OmniFocus: not really an update

The Blog

by Linda Sharps on November 27, 2006

We've received a number of…um, spirited requests lately for an update on OmniFocus. As it turns out, when people are excited about a product that's under development, they really don't want to hear about your Wii-outings.

They probably also don't want to read an ongoing series of blog posts titled “Will Rowan Eat It?” (with apologies to Steve) featuring random disgusting food items being offered to Rowan, our developer who claims he can eat anything, with photos and zany commentary, and for that I say WELL THANKS A LOT, there goes my whole blog raison d'etre for December.

You people, with your demands for “actual news” and rejections of “filler content”. God.

Anyway, so OmniFocus. Okay, the news is this: we're still working on it.

The end!

(Now do you see why I had dreamed up that whole distract-them-with-Rowan thing? We were going to make him eat a live squid!)

Seriously, that's about all the news I have. Work continues. We're pretty slammed right now, resource-wise, with trying to get the final version of OmniPlan out the door, so hopefully once Plan ships we'll be able to ramp back up on OmniFocus. We do have two full time developers on OmniFocus right now, though, so there is progress basically every day.

We want to get a working version of Focus in your hands as soon as possible, something that provides the same basic functionality that Kinkless, Quicksilver and OmniOutliner do in one intuitive app, but this is Omni, and so we're also trying to curb our desire for OmniFocus 1.0 to include more of the in-depth functionality we really, really want it to have.

Just to make everything more confusing there are lots of features in Leopard that would help OmniFocus immensely. If, that is, 10.5 were available, and everyone was using it.

Anyway, please do stay tuned. We are hoping to have a little more to talk about during Macworld. Or maybe we'll just bring Rowan to our booth and let people feed him things.

Comments

Ooh! I'll bring the live squid!

gdw

11.27.06 9:16 AM

>> lots of features in Leopard

Use em'. That's true for so many apps that folks will be adopting it - much more so than was true for Tiger. *

* Apple lawyers: this statement was not based on NDA'd info… just the stuff you've got up on the public developer.apple.com site…

Bret

11.27.06 9:33 AM

And yet somehow, I'm still excited.

Oh, yeah, and EAT THAT SQUID!

Ryan Miglavs

11.27.06 9:38 AM

Hey, please don't spend any time at all duplicating Quicksilver functions - none of us is going to give up QS, so don't waste effort - just integrate with QS sweetly and gracefully like you know how.

Think workflow:

- Capture in Quicksilver or OmniFocus or Mail

- Plan in OmniPlan (optional)

- Organize in OmniFocus

- Execute in iCal/Entourage/OmniFocus (etc…)

These apps should all be feeding off a central model of workflow and doing the individual things they do best, with little duplication or overlap.

My ten cents.

Simon

11.27.06 9:48 AM

ThinkingRock is, IMHO, a great implementation of GTD. It includes all that David Allen refers to and makes it clear what has to be done to make the system really work. In addition to the functionalities implied in your blog please include the functionalities of ThinkingRock. Looking forward to a great app.

Paul

11.27.06 10:07 AM

I vote you should only offer it to Rowan after Lotus has passed on it. That should keep him from claiming to be full before having to eat that quart of Jalepéno yogurt.

WrongSizeGlass

11.27.06 10:14 AM

<homer>Mmmmmm…Jalapeño yogurt</homer>

Simon

11.27.06 10:36 AM

Yes—if using the Leopard features are going to help OmniFocus ship more feature-complete, please use them. And yes, playing nice with QuickSilver would be an added bonus.

Thanks.

Al Willis

11.27.06 1:14 PM

Yes please, Leopard all you like, we're all early adopters anyway (I know I am)!

Denis

11.27.06 2:57 PM

Speaking of eating live squid: there is a very instructive scene in the movie <a>Oldboy</a>

Felix

11.27.06 4:17 PM

My vote for leopard!

Obyor

11.27.06 6:40 PM

Frankly, OOP, Kinkless and QS work so well together already.,,, Omnifocus better add a whole bunch more to the equation. And it's not like we're all stumbling out here seeking a solution. We Have A Solution and it's working. So….

I'd get it right and full-featured. Don't put the brakes on the 'oooh let's do this' just yet…

Tommy Weir

11.27.06 7:15 PM

Leopard is fine, but make sure you can sell it NOW and LATER.

GO OMNIFOCUS! GO!

I love OO + kGTD, but more and more it feels like a hack and not a solid product. I know I am depending on many different apps to make my GTD work (kGTD + OO + iCAL + iSync + MissingSync + Palm) but I still want it to work.

I like that you are going to try to bring in all current features which is a great place to start.

BZ

BZ

11.27.06 10:54 PM

“Just a Little Reminder to Let Us Know That OmniFocus Is Still Vaporware

This is why you shouldn’t pre-announce apps.”

Very true.

DF

11.27.06 11:25 PM

Leopard features? You guys make me laugh. By the time this thing is released Leopard will be old, Michael Dell will be running Apple and Steve Jobs will be Governor of California. Seriously, these people have a track record that suggests mid 2008 will be the earliest they can get this out. By then Apple will have added all of the features of OmmiFocus to OS X.

Bruce McL

11.28.06 1:52 AM

We don't like to pre-announce new products, but OmniFocus isn't exactly a new product: we have lots of customers using Kinkless, so we're actively developing OmniFocus as a spin-off product.

Our goals for 1.0 are simply to do what Kinkless does, but to do those things with a finished, supported product that's easy to set up and use. OmniFocus will continue to work well with Quicksilver for users who already use it (and it will have rich AppleScript support so OmniFocus can work with other solutions), but it will also provide some built-in quick capturing functionality for those who don't already use Quicksilver. (It won't make any attempt to do any of the other things that Quicksilver does.)

There will be upgrade pricing for existing Kinkless customers, and it will be very reasonable.

Ken

11.28.06 1:53 AM

Hey I was wondering about Omniweb… I mean how did it do during November while it was on sale… How many people bought it… comeon…. please let us know, I'm dying to find out

JB

11.28.06 5:15 AM

Upgrade pricing for Kinkless? Isn't that free? :)

BZ

BZ

11.28.06 6:53 AM

Lots of Kinkless users choose not to use Quicksilver. I need all the multi-user sharing and iCal options in Leopard, so count me as one who says you should feel free to require Leopard. I will buy Leopard solely to run OmniFu if it does what I need.

Tom Fort

11.28.06 6:40 PM

“Frankly, OOP, Kinkless and QS work so well together already.,,, Omnifocus better add a whole bunch more to the equation. And it’s not like we’re all stumbling out here seeking a solution. We Have A Solution and it’s working.”

I hope omni knows that there are many, many people who disagree with that statement. Kinkless for me shows the promise of what could be, but I know it could be better and omnifocus sounds like it has a good chance.

mark

11.29.06 10:03 AM

It looks like John's been reading your blag…

http://daringfireball.net/2006/12/omnivapor

Joe Boxer

12.02.06 7:28 AM

[...] While usually I trust his opinion, professional blogger John Gruber overzealously lambasted the Omni Group, calling their forthcoming new application “Vaporware“. While it’s true that the Omni Group has two posts about their not-yet-ready GTD application, they’re still not hawking $1200 keyboards. Not only is his use of the dictionary is pedantic and sophomoric, Gruber also ignores the context of why Omni might posts these announcements. [...]

The Book of Ryan » Blog Archive » &aci

12.02.06 8:45 AM

Hey Omni folks. I'm excited for this app!

One thing I would suggest for OmniFocus is a full featured mobile app component. The ical integration is lame on Palm. Sure you've got your contexts lists, but adding to projects doesn't really seem to work.

One app w/promise is Shadow (see http://codejedi.com) It has tons of options and can implement GTD. Almost like a mini-version of OOutliner. However, their desktop app is horrid.

I wonder if with a bit of conduit finessing you could make Omni Focus (or Outliner for that matter) the desktop app and have a robust solution on mobile platforms… please? : )

Micah

12.04.06 6:18 PM

Palm compatibility is a dealmaker or dealbreaker for me. Isn't it obvious—I work on projects and have tasks finish and arise WHEN I'M AWAY FROM MY DESK.

A deskbound app is useless to me.

Umm, not to get too excited or anything….

Doug Weinfield

12.06.06 5:43 AM

I would love to see an option to add a pop account to receive emails and automatically place it into omnifocus if it meets a set of text criteria. For instance: I'd like to create an email address like .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and then I can email it on the fly from my phone or my office computer. In the subject I put something like: Call Mom @home 12/6/06 20m and then in the body of the email I put some notes to myself: Ask what she wants for Xmas. How is Uncle Joe doing? etc etc.

Then as soon as I get home, I fire up OF, it checks the emails for that account and then adds them to my task list/projects/etc with the Subject, context, notes, due date and time allotted to completion automagically recognized since it was in the proper format. For people with smart phones, writing an email is so much quicker than going online to some type of web portal, and then it can be to any email address you want i.e. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) so you'll never get spam or have to deal with anything but the gtd emails. Then I wouldn't need to review my notes or scribbles when I get home and have to type them into my computer. For me, using GTD means it's in and out of your brain as soon as possible, writing a formatted email doesnt get much easier.

Milo

12.11.06 11:04 AM

[...] There are many software applications written for the Mac that enable you to manage your tasks. Apple’s own iCal features tasks with deadlines and reminders, and they can be placed into any one of your calendars, which can be used as categories, contexts (for you GTD fans), or some other organizing schema. OmniGroup’s OmniOutliner includes a to do list template, or you can create your own to do list from scratch to customize it to your needs. Using the Kinkless GTD scripts you can get your GTD swerve on, and sync your tasks with a Palm through it’s use of iCal. Omni plans a release of OmniFocus, a new GTD application. And there are dozens of other applications from the simple to the complex, that allow you to manage your tasks on a Mac. [...]

Friday Software Spotlight: Life Balance » Ap

12.29.06 2:27 AM

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