Thanks to the unpredictable timeframe of Apple's App Store review process, today there are two new releases of OmniGraphSketcher available.
OmniGraphSketcher for iPad 1.1 is a significant update which focuses on adding data import capability and improving the user experience. Now that we've had time to use OmniGraphSketcher on actual iPads, we've adjusted the draw and fill tools to make graphing even easier and faster, and we've fixed issues affecting the document browser, graph editor, and info popovers. We've also had a chance to implement the data importing feature that is available in OmniGraphSketcher for Mac. Thanks to those of you who have patiently waited for import, and those who have provided feedback via the App Store and Email!
Those of you running OmniGraphSketcher 1.1.1 beta 1 on the Mac may have noticed that the expiration date was fast approaching! We don't normally like to cut things this close, but developing two versions simultaneously has proved to be tricky. Beta 3 improves our Japanese and French localizations, and fixes a problem with entering Japanese text. We've also included some smaller fixes and improvements related to the iPad app. You can grab this release via our downloads page or via software update; as always please don't hesitate to email or Help > Send Feedback.
(If you're wondering what happened to beta 2, it was released and then immediately replaced due to a nasty bug)
Now that we have three products available from the App Store, certain things have changed about the way we do business. The access to our software has changed. The way we receive payment for our software has changed. The flexibility we've always had with regards to discounts has changed.
We plan to continue developing for iPhone and iPad. As Ken wrote back in January, it's our intent to bring all five of our productivity applications to iPad. This means, obviously, that these aren't short-term business changes for us.
It has always been Omni's policy to give you as much information as possible to help you make an informed purchasing decision, because we truly want you to be happy with what you buy. This is a core value of our company, which we prioritize in a number of ways. We try to make sure you have access to good resources and documentation. We provide free trials on all of our Mac software. We offer top-notch customer service, including phone support. We offer a 30-day guarantee on products sold from our online store, no questions asked.
Your satisfaction is every bit as important to us as the sale.
We're not trying to say we don't need to make money, because we do. We need to pay our rent, pay our employees, help others when possible, save enough to make it through bad years, and in a good year, hopefully even have a little extra for profit sharing. Omni has limited resources to invest into our development work, and we do have to recoup those expenses or we can't continue offering the products that we do.
However, no one here wants you to buy something from us that you won't enjoy using. Our primary goals are to help you decide if our products are right for you before you buy, and to help make things right if you aren't happy after you buy.
To that end, we've made some decisions that are intended to help us continue to do business the way we want, even within this new distribution model. Starting today, we are offering the same 30-day money back guarantee on all of our iPhone and iPad apps as we do with our other software. This applies to OmniFocus for iPhone, OmniGraffle for iPad, and OmniGraphSketcher for iPad. If you find that you're unsatisfied with your purchase, email sales@omnigroup.com with a copy of your App Store receipt and the reason for return, and we'll refund your money.
Let's just be up front about the fact that this choice obviously opens us up to some risk. We pay 30% of our App Store sales to Apple whether or not we refund a purchase, for one thing.
So why are we doing this? Because we want to give you the same confidence in buying our App Store software as you have when you buy our Mac software. Because it's important to us that we continue to provide the same support and service we always have. Because we believe the benefit outweighs the risk.
The 30-day guarantee isn't intended to take the place of a demo period. We do ask that you take the time to look at the product features, watch the videos, and ask questions before you make your purchase. If we haven't given you what you need to make a buying decision, please, tell us what would help.
Finally, if one of our products doesn't seem right for you, we don't want to try and convince you otherwise. We'd love to hear why it isn't right for you, of course, because that's how we make improvements, but we don't want you to buy something you don't need. The ideal outcome for us is when you get amazing value from the applications we create.
That is, after all, the real reason we do what we do.
Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. We hope you know your comments and concerns are always welcome.
You know, you always think the countdown to a product launch is going to be exciting, but you forget about the part where it's actually just, you know, just kind of INSANE. Especially when the products in question are tied to a brand new hardware device.
We are both thrilled and relieved to finally let you know that our first iPad apps, OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher, are available on the App Store. If you're the sort who enjoys a tasty corporate press release, the officially-formatted mumbo jumbo is here (spoiler: it basically says OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher for iPad are, wait for it, available on the App Store).
You can also read up on some of the reasons why we chose to develop for the iPad and how we went about doing so, check out the Macworld coverage on the new apps, and enjoy this Mashable list of their top 10 iPad apps they can't wait to use (#5, holla!).
We've also put together a little Q&A, for some questions we've legitimately been asked and some stuff we, ah, totally made up for the purpose of fleshing out this blog post. Ahem.
Can I download a trial of these apps?
Unfortunately, the App Store does not yet provide that option.
So how am I supposed to figure out if I want them or not?
Check out our website, where we've got overviews of both products as well as introductory videos.
(Here's the OmniGraffle page and video, and the OmniGraphSketcher page and video.)
You could also download trial versions of the Mac apps if you'd like to get familiar with how they work in general. Obviously, it's going to be a different user experience on the iPad—one we hope you really enjoy!—but many of the features you can use on the Mac will be available on the iPad.
If you have any questions about how either app works, you're more than welcome to contact our wily Support Ninjas.
I have the Mac version, can I get a discount on the iPad version?
We're generally happy to offer bundle pricing for products purchased through our own online store, but there's no way to do that when selling through the App Store. We've tried to make sure that each product is priced reasonably based on individual feature sets, and we hope you'll agree that both products become even more valuable when you use them together.
Can I open my existing OmniGraffle/OmniGraphSketcher documents on OmniGraffle/OmniGraphSketcher for iPad?
Yes! Currently the easiest way to transfer the documents created on the desktop to your iPad is via email.
I notice that OmniGraffle for iPad costs $50 and I think that's too much.
Well . . . that's not really a question, but to give you some background on our pricing decision, we followed a similar model to what Apple used for iWork, where there's a $79 suite on the desktop, and the iPad versions of the apps making up the suite now cost $30. OmniGraffle for iPad sells for half of what OmniGraffle for Mac costs.
Given the choice between two editions on the Mac, Standard for $99 and Pro for $199, twice as many of our customers choose Pro for $199. (And before you think that's overpriced, if you wanted to buy a similar app for Windows you'd be looking at Visio--which retails at $259 for Standard and $559 for Pro.) $50 may be too much to spend on entertainment (although many console games cost more), but we don't intend OmniGraffle as a casual purchase: OmniGraffle for iPad is designed as a professional productivity tool, one which will make you more productive and will save you time and money every week.
We feel confident you will be happy with the depth of the feature set, pleasantly surprised by some brand-new options only available on the iPad, and overall find OmniGraffle for iPad to be a good value. As always, we welcome your feedback, so feel free to talk to us about any concerns you have!
Do I have to have an iPad to use these new apps?
It depends on how vivid of an imagination you have.
I'm sold! Where do I buy this stuff?
The App Store, natch. Here's the direct iTunes link for OmniGraffle, and for OmniGraphSketcher. We really hope you enjoy them. Happy iPadding!
I like to think that one of my more valuable contributions as an Omni employee is providing the lowest common denominator factor in usability testing. That is, when an engineer wants to really understand how a total Cro-Magnon will be using their app, they come to me.
Oh yeah, that's right. Who's got two thumbs and represents the most pathetic use case? THIS gal.
Anyway, I thought some of you might be interested in seeing how some of our iPad development work is happening for OmniGraphSketcher. Now obviously we do a lot of mockups in what is surely the world's best program for creating IA/UX designs, OmniGraffle. But when it comes to envisioning how something works on a piece of hardware no one can actually use yet, a lot of people here are going low-tech to try and figure it out.
Omni's lead developer for OmniGraphSketcher, Robin, created some iPad-sized paper templates for sketching up ideas.
He didn't stop there, though. No sir, he most certainly did NOT. Here's his custom graph paper notebook, which he cut to iPad dimensions using a table saw.
I want to say that's sort of crazy, except our own CEO Ken Case created a terrifyingly accurate faux iPad using a 3D printer. It—well, it even has a little Omni logo on it. And a 30-pin dock connector. And . . . look, it's just very, very realistic and I'm a little worried about how much sleep everyone is getting, okay?
Here's Robin's own iPad-sized hardware prototype (!) with a variety of UI element ideas designed by our User Experience lead, William Van Hecke.
That's what Robin had me look at the other day, while asking a series of questions. I'm sure he regretted it almost instantly.
Robin: "So let's say you want to turn this point from a circle into a square. What would you do?"
Me: "Buhhhhh. Dur. I touch it?"
Robin (soothingly): "Okay. You see a little blue circle around the element. Then what do you do?"
Me: "Uhhhhhrrrr. I'd . . . maybe I'd press real hard. Like this." *smoosh*
Robin: "Um . . . well, okay. You get a dialogue that says 'copy'."
Me: "OH GOD NO THAT'S WRONG ISN'T IT MY HEAD MY HEAD MY HEEAAAD."
Robin (brisk clap): "Okay then! What say we try this again later."
Lastly, here's Robin interacting with his fauxPad.
I think he's making color adjustments. On a fake, printed-out inspector that Bill made. To the document that is actually just a piece of paper. Man, software development is weird.
A week and a half ago, I announced that we were planning to bring all five of our productivity apps to iPad. So much has happened in the short period of time since then that it feels like we've been in some sort of time distortion field!
Let me skip straight to the good stuff and share some screenshots with you:
I should point out that the document icons in the document lists come from the QuickLook previews generated on the Mac, so they show features that aren't actually supported in the iPad app yet: for example, if you compare the OmniGraffle canvas screenshot with the corresponding icon in its document list, you'll see that OmniGraffle for iPad doesn't actually render text yet.
We don't even have a mechanism for creating new documents yet: both apps are just loading documents created on a Mac. But it's certainly progress!
Now, I mentioned two weeks ago that we were generally prioritizing iPad work over some of our Mac projects, but that some Mac projects—specifically, OmniOutliner 4 and OmniPlan 2—would take precedence over their iPad counterparts. In response to that plan, I received a lot of feedback that folks would like to see OmniOutliner for iPad sooner rather than later.
So we started thinking about how we could get started on OmniOutliner for iPad sooner. We really don't want to delay OmniOutliner 4, so we instead started thinking about how we could finish OmniOutliner 4 more quickly. We realized that if we scaled back some of the esoteric features which we'd planned for the Pro edition of version 4—cloning and multiple schemas—we could shave three months off its development schedule and get started on OmniOutliner for iPad that much sooner. Now, both of those features are still pretty interesting to us, and we've already laid the groundwork for supporting these in the underlying outlining engine—but we think bringing OmniOutliner on iPad is more important overall, so that's what we're going to do.
So I'm pleased to say that both OmniOutliner 4 and OmniOutliner for iPad will be coming three months sooner!
Oh, what's coming in OmniOutliner 4? We've rebuilt the engine inside of OmniOutliner, so among other things it will support text zooming, showing and hiding columns, "Smart Match" completion cells, searching across all column types, better link handling (no more unfindable tokens!), and (in the Pro edition) saved smart folders. (Also, say goodbye to the old Aqua drawer!)
Thanks for all your feedback on my last announcement, and I look forward to receiving any feedback you might have on this update!
One of the things we often struggle with as a company is deciding how much to talk about our future plans and our current work towards those plans. Our natural inclination is to be open about what we're doing, but there are several problems with talking about future plans:
- Our plans can and will change, upsetting customers who were making their own plans based on our original plan.
- Our plans might interfere with current sales, as customers stop buying OmniGraffle 8 in anticipation of the future release of OmniGraffle 9.
- We might get accused of promoting vaporware, as when we started talking about OmniFocus.
But there are also problems with not talking about our future plans, as it leaves people wondering what direction we're going and whether they'd like to be going that direction too. So, given the exciting event of this week, I think it's appropriate for us to share some of our plans with you now…
Remember how Macintosh was intended to be the computer “for the rest of us”? That's what we feel Apple's iPad is: the best computing device for most of the things people use computers for. (Or, as Apple puts it, “the best way to experience the web, email, and photos.”) It's the computer people can sit down and start using immediately, without training, whether they're 2 or 92.
We're really excited about Apple's iPad, and we want to make all of our products available for it as soon as we can. Yes, we already had a big year planned for 2010, with several long-anticipated major product releases—but we think iPad is really important: important enough to spend some time juggling our plans to figure out how we can introduce five new iPad apps.
Yes. Five. We want to bring all five of our productivity apps to iPad: OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, OmniPlan, OmniFocus, and OmniGraphSketcher.
This is a big undertaking, and we can't do it all at once. We started working on iPad adaptations of OmniGraffle and OmniFocus as soon as the SDK was made available Wednesday afternoon, and we're hoping to get started with OmniGraphSketcher for iPad within the next few weeks.
OmniPlan for iPad will be a little further behind, simply because the OmniPlan development team is on the home stretch of their two-year OmniPlan 2 development cycle, and we'd like to get that out the door before bringing OmniPlan to another platform.
Similarly, the OmniOutliner team is also heavily into a major development cycle—one which affects not only the next major release of OmniOutliner, version 4, but also the upcoming major releases of both OmniFocus and OmniPlan—so that team is booked up for at least the next several months. But while it won't be on iPad on day one, OmniOutliner is where all of our projects start and we think it will be a great fit for iPad, so we plan to adapt it as soon as possible.
What does this mean for our non-iPad apps? Well, for the apps we're bringing to iPad immediately there will be a bit of a delay in their next major Mac release cycle: for example, while we've already done a fair bit of work on OmniGraffle 6 for Mac, we're going to put that work on hold while we work on the iPad adaptation. Not that we don't think OmniGraffle 6 is important or exciting, but we think OmniGraffle for iPad is even more important. For the other apps, OmniPlan 2 and OmniOutliner 4, we're hoping for little or no delay in our upcoming releases, but there's likely to be a bit of a pause immediately afterwards as the teams shift gears and start working on bringing those apps to iPad as well.
So, that's our current plan. As I said in my introduction, our plans do change over time—obviously, they've changed quite a bit just this week!—so please don't rely on things happening according to today's particular snapshot of those plans. But I hope that this snapshot at least gives you a sense of what we're doing and why (and perhaps even an idea of when), so you can decide whether we're going in a direction you're interested in. Either way, I hope you'll let us know!
Thanks for your time!
