The Omni Group

Exciting news from Omni today, friends: we've got a brand-new product for you to try out. Introducing . . . OmniGraphSketcher.

Okay, technically it's not brand new, if you're going to be a stickler about “the truth” and all. OmniGraphSketcher was created by Robin Stewart, who designed what was originally called Graph Sketcher in 2003 while he was attending Williams College, and continued working on it at MIT where it was the basis of his master's thesis. Now that Robin's employed at Omni, he was kind enough to bring Graph Sketcher along with him, and for the last six months Omni has been hard at work developing the latest version of what is now OmniGraphSketcher.

What IS this product with the name that takes forever to type, you say? I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED. OmniGraphSketcher is a fast, simple tool that combines the data plotting power of charting applications with the ease of a basic drawing program. In short, you use it to make graphs. Precise, sharp-looking graphs, even.

OmniGraphSketcher is designed for reports, presentations, and problem sets where you need to produce accurate, presentation-worthy graphs on the fly. You can just click and draw lines, shade in areas, connect and align objects, and add labels as you go. Or, copy and paste data from a spreadsheet into OmniGraphSketcher. All adjustments are displayed in real time, so fine tuning is a breeze.

Whether you need to make economics diagrams, illustrate a science project, display marketing data, or just re-publish the well-known Cat Proximity Phenomenon, voila—OmniGraphSketcher to the rescue. Fast, simple graph drawing, without the hassle of using a complicated data visualization program. WIN.

OmniGraphSketcher is currently in beta, and licenses are available for $29.95. Educational and family pricing are available from the Omni Group's online store.

Note: if you're an existing Graph Sketcher customer, you're eligible for a free upgrade to OmniGraphSketcher, and will receive notification of your upgrade status via email.

You can follow OmniGraphSketcher on Twitter at @OmniGS.

Now, go forth and download! You can use OmniGraphSketcher in unlicensed mode for a two-week trial, with no restrictions. Enjoy!

If you missed our announcement earlier today or this Macworld article, here's the latest from Omni HQ: OmniWeb, OmniDazzle, OmniDiskSweeper, and OmniObjectMeter are now available as freeware. That's right: they're free. You can go download them right now if you want. FOR FREE.

Go ahead, we'll wait.

In anticipation of some curiosity as to why we made this decision:

So . . . uh, why?

We've been thinking about this for a while, especially with regards to OmniWeb. Because we're a small company and we don't have unlimited engineering resources, by necessity certain projects are going to take up more of our attention. Instead of continuing to charge for these four applications, which aren't getting updated as frequently as our other titles, we felt it would better serve the community to make them available at no cost.

Wait! Does this mean you're discontinuing these products?

No. We aren't ruling out future updates at all, and we're keeping our options open. We have lots of ideas for what we'd like to add to these products, and it's possible that at some point we'll have more resources to allocate to them.

Is Omni . . . going out of business? OMG!

Absolutely not. We just had our best year ever, and we're continuing to grow. In fact, we're hiring right now! Tell your talented developer friends!

You SAY free, but I bet I have to fill out a form or send in personal information or otherwise be subjected to some sort of annoying marketing activity to get these apps, RIGHT?

Nope. Just click that fancy “download” button, and you're good to go.

If you have any actual questions that I didn't just make up, please, feel free to leave them in the comments—we'll try to address everything we can.

Hey, Twitter fans! Did you know Omni has, like, a million Twitter accounts for you to follow? (Where “a million” = “about seven, unless you count the one attributed to Lotus, the office cat”.) For your viewing/messaging pleasure:

Omni Group general

Our CEO, Ken Case

OmniFocus

OmniFocus for iPhone

OmniGraffle

OmniPlan

OmniOutliner

OmniWeb

On a somewhat related topic, we're about to do a major overhaul of our website here at omnigroup.com, and we'd love to hear any suggestions you might have for improving things. Anything from design ideas to requests for specific kinds of content are more than welcome, so feel free to share your thoughts here in the comments!

Very cool news! OmniFocus for iPhone received Editor's Choice Awards from both The Mac Observer and iPhone Alley today.

Well, very cool for us, anyway. I mean, we totally got placards and everything.

Also, behold the magnetic crowd-draw of Mr. Merlin Mann, whose presentation-fu knows no equal:

I'm not even sure it matters what Merlin's talking about in this photo, because clearly he's got everyone gripped in some sort of productivity tractor beam, but I think he was maybe describing the coolness of OmniFocus. The award-winning OmniFocus, that is.

Those of you heading to the Macworld Expo this week, I hope you have time to swing by our booth (#612 in the South Hall) and say hello. We'll have presentations going all week long, so plan to come by and have a seat to learn a bit more about our apps—or hey, just rest your aching feet for a while.

We'll be the ones in fancy black OmniFocus t-shirts, assuming the newest Seattle snowfall doesn't keep us from leaving town. See you there!

We thought this was interesting enough to share: Steven Roberts is using OmniFocus to help manage his Nomadness project. He writes, in part:

”...OmniFocus is amazing. Although I've only been using it for a week, I am already seeing it as a lens that sharpens my awareness of what has to be done next. The myriad tasks spread over nearly a hundred projects each have modal contexts and priorities, and instead of browsing pages of to-do lists I just say, “OK, so I'm here with these tools, and in this particular mood, and I have about this much time. What would move me forward most efficiently?” As one who quickly crumbles into 100% context-switching overhead when trying to juggle more than two or three simultaneous jobs, this is brilliant… and the Mac integration is so smooth that it's actually sexy. I can even snag a task from the middle of an email and lob it over to OF without having to context-switch to “project management” by opening the app!”

(Get a peek at his OmniFocus file!)

“So, I was just on the verge of talking about some of those projects, but I'm going to resist that temptation… there will be plenty of time for that as I actually do them. This is still the moment for floating over a constellation of jellyfish, watching counter-rotating dinoflagellate bioluminescent swirls from dinghy oars, hoisting the sails for a long reach, fragrant curry and music jams with new friends, lazy rainy mornings with droplets spattering hatches, catching a lift from a tidal current, pulling off a tricky maneuver on the first try, landing on uninhabited islands, smiling back at my pal, and dreaming of the way it's all gonna be when OmniFocus tells me that there's simply nothing left to do except cast off the docklines…”

Wow, right? Read the whole post, and learn more about Steven Roberts and his fascinating projects here.

Ahoy the blog! It's been a while since we posted any news outside of our software updates, and boy, we've had thousands of emails about this. Oh, the piteous cries from readers who have been wondering when someone—dear god, ANYONE—at Omni will get off their hind ends and post something unrelated to product development news on their . . . uh, product development news blog.

Okay FINE so this hasn't happened. You never call, you never write, apparently you just want “useful content” that provides “information”. Well, that's a downright shame, because I could so totally be wasting your time with, say, links to brain-searingly awesome videos, or time-sucking quizzes.

In actual company news, you might be interested to know that Omni has expanded its team of REAL Ultimate POWER!!! Support Ninjas. Our Support Ninjas are trained in many deadly arts, including the ability to tell you why your copy of OmniFocus has turned pink and smells like fennel. Seriously, if your Omni product does the fennel thing—which is of course a feature and not, ha ha, a bug—you can email us, and there's this whole group of friendly smart people ready to help you out. Just hit the Send Feedback option in the Help menu and your mail will be answered by actual living breathing humans.

We're hiring in some other areas, too, and you're always welcome to visit our creatively-titled “Want Work?” page if you think you'd be a good addition to the Omni team. One question you might ask yourself is, if I'm shuffled out to the office parking lot when the building alarm goes off, do I pass the time before the fire engines arrive by quickly assembling a radio-controlled model helicopter?

If so, you may fit right in.

Hey, sneaky peek fans! Hot off the servers, get an early look at OmniFocus 1.1 here. OmniFocus 1.1 adds support for synchronizing between computers and with OmniFocus for iPhone and iPod touch.

The sneaky peek page allows you to grab all of our most recent alpha builds for this release, and if you'd like to give it a try we recommend you update to a new build on a fairly frequent basis—and don't forget to turn on frequent backups in your OmniFocus preferences, Just In Case.

Enjoy!

Well! After an invigorating morning yesterday watching the live WWDC coverage I think we're all thinking the same thing: a script typeface, Apple? Really?

Oh, and apparently there's been some iPhone announcements, something about 3D? I have to admit I got distracted by the awesome metal box. What's in the box? What's in the boooooooox?

(HER PRETTY HEAD!)

Anyway, we have our own bit of news, now that the Great App Store Reveal has officially taken place. As we mentioned back in March, we've been working on OmniFocus for the iPhone—a native, location-aware app with live, automatic sync and custom actions based on your whereabouts.

Behold: IT LIVES.

We're still making some refinements, but OmniFocus for iPhone should be available on the App Store on or around launch time. Just one more reason to be counting down the days until July, people.

PS. Don't forget, there's an OmniFocus meetup tonight in S.F. at 6:30 PM. Come by and say hello if you're in the area!

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