Whew. Pencils down! It’s gratifying, exciting, and a relief to cross the finish line as Apple’s new operating systems ship. Summer has become the busiest time in our schedule: in June each year at WWDC we find out what work is in store to ready our line-up of apps across all five platforms for Apple’s new operating systems. Then, we scramble—developing on operating systems that are still themselves under development—to make sure we’re ready on the day and date that those new systems ship.
We make this our first priority each year because we know that our customers truly rely on our apps. We know that people who use productivity tools, like Omni’s apps, really need for them to work immediately, on “day one.” So, item one: I’m pleased to share that all of the Omni Group’s suite of apps are ready for all of today’s operating system updates!
Liquid Glass
We’ve also worked very hard through the decades to stay on top of the latest developments on Apple’s platforms. When Mac OS X shipped, we were one of the first developers to truly embrace Aqua—earning us four Apple Design Awards in two years. When the iPhone App Store launched, we had one of the apps ready on opening day (earning us yet another Apple Design Award). When iPad launched, we had two apps in our suite ready on day one, and an “iPad or Bust!” commitment to bring the rest of the suite over.
It will hopefully come as no surprise that we immediately started working on updating the design of our apps when Liquid Glass was announced in June. Like “iPad or Bust,” refreshing all our apps for Liquid Glass is an ambitious effort that will take more than just a few months. Unlike any of Apple’s previous design overhauls, this design applies to all of their platforms at once! So we have four apps to update across four platforms, with the first fruits of that effort shipping with today’s release of OmniFocus 4.8.
Apple Intelligence and Omni Automation
Liquid Glass might be the most visible change in today’s platform updates, but there’s another important change happening behind the scenes: Apple Intelligence is opening up its Foundation Models to third party apps. So, beginning with OmniFocus 4.8 on macOS Tahoe 26, iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and visionOS 26, Omni Automation introduces support for querying Apple’s on-device Foundation Model directly from within scripts and plug-ins. This means you can take advantage of AI without sharing your personal information or data with third-party AI services: all interaction is performed on your Apple device (computer, iPad, iPhone, or Apple Vision Pro).
Do you have any projects that have stalled out? Could you use some prompts to help you break it down into smaller pieces? On devices running OS 26 with hardware support for Apple Intelligence, OmniFocus plug-ins can now consult Apple’s new on-device Foundation Models. These AI models are built into your device; so (again) you’re not sending any data to any other systems, nor are you using any expensive outside resources—you’re just using more capabilities of the device that’s already at your fingertips.
Plug-in authors can integrate the language models with your OmniFocus data in all sorts of creative ways. For example, we’ve created a “Help Me Plan” sample plug-in, demonstrated in the video above, that breaks down the selected task into smaller tasks.
Whether or not to use these AI models is completely up to you. They’re not perfect oracles by any means. But sometimes even a bad suggestion can help you past a mental block in planning a project, so you can move forward again.
We’re shipping these new Foundation Models APIs in OmniFocus first, but they will soon be coming to all of our other apps as well.
Update Notes
With operating system compatibility, a refreshed Liquid Glass design, and support for consulting the Apple Intelligence Foundation Models, we’re excited about OmniFocus 4.8—especially following up on last month’s OmniFocus 4.7. We are particularly excited about the redesigned Liquid Glass Perspectives Bar on iPhone, which now collapses on scroll, providing more space for viewing tasks. This release also includes support for a range of other OS 26 features: OmniFocus Shortcuts actions in Spotlight on macOS Tahoe 26, iOS 26 CarPlay widgets, resizing iPadOS 26 windows, watchOS 26 Control Center controls, and more!
That’s a lot of excitement on the OmniFocus front, but the rest of our line-up is also compatible across macOS Tahoe 26, iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and visionOS 26.
To cross-check compatible version numbers across our other apps (in alpha order), those versions are as follows:
- OmniGraffle 7.25 for Mac
- OmniGraffle 3.22 for iPhone and iPad
- OmniOutliner 5.15 for Mac
- OmniOutliner 3.15 for iPhone and iPad
- OmniPlan 4.10 (Universal across Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Vision Pro and Apple Watch)
If you want to clean up your old Mac system before upgrading to macOS Tahoe 26 (or clean up your new system after upgrading), you might also be interested in the updated version of OmniDiskSweeper. It’s a free utility from our labs that helps you find the large files on your disc. In addition to macOS Tahoe 26 compatibility, this latest update makes the entire app accessible with VoiceOver.
At the Omni Group, we make powerful productivity apps which help you accomplish more every day. Feedback? We’d love to hear from you! And, if our apps have empowered you, leaving an App Store review is a great way to share that experience with our team, while helping others discover our apps in the App Store. We hope you enjoy these updates!
(You can find me on Mastodon at @kcase@mastodon.social, or send me email at kc@omnigroup.com.)
