only email individual task and not a group or list of tasks. Hopefully that would be fixed in the next update.
One other thing is although fundamentally all three desktop, iPhone and iPad versions are the same, there are features missing from each other and that to me is not ideal. The feature experience should be designed to be very similar across all three apps even if the presentation may differ to suit the screen real estate.
Being primarily a task list, for me OmniFocus is pretty flexible and it is nearly as good as an information manager similar to Devonthink or Yojimbo that you can carry with you and sync across all your iDevices. I also wish they would include some sort of freeform note attachment to each Project folder it creates. For me, this plus Evernote are my two primary apps for cloud and sync based actionable database.
One more thing. Can OmniGroup hire a better UI graphic designer? Some of the graphics are rather fuddy-duddy. Not asking for it to look fancy like Awesome Note but it looks a bit old as it is.
All in all, $140 investment across 3 devices isn't too bad with rock solid performance, and productivity.
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studio said 3:34AM on 7-31-2010
If it went on sale for half off I would purchase it but right now, the price is way too high. I have other todo apps and they will suffice.
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Stephen said 10:21AM on 7-31-2010
The price is ludicrous, no matter which way you look at it.
Marcel said 3:46AM on 7-31-2010
Erica, have you actually used this thing for real, or are you just recycling OmniGroup propaganda and/or other reviewers' opinions?
I wonder whether all the reviewers going gaga about how wonderful this thing is have spent any time trying to navigate a 179 projects, 2792 actions database, like I tried to do today.
It is extremely frustrating. I will mention just a few issues,
- try this: go two levels deep, create a new project, create a new action in the project, go up one level, look at something, then go back to that last action you just created. Count how many taps it takes to do this.
- focus on a project, and while browsing it, create a new sibling of the project (hint: you can't, period, create a new project while a project is focused)
- focus on a project, then un-focus (hint: you can't, not easily anyway)
- navigate to a project several levels deep, create new project, focus on it, then go up a couple of levels, answer a phone call and get distracted, then figure out where in the hierarchy your project (showing nicely on the right side of the screen) is (hint: this is getting old already)
Note to reviewers: the ability to sync over the cloud and link contexts to your location are nice bullets in a propaganda document, but they don't mean squat if the actual act of adding a freaking action takes more than tapping a + button and there is no way to figure out where the things showing right there on your screen actually are.
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Marcel said 4:32AM on 7-31-2010
I have been using (trying to) this for many hours today and have already submitted more than two dozen bug reports to OmniGroup.
Of course this is just my opinion, but this is absolutely a disaster, and not, in any way, worth $40.
Here are some of the things it does, or does not do:
- after searching for something, you get a list of matching actions, but there is no way to show any one of those actions in context (that is, where is it in the folder/project hierarchy)
- you can add actions and projects with no text whatsoever, completely empty, there is no error checking
- there is no easy way to create action groups; it's possible, but you have to create the actions first, then tap them and select Move and find the action group you mean to contain the action (not a lot of fun if you have a few dozen of those, always starting from the top)
- you edit an action, add image attachments, sounds, due dates, start dates and what not, then you change your mind; guess what, there is no way to cancel the edit, there is only a Done button which just saves everything, like it or not. You can't tap outside the action editor, the ONLY thing you can do is tap Done. And, if you moved the action to another project, you are completely lost, it doesn't show the new place
- this is actually a question you will ask yourself again and again, and again and not so nicely either, where the f**k am I in the whole hierarchy/structure of this?!
- Safari integration just doesn't work
- the Undo button gets enabled randomly, without you having made any changes whatsoever (that's what you think, lol) and tapping it has no effect; not exactly what you would expect from an app that you're supposed to trust with storing all your brain dumps. This is actually very scary when you experience it in practice.
- in some situations, tapping the + button brings up a new action dialog, in other cases it brings up a new item dialog (which also creates an action, by the way); I haven't figured out which is which yet, and 'item' is a term whose meaning is not explained anywhere. Is it an action, or a project, or a 'thing'? Well, it's an 'item'.
I could go on and on. I have not received any answer whatsoever from OmniGroup.
I think this thing is a total disaster, and definitely not worth the money. And I also think that anybody who wants to write a review of it should do the honest thing and try to actually use it for a few hours, with real world data, before publicizing half-baked opinions about it.
Very nice that it shows your actions on a map, but try it with a couple thousand actions and try to get back from the map to where the action actually is in your project hierarchy. Then, and only then, write a review.
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klavr said 7:22AM on 7-31-2010
The Omni Group has this thing that you have a 30-day guarantee to get your money back (-30%), even for App Store sales. Google 'omni group 30 day' to find their blog post.
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ezra hilyer said 8:59AM on 7-31-2010
I have to chime in here; I tried Omnifocus for the iPhone and Desktop, but I coudn't get past the complexity.
for my needs Things (iPad, iPhone, and Mac) work well. The only feature I really wish it had was cloud sync.
until I can get triple combo that does that and keeps its simplicity I will stick with what I have.
If the program is too complex in and of itself, I feel that It drains my productivity by waasting my energy on the list itself.
-Ezra
www.ezrahilyer.com
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midger said 2:41PM on 7-31-2010
I tried Omnifocus on my iphone, nice app but not for serious work requiring integration on other systems. I use a Mac, but have windows for work. A killer app would cover iPad, Mac and Windows.
Are there any out there?
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Roberto said 10:15AM on 7-31-2010
If you have a smartphone and an iPad, you will always prefer having a gtd application in the phone. It's not like you can easily bring the iPad to the hardware store without it being a thing of worry.
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