OmniFocus 1.7 for iPhone is now available!
 

OmniFocus 1.7 is a major update to OmniFocus which adds new high-resolution artwork and adds support for multitasking features introduced in iOS 4. We hope you enjoy this update, and we look forward to your feedback!

[URL="http://itunes.apple.com/app/omnifocus/id284885288?mt=8"][IMG]http://www.omnigroup.com/images/applications/omnifocus/iphone/app_store_badge.png[/IMG][/URL]

[B]Design[/B]
[LIST][*] In preparation for the new high-resolution display on iPhone 4 we've refreshed all of the artwork in OmniFocus. We hope you like the new look![/LIST]
[B]Multitasking on iOS 4[/B]
[LIST][*] OmniFocus now uses local notifications to present due alerts when running on iOS 4 or later, so you can receive alerts for due tasks even if you're not syncing with a server. (Synced calendar alerts are still available for devices which are running earlier versions of the operating system.)[*] OmniFocus is now a multitasking-aware application, allowing it to be quickly suspended and resumed on iOS 4.[*] OmniFocus can complete some operations in the background on iOS 4, such as optimizing its database.[/LIST]
[B]General[/B]
[LIST][*] The Completed perspective now includes items from completed projects, not just active projects.[*] Fixed a bug which prevented audio from recording in OmniFocus 1.6.5.[*] Fixed a crash when tapping "Save" while audio recording was still in progress.[/LIST]
We love hearing from you! You can reach us by tapping Send Feedback on the Settings screen, sending email to [email]omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com[/email], tweeting to [URL="http://twitter.com/omnifocus"]@omnifocus[/URL], or calling 1-800-315-OMNI or +1 206-523-4152.

Let me be the first to say -- this is gorgeous on the new iPhone! Great work for a free update. Now off to see how it looks on the iPad! (Edit... Hmm... I thought the high res was supposed to not look jagged on the 2x iPad version - am I missing something?)

Nice work Ken! Looks amazing!

[QUOTE=wolfneuralnet;79067]Let me be the first to say -- this is gorgeous on the new iPhone! Great work for a free update. Now off to see how it looks on the iPad! (Edit... Hmm... I thought the high res was supposed to not look jagged on the 2x iPad version - am I missing something?)[/QUOTE]

It's still being upscaled since it is running in emulation mode. Ken is talking about the upcoming iPad native version which will not look jagged.

Awesome.

Downloaded!!

Looks very, very nice! I'm still on a 3GS but hopefully can get the shiny new phone soon :-)

You may want to consider updating the screen shots on iTunes… they show the older interface.

[QUOTE=patgallant;79070]It's still being upscaled since it is running in emulation mode. Ken is talking about the upcoming iPad native version which will not look jagged.[/QUOTE]

Right -- but I thought the new resolution and updated apps would now look better when they are in 2X emulation mode on the iPad. Perhaps I misunderstood this when they announced it, or this is coming with iPad iOS4. Any clarification Ken? Love the new icon BTW.

Looks great.
Only the icons for projects (single, parallel, seq.) look too similar. The last color difference was more useful for me.
Maybe you should divide the icon for parallel and sequential projects. It helps to know the type without editing it.

Radek

You've misunderstood, alas. 2x resolution is for iPhone 4. It has no effect on iPad.

[QUOTE=jasong;79079]You've misunderstood, alas. 2x resolution is for iPhone 4. It has no effect on iPad.[/QUOTE]

Alas, I haven't misunderstood. ;)

I realize 2X res is for iPhone screen. The point is if you have now programmed your app for an 960X640 screen, its should look very good on the iPad, which is 1024X768. If the emulator for 3.2 for the iPad doesn't allow it to display this way, fine, but the resolution was supposed to translate from what I understood from some of the initial chatter. Hopefully this will be taken care of in iOS4 for the iPad, but in the meantime, I guess I will keep waiting for OF for the iPad.

Thanks Team! As the number one advocate of icon change, I couldn't be more pleased :)

You'll be the first App in my dock on iPhone 4. Is there more information on local alerts? Do they decrease battery like the server notifications?

Looks nice. It appears the local alerts work after turning off calendar export, but they are not audible - just a notification on the screen. Is there a way to get an audible alert? It would be ideal if you could choose per action whether or not an alert is audible or just screen notification, but I understand not wanting too much feature creep.

Thanks,
Dave

Could someone PLEASE post some screenshots I sold/shipped my iPhone on Monday in preparation for my purchase of iPhone 4 tomorrow and have no way of seeing the new look.. :( Thanks!

here's the main menu

[IMG]http://www.policarpo.us/postings/omni-ui.png[/IMG]

and the dock:
[IMG]http://www.policarpo.us/postings/dock.PNG[/IMG]

Installed and tried the "fast app switching". OF still took around five seconds to restart each time I switched back to it. :' (

Then I restarted my Touch, and now ZOOM.
:' )

Disappointed in the lack (absence really) of any new UI features or enhancements, but fast switching IS pretty sweet.

Thanks Ninjas.

I really don´t get why you guys didnt refresh the search icon so that it would look similar to all the other new interface icons? Now it just sticks out like a sour thump :(

Also will this new style of interface icons be used in the iPad and mac app as well?

Icons are no longer instantly recognizable
 

I agree with Sheuri. The new icons are too similar and are no longer instantly recognizable. They are practically impossible to distinguish between one another in certain lighting conditions.

In my opinion, the new icons disregard the Apple Human Interface Guidelines.

The gray background icon color is dull and boring. I used to enjoy the vibrant colors of the interface. Now, adding tasks seems like work.

Very disappointing.

The icon observation is interesting, as I never noticed a difference in the icons for parallel and sequential projects with the earlier versions. Are you all saying that they were somehow different (excluding the SAL icon)?

Good as always to see the technical improvements.
Very disappointed though about this drastic UI change. :(

What was the need to change the original OF icon?? It was clean and beautiful and had a charming reminiscence to the days of Ethan's fabulous kGTD and Merlin's "Hipster PDA" - for those who remember the roots of OF.

Also the new icons within the program are just small, harder to distinguish and their solid dark cube style makes no design sense on the paperwhite index-card layout.

I'm far from judging taste - but this UI change simply does not make sense in any way that I can think of.

After all the original OmniFocus UI had won the Apple Design Awards 2008 for a reason. Come on. Be proud of it and give it back to us - I know that you are cool enough to admit a misstep.

I for one like the new icons (both for the app itself and within the app) much better than the old ones.

I really like the new icon! And, I'm hoping that, if purple is here to stay, that OF 2.0 will adopt this style.

I vote "yuck" on the new icons. The gray background feels dull and unnecessary, the style flat and uninspired. The app icon itself is ok, but is a bit heavy for my liking.

I'm just on a regular old non-iPhone4, but I don't see how simpler, less detailed icons would take advantage of the new screen resolution at all...

Really hoping that there's an option to use the previous icons in an update.

Frankly, if I'd known that the icons looked like this, I wouldn't have updated.... :(

I love the new look, personally.

Love the "inside" new look too, although I must say I actually liked the older app icon better!

[QUOTE=gersaky;79156]I vote "yuck" on the new icons. The gray background feels dull and unnecessary, the style flat and uninspired. The app icon itself is ok, but is a bit heavy for my liking.

I'm just on a regular old non-iPhone4, but I don't see how simpler, less detailed icons would take advantage of the new screen resolution at all...

Really hoping that there's an option to use the previous icons in an update.

Frankly, if I'd known that the icons looked like this, I wouldn't have updated.... :([/QUOTE]

I also don't understand how less detailed "icons" take advantage of the new screen resolution. (And, yes, the gray background is dull and unnecessary.)

Please give us REAL icons -- not just pictograms!

Obviously you can't please everyone, but we're getting far more positive feedback than negative on the new art. We may tweak here and there, but no big changes are likely. Really proud of the work those guys did.

Brian, will OmniFocus 1.8 for Mac get the new icons also? I don't have a strong opinion on the iPhone icons either way, but consistency across the apps would be a big plus.

Another vote on icons. I like the new purple app icon a lot, but tend to agree that the UI icons are a little too similar to each other in low light/low contrast use. I bet a few tweaks could make them pop more without freaking out the people who like the new look and the designers who undoubtedly worked hard on them. This is subtle stuff, and the net tends to favor black/white comments ("hate them/love them"). Chill, gang. You guys are doing a great job overall. Keep up the good work.

Works well even on the 3G!
 

I must say I am impressed with the performance. I upgraded my iPhone 3G to iOS 4, and of all the applications I use on a regular basis, OF performs best (and I am counting Apple's native apps like Mail and Calendar).

Great work, Omni folk - I will post of any bugs/odd behavior.

[QUOTE=Greg Jones;79189]Brian, will OmniFocus 1.8 for Mac get the new icons also? I don't have a strong opinion on the iPhone icons either way, but consistency across the apps would be a big plus.[/QUOTE]

I honestly don't know, and the folks I would ask are up to their necks in OmniFocus for iPad work. Added to their context in OmniFocus - I'll post once I've had a chance to find out. :-)

Looks like we do plan to do a visual refresh of the Mac app, but definitely not in 1.8. Possibly not until version 2.

Thanks Brian!

[QUOTE=Brian;79205]I honestly don't know, and the folks I would ask are up to their necks in OmniFocus for iPad work. Added to their context in OmniFocus - I'll post once I've had a chance to find out. :-)[/QUOTE]

Hrmmm, does this little subconscious slip mean that we have some sort of Delegation Feature for Collaborative Work in 1.8? Or does this mean that you have a Context for the Dev Team and a Tickler for yourself to bug them about the icons? :eek::D

[QUOTE=policarpo;79213]Hrmmm, does this little subconscious slip mean that we have some sort of Delegation Feature for Collaborative Work in 1.8? Or does this mean that you have a Context for the Dev Team and a Tickler for yourself to bug them about the icons? :eek::D[/QUOTE]

There's no collaboration work in the 1.8 sneaky peeks which you could easily check out for yourself. I'm sure he has an out-of-band way of getting them feedback ;-)

[QUOTE=Brian;79184]Obviously you can't please everyone, but we're getting far more positive feedback than negative on the new art. We may tweak here and there, but no big changes are likely. Really proud of the work those guys did.[/QUOTE]
+1 Very happy with the UI refresh! All the icons look amazing. Excellent job!

[QUOTE=Brian;79184]Obviously you can't please everyone, but we're getting far more positive feedback than negative on the new art. We may tweak here and there, but no big changes are likely. Really proud of the work those guys did.[/QUOTE]

@Brian - could you just please ask the guys why they didn´t change the search icon as well? It makes no sense in it´s current form when all the other icons are put into grey squares. We can´t all like your new look but the least we could expect is that you keep it consistent. Speaking of that, you have a slightly darker border around the inbox icon, it helps it look a little sharper where the other icons look a little blurry with the outer shadow and it would really help to add the same border to those icons.

Last but not least I really hope that you will add this new look to the mac version ASAP, it´s a frustrating user experience when you have different icons for the same things depending on the platform you use. It´s really basic UI ABC and I hope that you will take that into consideration.

[QUOTE=policarpo;79213]Hrmmm, does this little subconscious slip mean that we have some sort of Delegation Feature for Collaborative Work in 1.8? Or does this mean that you have a Context for the Dev Team and a Tickler for yourself to bug them about the icons? :eek::D[/QUOTE]

We do have some longer range plans regarding collaboration but in the meantime, everyone that I work with gets a context. Topics I need to discuss go in the context, which I check the next time I meet with them. :-)

I think the new icons are terrible. I think they look nice, and they look like they belong together, but they function quite poorly as icons because they're not visually distinct from one another.

The first thing the eye sees is shape (be it a word, a letter or an icon), and the shape of all these is boxes, and hidden inside those boxes are the real icons -- which are now tinier than ever, on a low-contrast background.

Here's a test: let your eyes unfocus just slightly and look at the new Omnifocus icons. Seven boxes and one magnifying glass.

Now go to your iTunes app and click the "more" link in the bottom right corner. Try the same thing -- because every one of those is a high-contrast icon in a completely different shape, you'd be hard-pressed NOT to be able to tell those apart, right? That should be your goal. Because this is a mobile interface, and a tiny one at that, your icons need to be legible [I]at a glance[/I], not after careful scrutiny.

[QUOTE=Nicolas_Thomsen;79220]@Brian - could you just please ask the guys why they didn´t change the search icon as well? It makes no sense in it´s current form when all the other icons are put into grey squares. [/QUOTE]
... grey squares which all look alike, you mean. The search icon is the only one recognizable by its shape.

[QUOTE]
Last but not least I really hope that you will add this new look to the mac version ASAP,[/QUOTE]

Please, no.

[QUOTE=avandelay;79247]I think the new icons are a lot less legible. The first thing the eye looks for is the shape of a graphic (be it a word, a letter or an icon), and the shape of all these is a square.[/QUOTE]

While I agree in principle, I personally have absolutely no trouble distinguishing the new icons from one another. I didn't mind the old ones so much, but I think I actually prefer the uniformity of the new icons. I like the simple, stark aesthetics of the new app icon as well -- nice rebranding.

-Dennis

PS - iOS app icons are all the same shape and size as well, yet users don't seem to have trouble telling them apart, do they? Even ones with similar background colors (e.g. Safari, Weather, Stocks, and App Store) seem different enough to tell them apart at a glance.

Ui
 

I normally wouldn't say anything negative as UI design is tough - I work on it for web and specialist interfaces myself. I know it's always hard making a break to something new when you're ready to leave the old behind. However I think Avandelay makes some very good points.

One additional thing - I think the current desktop (and old iPhone) icons work because folders are grey, and the standard projects are white with coloured accents. It makes them feel like "documents" in the finder would. And single action lists stand out as something else again. The visual heirarchy "feels" right.

The new iPhone icons put everything as base grey, and leave less room within the grey box to differentiate.

The old offset "pause" and "dropped" overlays leave the main icon much more readable too.

Either way - consistency between the Mac app and iOS app seems most important. It was great to be able to see a (mostly) consistent icon set across devices. At least using the same colour palette and approach, adapting the details to match screen size and resolutions. Especially as the app doesn't seem to be an either/or choice - it's more like "collect the set"!

I hate to be the guy adding a "more options" request, but maybe in the future the comprehensive Mac app's styling options may extend to custom folder/project icon we can sync to the iPhone - much like perspective icons sync now. Then we'll can all just shut up and choose "classic", "new" or customise our own.

That was longer than I thought! Love the apps, and will be buying the iPad one regardless even if it does have a 3rd set of icons!

Is this sort of feedback worth emailing directly to Omni? Or is that best reserved for bug reports?

[QUOTE=uof;79276]
Is this sort of feedback worth emailing directly to Omni? Or is that best reserved for bug reports?[/QUOTE]
If you care enough about the issue to want something to happen, you should send it directly to them.

[QUOTE=wolfneuralnet;79084]Alas, I haven't misunderstood. ;)

I realize 2X res is for iPhone screen. The point is if you have now programmed your app for an 960X640 screen, its should look very good on the iPad, which is 1024X768. If the emulator for 3.2 for the iPad doesn't allow it to display this way, fine, but the resolution was supposed to translate from what I understood from some of the initial chatter. Hopefully this will be taken care of in iOS4 for the iPad, but in the meantime, I guess I will keep waiting for OF for the iPad.[/QUOTE]

This might be true if OmniGroup had a native-resolution version of their iPhone app, but they don't. They have a standard resolution version. Icons might look a little better if all their icons are higher resolution, but the text, controls, etc. won't.

Also, developers don't "program for" a 960x640 screen, per se; generally speaking they're including new, higher resolution images, which the iOS 4 selects when running on a device that can use those images.

iPad doesn't run iOS 4, and thus has no knowledge of these higher resolution images and thus won't load them up.

I'm not just talking out my rear; this is based on reading the developer documentation.

You can read the [URL="http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhoneOSProgrammingGuide/SupportingResolutionIndependence/SupportingResolutionIndependence.html"]Supporting High-Resolution Screens[/URL] section of the iPhone Application Programming Guide for detailed info.

[QUOTE=Toadling;79250]PS - iOS app icons are all the same shape and size as well, yet users don't seem to have trouble telling them apart, do they?[/QUOTE]

Right, and you'll also notice that app icons are 48x48 pixels, and the OF icons are 25x25 pixels*. So app icons have nearly four times the area that's allotted to OF icons. That's four times the number of pixels usable for color and contrast that we don't have here.

And in the tiny space the OF icons [I]do[/I] have, they've chosen a medium grey background -- you couldn't find a color that hampers contrast more if you tried, could you?

[SIZE="1"]* Pixel dimensions on the new "retina display" iPhone would be higher, but the same proportions apply.[/SIZE]

Icon design
 

One thought about the different look of the search button:

This is very well done. The search button represents something completely different - an action to perform. It actually *does* something.

All the other buttons just show different categories or types of listing.

So I really appreciate the probably well thought-of distinction. And the search button is as I would expect it in that context. I wouldn't mind if the other buttons would lighten up a bit, but it's ok with me.

I really really dislike the new app icon though. That dark dull checkmark just turns me off. The color of the background could also be more bright - just put it in the dock together with Calendar, Mail, and Safari. Might be my taste only, but it really loses ground there.

Almost looks like your design team have their monitors set too bright. ;-)

Edit: Just don't want to let it go unsaid: It *really* works well on the iPhone 4. Looks still great, and is so fast.

[QUOTE=chess77;79304]One thought about the different look of the search button:

This is very well done. The search button represents something completely different - an action to perform. It actually *does* something.

All the other buttons just show different categories or types of listing.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry but that doesn´t make any sense. Unless search is the no.1 thing OmniGroup wants people to do in the app there is no reason to point people´s attention to it. from a UI standpoint it just looks really sloppy and messy.

The old icons clearly showed their functionality and what "family" they belonged to.

If they want to do square shaped icons they should take some cues from Apple, where every icon is color coded and is easy to distinguish from the others:

[QUOTE=Nicolas_Thomsen;79317]Sorry but that doesn´t make any sense. Unless search is the no.1 thing OmniGroup wants people to do in the app there is no reason to point people´s attention to it. from a UI standpoint it just looks really sloppy and messy.

The old icons clearly showed their functionality and what "family" they belonged to.

If they want to do square shaped icons they should take some cues from Apple, where every icon is color coded and is easy to distinguish from the others:[/QUOTE]

I dunno. I like the new ones. And they are pretty clear to me. Orange and red are not the same color at all (of course, I'm not color blind) and the flag is clear enough. I have no problems distinguishing between them, and once you read them once or twice you'll also be familiar with where the icons you want are located.

I agree with Nicolas Thomsen: It's not that they can't be distingueshed at all, but if their background (which is the largest area) would have color to indicate the icon it would be recognized much faster. And no, I'm not color blind as well.

[QUOTE=FatalError;79378]I agree with Nicolas Thomsen: It's not that they can't be distingueshed at all, but if their background (which is the largest area) would have color to indicate the icon it would be recognized much faster. And no, I'm not color blind as well.[/QUOTE]

I am, and so are 1 out of every 20 men. The orange and red look different to me, but it's still a pretty weak visual cue. Unfortunately when you throw shape out the window by turning your icons into low-contrast grey boxes, you're just left with very small blobs of color to distinguish your icons from one another.

I just can't see the logic, in an icon smaller than a pinkie nail, of jettisoning so much potential information by ignoring shape as an identifying feature. Shape is literally the first thing the eye sees.

I am obviously missing something... I mean, doesn't the giant text next to each icon give you enough of a clue as to what the category represents without colorizing the icons more?

[QUOTE=ifonline;79415]I am obviously missing something... I mean, doesn't the giant text next to each icon give you enough of a clue as to what the category represents without colorizing the icons more?[/QUOTE]

Sure. The text is the saving grace here and it's fortunate they've left it nice and big. I think we'd all be lost without it.

What I'm saying is, why replace good icons which are distinct from one another with a series of low-constrast, same-shaped boxes? If you have to read the text to know what you're looking at, they're just decorations and you might as well get rid of them. (And "colorizing" isn't really the issue here -- it's a basic lack of contrast and shape distinction).

But as to your larger point, yes, it's still totally possible to navigate the app without good icons and this isn't a show-stopper. But if they're gonna be there, why not make them good, right?

[QUOTE=avandelay;79472]But as to your larger point, yes, it's still totally possible to navigate the app without good icons and this isn't a show-stopper. But if they're gonna be there, why not make them good, right?[/QUOTE]

Exactly

Okay... makes sense to me. Thanks.

iOS4 and badge due task/badge count updating
 

Hi,

Obligatory love Omnifocus message :-)

A "feature" I've noticed with 1.7 on iOS4 is that since the advent of fast app switching, Omnifocus doesn't (obviously) do a fresh launch each time you
switch to it - that's the point.

However, as a consequence of this it doesn't always seem to recheck the start/due time of tasks when you open it and hence may show nothing
in Due when it ought to.

An easy fix for this is to manually terminate the app and restart it regularly but you have to remember to do that (maybe I should set a reminder in Omnifocus - DOH!)

This might only be apparent if you have tasks with a very close start/due date (like within the same day) - something I do a lot.

Thanks.

Local Notifications
 

Is there a way to get local notifications without going through the calendar app? It seems that my alerts will not go off unless I set an alarm in omnifocus, save changes on the database, then close and open the calendar app to have the calendar recognize the alarm. I assumed local notifications would mean I wouldn't have to do anything but set the alarm in omnifocus and it would work. Going through all this rigamarol to set an alarm is a bit much. Hoping there is a shortcut. Is there?

You've got to do a sync to get the calendar written with the new information, and then the Calendar app needs to grab the new info. Depending on your settings for fetching new data in the Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings, that might take a while, but it should really only be an issue if you are setting or changing due dates in the next few hours. Running with Fetch New Data set to Push and Fetch to Every 15 Minutes I get updates in a timely fashion, and for anything really close I would put on suspenders as well as a belt and use the Clock app to give me an additional alarm.

If you run iOS4 on your device, there's a new local notifications service that OmniFocus will use instead of the calendar-based approach. See the beginning of this thread for details.