The Blog

OmniFocus timing (some guesswork required)

by Linda Sharps on February 27, 2007

Some nice people from Macworld magazine came by last week to visit the Omni offices, including the formidable Mr. Jim Dalrymple, who challenged us with the same question I'm sure some of you would like the answer to.

Jim: “So when is this OmniFocus going to be released, anyway?”

Me: *chokes on a slurp of coffee, narrowly avoiding spraying the entire table Gallagher-style*

Jim: “Wow, you must really suck at poker.”

I like to think my near-asphyxiation was just coincidence, but then again, maybe I was a little overly excited to hear what our official answer would be. Every time I ask, I get one of the following Engineer Brushoffs:

“The bug graph is holding steady this week.”

“(Something incomprehensibly technical).”

“Look, something shiny!” (runs away)

And my favorite,

“It will be done when it's done.

(Do you feel my pain? DO YOU?)

I actually can't remember exactly what we told Jim (he was probably too busy snickering at my Coffee Inhalation of Doom, anyway), but here's our most recent best guess at a date for an OmniFocus beta: late April or early May.

It's been really difficult to make accurate estimates for this product's timeline, and I hope the April/May timeframe is on target. My apologies in advance if it's not, but I thought it would be better to give you what information we can, rather than none at all.

As a reminder, you can sign up to be on the beta tester list here, and we've posted some FAQs here.

Oh, and one last thing, here's a work-in-progress draft of the OmniFocus icon. What do you think?

picture-2.png

 

Comments

If this is the scheduled release date, by now you should have a *little* something you could send to the localizers to get going…. ANything for us yet??? :-)

Corentin

02.27.07 6:43 AM

[...] And then, like in a well planned scenario, OmniPlan is making the first - let’s call it official, but it still isn’t - announcement for the first beta version fo the over-hyped software OmniFocus (the image is just a proposal for their first icon, I just hope they will not killing me for putting it here). We could expect the first version to go live late April or early May. [...]

GTD galore .:. eDragonu - the choice of a personal

02.27.07 8:09 AM

Please work fast; I'm going to get fired if I don't get OmniFocus soon.


P.S. I like the icon.

Mark Blair

02.27.07 8:47 AM

Woo! Purple! There aren't enough purple icons.

gdw

02.27.07 9:08 AM

An I thought that OmniFocus was all about getting things done… ;-)  The icon fits in with OmniOutliner nicely, I like the clip and the purple.

Reinier Meenhorst

02.27.07 9:17 AM

Yippee!!  Can't wait and the icon is sooo purdy

Jason

02.27.07 9:19 AM

Nice icon, still needs a little definition, expecially when it's smaller.


Question: will there be a quick-punch-type dashboard widget for quick entries?


(PS- the way you can edit text in OmniWeb sure makes tiny comment boxes work so much better)

MacStansbury

02.27.07 11:50 AM

Notice how Linda only said April or May…she didn't say which YEAR, however.


But don't worry, I have faith that you'll get ANYTHING out before the next Guns n' Roses album comes out.  Okay, that's probably not fair, since that's probably giving OmniFocus a little too much time.


And the law of predicting an accurate release date is—you're wrong.  You'll always be wrong.  Don't even bother trying to guess.  You'll be wrong, no matter what.


But if you do really want a crazy guess, just estimate how long you THINK it will take, and then multiply it by 4.  That way, you won't be quite as wrong as before. :)

Chad

02.27.07 12:04 PM

Yippee!! Can’t wait and the icon is sooo purdy

;) ;) ;)

Bear

02.27.07 12:07 PM

Hilarious!  Especially the part about â??Look, something shiny!â?? (runs away).  I love it.

scott betz

02.27.07 1:56 PM

Hooray! Thanks for giving us a possible beta date, even if it does turn out to be wrong. It's better than silence; we're all going nuts waiting for this thing. And—love the icon, very Hipster PDA! brilliant!

duodecad

02.27.07 2:09 PM

*Ggnhhh!* April? MAY!?


You should know that a heavy downpour and hailstorm just started in London as I was reading this news, which only served to underline the bleak outlook of more months of waiting.


Have you no hearts?


Well, at least I can stop checking the site every hour and do something more useful with my time.


Seriously, thanks for the update, and the icon is a good teaser.

coconino

02.27.07 5:56 PM

The icon looks like it's for a wedding invitation design package and doesn't really reflect the purpose of the package.

Paul Smyth

02.27.07 7:29 PM

Perhaps you should try using a great little tool called *OmniPlan* to help determine a target delivery date for your new app.


Just a thought.  ;)

Steve

02.28.07 2:54 AM

The icon is pretty and I do like the purple, but the symbolism doesn't do much for me. I'm not a designer, I admit, but the idea of the app and the word “focus” make me think of the skinny part of the sandglass where the sand is running through at any given moment, because I'd want OmniFocus to help me focus on my tasks in the present moment.

Jessi

02.28.07 8:33 AM

Here's my attempt…

 

coconino

03.01.07 4:18 AM

OK, â??some HTML allowedâ?? obviously doesnâ??t include img. See my attempt at an icon here.

coconino

03.01.07 4:22 AM

Nice icon, Coconino. It's clear, concise, and communicates succinctly what the app is about. No offense to omni, but you've hit the nail far more squarely on the head than they did.  :-)

mark

03.01.07 6:23 PM

Clearly, the clip was the back side of an iPod shuffle. Anyone who saw the Hipster Shuffle video on 43folders.com a few weeks ago immediately grokked that. 'Tis a fine swag at an icon.


How about a little smoke coming off of that checklist?

FloatingBones

03.02.07 4:55 PM

Wow….an icon.  That's great. 

Meanwhile we all already started using Actiontastic.  You know sometimes being first is better (in market share terms) than than getting the icon just so.

Bill

03.03.07 3:11 AM

Having used and purchased a number of your products I would gladly wait and wait more to make sure what is released is of the same caliber. What is exciting is how you will present something we all have our own current way of doing GTD.

Gene

03.03.07 6:10 PM

Hi,


I think that the icon is not reflecting OmniFocus I think. A bit too much of a clipping thing, a filing system. I hope OmniFocus will be more.


Can't propose a better logo, but it should reflect the process that OmniFocus will be made for: CAPTURE your Life, Work; ANALYSE this informatio, RELATE it to your obejectives and projects, ORGANISE and FILE, RETRIVE the items whenever needed, PLAN when to do them, and finally DO it.

Mario Batz

03.03.07 8:01 PM

The icon is cool (in progress). could you make a try with one that looked like a hipster pda? (this one does, a bit, though)

Rafa

03.04.07 11:47 PM

mail list signup link comes up 404

Chris

03.08.07 1:38 AM

[...] Could be he’s knitting some amazing productivity wool socks for his friends… But I think it’s OmniFocus he’s referring to. [...]

OmniFocus icon | brilliantdays.com

03.08.07 7:24 PM

Sorry about the mailing list error, we had a temporary problem on our software after applying the latest software updates.  The problem is fixed now.

Ken

03.09.07 12:55 AM

[...] Actiontastic iGTD [...]

GTD mac app: iGTD | brilliantdays.com

03.19.07 12:55 AM

There's an Indian saying… I think it's something like “ho daija.”  It means “It'll happen when it happens.”

Danielle

03.26.07 8:15 AM

I like the icon! the omni logo looks a little wierd. The clip needs a little more attention still. (it looks to stark) Possibly try fading it out like the purple folder color to soften it up. Can't wait for omnifocus!

Jeremy

03.27.07 11:05 AM

yay, purple@ there's way too too many blue icons out these days.

Jacob

05.02.07 3:41 PM
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