What a whirlwind of a year it's been! When the iPad was announced in January, I posted that we were planning to bring all five of our productivity apps to iPad. We've now shipped three of those five apps:
We're very proud of how well the iPad apps we've shipped so far are being received; they all have ratings which average four stars or better. And we're about to ship updates to each (with OmniFocus 1.1, OmniGraffle 1.3, and OmniGraphSketcher 1.3) which we'll be talking more about soon.
But we still have two more apps to ship!
First, a quick update on OmniPlan: we haven't really started on OmniPlan for iPad yet, because we're still busy building OmniPlan 2 for Mac. That's about to enter private beta; hopefully that process will give us a better sense of how close it is (and thus how soon we can start on the iPad app).
OmniOutliner is definitely closer, and we've made a lot of progress, but we've still got a ways to go.
When I say OmniOutliner has made a lot of progress, what I mean is this: it's currently able to read and view and edit and save OmniOutliner documents. But if there's one thing we've learned from building OmniFocus for iPad, it's that creating a great touch-based interface for text outlines is not an easy problem! It takes a lot of time. (Particularly when we have high standards for the animations: suddenly we have to worry about what the screen looks like through dozens of frames of animation, not just what it looks like before and after a change.) Creating a touchable outline wasn't easy to solve for OmniFocus, but at least there we knew what basic attributes each task would have: so we could decide which pieces of information to hide at what times, how to size and present everything to put your attention on the right pieces of information, etc. With OmniOutliner, on the other hand, every document gets to define its own schema, with different sets of columns, different summaries, etc., and we don't know what it all means and which bits of information are most important—so we have to build an interface which is much more general and flexible. It's fun work, but hard work and we still have a lot of it to do!
Meanwhile, Apple just gave developers a beta copy of iOS 4.2, which will be a free operating system update for the iPad and iPhone operating system when it ships in November. Since we still have a lot to do anyway, we think it makes the most sense to build OmniOutliner for iOS 4.2 (where we can take advantage of a number of its new features) rather than continuing to build OmniOutliner for iOS 3.2 and later scrambling to try to catch up with iOS 4.2's features. Since OmniOutliner for iPad will require iOS 4.2, it won't be out until sometime after that ships. (Though hopefully not long after!)
So, those are our plans at the moment! As I said in my original iPad or Bust! introduction, our plans change over time, so please don't rely on things happening exactly according to today's snapshot of those plans. But hopefully they will at least give you some insight into what we're doing and why, making it possible for you to decide whether we're going in a direction you're interested in.
As always, I'd welcome any feedback you might have: leave a comment here or send me a message on twitter (where you'll find me at @kcase).
After a beta period that was a little longer than expected thanks to that pesky tablet, we're ready to go final with OmniGraphSketcher 1.1.1. If you participated in the beta, you already know that we've added Japanese and French localizations to OmniGraphSketcher. We've also improved support for international number formats (both for importing and display) and made lots of other tweaks and fixes.
OmniGraphSketcher 1.1.1 is available on our downloads page or via software update. Release notes are available in the usual spot (as well as the Help menu). As always, please don't hesitate to use the Send Feedback item in the Help menu, or email us with any questions or feedback.
Thanks to everyone who has participated in the OmniGraphSketcher beta so far! We're approaching the final release of OmniGraphSketcher 1.1.1, so beta 4 has only a few changes. This release fixes some problems with international number formats and addresses some intermittent crashes. You can grab it from the downloads page, or via software update if you're already running an OGS beta. Keep those emails coming!
Two and a half months ago, I announced that we were planning to bring all five of our productivity apps to iPad. Two weeks later, I wrote about some of the steps we were taking to make that happen. Now that iPad has shipped, I thought it might be good to review where we are now, and what our plans are going forward:
As the above graphic indicates, we've already made some great progress: two apps down, three to go!
OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher are available now: they both launched with the App Store, and they've both been very well received—with App Store ratings averaging four stars. Of course, those were just our 1.0 releases, and we're not standing still: OmniGraphSketcher 1.1 for iPad adds data import and is already available as a free App Store update, while OmniGraffle 1.1 improves performance and stability and overall user experience and will be submitted to Apple for review very soon.
Meanwhile, I'm sure many of you are wondering about the other three apps: OmniFocus, OmniOutliner, and OmniPlan. We're currently working on OmniFocus and OmniOutliner in parallel. OmniFocus has a bit of a head start, thanks to the work we'd already done in bringing it to iPhone, so we anticipate its iPad app will be ready in June. OmniOutliner is a little further out, and our current projection is that it will ship this summer. Finally, after we've shipped those four apps, we'll round out the set with OmniPlan for iPad which we're currently anticipating will ship sometime this fall.
So that's where our iPad apps are today, and where we're going! Thanks for taking the time to read this, and for all of your support: over these first two weeks OmniGraffle has sold several thousand copies, making it one of the top apps in the iPad App Store! We've had a pretty amazing journey so far, and we couldn't do it without you.
As always, I'd welcome any feedback you might have: leave a comment here or send me a message on twitter (where you'll find me at @kcase).
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)
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!
And we're back! With another installment of OMNI APPS—IN ACTION, which I have to say is almost as awesome of a title as my toddler's favorite DVD on the face of this earth, HORSES—CLOSE UP AND VERY PERSONAL.
(Spoiler alert! The movie features horses.)
This week we've got a really interesting OmniGraphSketcher use case to share with you, thanks to Troy Payne, a PhD candidate at the University of Cincinnati. He's working on a grant for the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services, and is currently offering data analysis and problem solving services at no cost to small and medium-sized Ohio police departments. He writes,
One suburban police jurisdiction thought they had a huge increase in robbery in 2009. They asked for our help to determine why. When the research team dug into the problem, we found that there wasn't an increase at all, on average. A handful of 2009 months were higher compared to 2008, which probably accounts for the perception of an increase. But the overall trend was not one of explosive increases.
Troy's team worked on different ways to visualize this information, beginning with a basic OmniGraphSketcher line chart that plotted raw counts for each year for which they had data (2006-2009) by month:
He goes on to explain,
That line chart is difficult to interpret because there isn't a clear trend line. Frankly, it's a confusing mess, with each year overlapping all the others. This is very common with crime counts, particularly in small jurisdictions where the counts are low. Here, the monthly robbery counts are in the single digits and are highly volatile.
We needed to simplify this chart or our message would get lost.
OmniGraphSketcher to the rescue!
We decided to create an area that was ±1 standard deviation from the 2006-2008 average for each month and plot the 2009 robbery counts against that. While not a true confidence interval in the statistical sense - because we're plotting the standard deviation instead of the standard error - this does provide a cleaner visualization of how "typical" 2009 robbery counts are:
The take home message: Robbery was pretty much where we'd expect in 2009. There was not a large increase in robbery.
Hooray for robbery not increasing, right? Hooray for data visualization!
Want to know how Troy created that chart? You're in luck, because he was nice enough to tell us:
I have a spreadsheet in Excel that has the crime counts by month for each year. I created columns for the average and standard deviation, then created columns for the average ±1 standard deviation.
Then I had to get the result into OmniGraphSketcher. For me, the easiest way to do this was to copy/paste one series (i.e., column) of data at a time. I started with the low end of the shaded area. I hid the columns B-E in Excel, selected the month and mean-1s columns, hit command-c, switched to OGS, hit command-v. Then, in the OmniGraphSketcher inspector, I clicked the connect points button. Next, I repeated that process with the mean+1s column, making the upper bound of the shaded area.
The shaded area itself was created using the fill tool in OmniGraphSketcher, which is delightfully simple to use. It just works.
It's taken me *far* longer to describe what we did than to actually do it in OmniGraphSketcher. And that's the power of the app. I can quickly create stunningly beautiful charts that convey the ideas I need to convey. Instead of focusing on how to fiddle with the software, I can focus on how my message should best be transmitted to my audience.
Aw, man. We love happy customers SO MUCH. Thank you, Troy!
Today we took a break from iPad development and updating the website to push out the first beta of OmniGraphSketcher 1.1.1. This release includes French and Japanese localizations, as well as a fix for a pesky crash involving Undo and lots of other smaller tweaks and fixes. You get get this release via the OmniGraphSketcher downloads page; please be sure to email us (or Help > Send Feedback within the application) with any questions or feedback.
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!
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