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-   -   Made Mistake of Buying - Read This Before You Buy [no PDF export in 1.0] (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=24464)

jimbo259 2012-06-07 04:13 PM

Made Mistake of Buying - Read This Before You Buy [no PDF export in 1.0]
 
I am so annoyed about lack of PDF export or Print ability. I bought the iPad version because I don't need the full blown Omni Plan. Really feel mislead by Omni, I have all their iPad Apps and a number of Mac apps and this is 1st one that I am really annoyed about.

Basically it is a companion app to Omniplan for Mac, if you don't have the Mac version the app is seriously hobbled due to the lack of basic export functionality.

Omni should have made this very clear in the write up in APP Store.

If you have Omni Plan for Mac then I can see iPad version is a very good App

HappyCatMachine 2012-06-07 10:54 PM

To top it off their marketing boasts collaborative abilities. This is only true if those who you want to collaborate with also have OmniPlan. This is not made clear in the marketing materials.

At one point Omni was offering refunds within the first 30 days of purchase. I've submitted my request. I made the mistake of not doing that for OmniOutliner for iPad in hopes that we would have certain features. I won't be bitten again.

endoftheQ 2012-06-08 03:31 AM

This is the first Omni Group product on either iDevice or desktop that I haven't bought out of the gate. I'm so glad I didn't. Like jimbo259, I believe OG should state clearly that their offerings on iDevices are companion products to their desktop programs, not standalone apps.

I'm with HappyCatMachine, I find it so bad it's funny that their app store blurb for OP has [I]"Collaborate with your colleagues on every detail"[/I], that's up there with promoting [I]"buy ingredients for cake"[/I] as a mis-lead to purchase OF as a 'shopping list' app for the iPhone.

There is a strong stench of [I]"bait-and-switch"[/I] wafting from Omni, as years-and-years go by but no import, export, collaboration, integration occurs on iDevices despite their protestations that [I]"we want to do that, as soon as..."[/I]. OO has never got opml, neither has OF, OG lacks .svg, etc. All their apps have poorly implemented copy-and-paste and email out (if at all) and none have Document Interchange, core iOS functions. Yet a cobbled-together attempt at integration with beta-Siri gets added into OF in the blink-of-an-eye, perhaps because that wasn't going to interfere with their perceived attempts to drive traffic to the desktop products?

[I][INDENT]"The App Store policy and the longstanding Omni Group policy agree: minor updates should be free. Of course, if there is a major overhaul of the application with lots of shiny new features, we may release it as a new product, and that would cost money. But bug fixes, minor features, and miscellaneous polishing come at no cost."[/INDENT][/I]
If OG think they'll see another penny of my (and I think many others) money until basic collaboration, integration and core OS functions are added across all their offerings, they're going to be disappointed. I note that the first review of OP in the UK app store has the headline: [B]If you don't own Omni Plan for Mac - DO NOT BUY!!!![/B] Well, I do own OP for the desktop and I still didn't buy.

It's really beginning to look like they're running scared that if they give users the opportunity to easily exchange data with other products we might be tempted to switch. Well then - newsflash! - some of us have already done that manually, and deleted their offerings. The ball is now in Omni's court, if they want to try and win some of us back.

skwirl 2012-06-08 12:38 PM

For 1.0, we really wanted to get the Gantt chart touch interactions and syncing with OmniPlan for the Mac working well because after talking to a lot of folks, those two were by far the most important requests. It was never our intention to bait and switch, forcing OmniPlan for iPad users to purchase the Mac version.

Not to worry though, Now that 1.0 has been released we don't plan on stopping! We'll definitely be working on adding import/export options as well as other features that have been requested.

If you have any feature requests that you'd like to see in OmniPlan for iPad, please email us. We really appreciate it!

Ken Case 2012-06-08 01:32 PM

[QUOTE=endoftheQ;111276]Like jimbo259, I believe OG should state clearly that their offerings on iDevices are companion products to their desktop programs, not standalone apps.[/QUOTE]

That's absolutely not the case. We designed all our iOS apps to work independently of our desktop apps, and we have tens of thousands of customers who are happily using those apps without a Mac.

We've also been very clear that if you purchase more than one edition of our apps, you get more value from the combination than you would from using them independently. For example, with the Mac edition of OmniFocus you can define perspectives that you can use on the iPad and iPhone editions; with the iPhone edition you get Siri; and with the iPad edition you get an incredible Review interface.

[QUOTE]OO has never got opml…[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry, I'm a little confused: OmniOutliner for iPad has had support for editing OPML since v1.0. Many people are using it as a dedicated OPML editor; some even share their OPML documents with others over Dropbox.

[QUOTE]All their apps have poorly implemented copy-and-paste and email out (if at all)[/QUOTE]

OmniGraffle, OmniGraphSketcher, and OmniOutliner are all able to email their documents in their own document format as well as several different export formats: OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher can email PDF and PNG images, OmniOutliner can email OPML, Dynamic HTML, Simple HTML, and Plain Text.

[QUOTE]… and none have Document Interchange, core iOS functions.[/QUOTE]

All of the above export options are also available with Document Interchange, so you can send PDF from OmniGraffle or OPML from OmniOutliner to any app which can open those formats.

[QUOTE]Yet a cobbled-together attempt at integration with beta-Siri gets added into OF in the blink-of-an-eye, perhaps because that wasn't going to interfere with their perceived attempts to drive traffic to the desktop products?[/QUOTE]

We're not trying to drive any traffic from iOS to our desktop products; we're trying to make both sets of products as good as they can be as quickly as we can manage.

I understand your frustration with the time it takes for features to arrive, but we're not standing still. In the 29 months since the iPad was announced, we've made 154 submissions to the App Stores (65 submissions for iPad, 58 for Mac App Store, and 31 for iPhone). That's averaging more than one per week.

[QUOTE]It's really beginning to look like they're running scared that if they give users the opportunity to easily exchange data with other products we might be tempted to switch.[/QUOTE]

It sounds like you've overlooked all the export functionality that we've already placed in all our apps. People are exchanging data between OmniOutliner and a variety of other apps (including iThoughtsHD) in exactly the manner you've suggested (using OPML and Document Interchange).

It's never been our intent to hold anyone's data hostage; in fact, quite the opposite, we were the first serious productivity app suite to adopt plain text XML in all our file formats so that it would be easy for any developer to read and write our document formats (which many have done).

I hope this helps.

bnz 2012-06-08 11:05 PM

[QUOTE=Ken Case;111323]In the 29 months since the iPad was announced, we've made 154 submissions to the App Stores (65 submissions for iPad, 58 for Mac App Store, and 31 for iPhone). That's averaging more than one per week.
[/QUOTE]

By the way: I honestly think this metric is pretty impressive if you think about it carefully.

damorrison 2012-06-08 11:35 PM

[QUOTE=skwirl;111320]
Not to worry though, Now that 1.0 has been released we don't plan on stopping! We'll definitely be working on adding import/export options as well as other features that have been requested.[/QUOTE]

Awesome - that's all I wanted to hear! Now, chop chop off you go.. make it happen ;)

endoftheQ 2012-06-09 03:54 AM

Ken,

What exactly did you [I]expect[/I]? You released another app that can only export to a screenshot or via the Mac-only desktop and don't expect some of us to have genuinely held beliefs that you're trying to [I]"traffic drive"[/I], [I]"bait-and-switch"[/I] or [I]"hostage data"[/I] and not voice these opinions?

So, it's another waiting game, is it? You'll get around to fixing it.... [I]sometime[/I]? Even if this is true, why should paying early-adopters expect to be marketing fodder so you can announce at WWDC that you've ported the line?

How about OF on the iPhone as just one example? I've already waited years to be able to export data, photos, audio etc. captured with this app without reverting to the desktop. You've been aware of these issues for a long, long time, yet the OmniFolk appear to have suffered collective amnesia again and have managed to engineer the identical 'problem' with OP. Oh, but you still apparently expect us to blithely agree this is acceptable and OP (or OF) is a standalone product?

You're aware that I hold 30-40 licences for all the Omni offerings apart from OP. I've been patient with the year-in-year-out excuses but after the release of what to my mind is a deliberately crippled OP, not any more, I've already started to trickle feed 1-2 star reviews into the the three international app stores where these licenses are held. I'll also be commenting, along with my team, our honest convictions on reviews where these apps are featured, that in our opinion they are not 'standalone', but these lack of export options are an actual 'feature', possibly in a desperate attempt to cross-sell the desktop versions.

If you don't like it, you know what to do. Quit waffling, year-after-year, and take some ACTION. Go back and revisit the lack of copy-and-paste, import/export, DI, etc. in your Omni iDevice offerings and fix them. If you want to show some good faith, how about incorporating your own Send to Omni* integration between them? If not, just be honest, and label them 'companion' apps in the stores and when submitting them for review. It'll save some of us having to do it for you.

Rich.

badmanj 2012-06-10 02:32 AM

[QUOTE=bnz;111343]By the way: I honestly think this metric is pretty impressive if you think about it carefully.[/QUOTE]

Very. However I own all the other Omni products and I don't recall this volume of updates arriving on my iDevices.

Jamie

whpalmer4 2012-06-10 01:45 PM

[QUOTE=badmanj;111383]Very. However I own all the other Omni products and I don't recall this volume of updates arriving on my iDevices.

Jamie[/QUOTE]

Well, only 96 of them applied to iDevices. You miss out on at least one per application, because Ken is counting submissions, which include the initial revision of the app, and you're counting updates, which do not. I think there may have been at least one extra submission per app, because the iPad FCS versions have all been 1.0.1, not 1.0. There have been some updates which followed very closely on the heels of the previous update, when a regression was encountered, and of course if you didn't own the apps from Day 1 of their availability, you probably skipped some updates that way as well. However, counting versions mentioned in the release notes of OmniFocus for iPhone (20) and iPad (14), OmniGraffle for iPad (10), OmniGraphSketcher for iPad (10), OmniOutliner for iPad (5), and OmniPlan for iPad (1), I only come up with 60, not 96. Perhaps there have been a significant number of rejects (which probably wouldn't show up in the release notes)? I'm not sure quite as much credit should be given for submissions which don't survive :-)

[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/265/screenshot20120610at235.png/][IMG]http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/4590/screenshot20120610at235.png[/IMG][/URL]

bassman 2012-06-11 05:36 AM

As long as our friends at Omni indeed keep adding features ([I]like edit dependencies![/I]), I think this was a great release. I don't play "Angry Birds" (or other games); OmniPlan (PM) is one of a small number of iPad apps that I find useful, excluding "free" stuff like web-browsing or Twitter.

The iPad app culture is different from PC/Mac "shrink-wrap" software, being more like the Open Source or freeware culture. There just isn't the cash-flow for the sort of apps we see in the PC/Mac environment, and not enough "long-hairs" to volunteer their efforts for free apps like we see in the Linux world. The iPad hardware is *very* limited (slow CPU, no SD slot (grrrrrr), etc.), the apps only cost a fraction of what PC/Mac "shrink-wrap" software does, etc.; for now, the iPad is basically a "sand-boxed" "consumption" device, much like the iPhone or iTouch, but with a bigger screen.

I only expect so much of the iPad, or apps on it. I'm more than content to get the app now so I can get started, as long as the next few months see features added to round-out usability. If apps like this get "rounded-out", I'll stick with the iPad. If not, I'll go "ultrabook" next year, after the Windoze 8 dust settles, and screen-resolution hits 1920x1080 as the "basic" screen resolution.

Brian 2012-06-11 05:46 AM

[QUOTE=endoftheQ;111359]What exactly did you [I]expect[/I]?[/QUOTE]

I know this question was directed at Ken, but he's at WWDC this week and even busier than usual, so I'll step in.

I think we expected pretty much what has come to pass: that the release of the app without these features would disappoint some folks - a thread like this one appearing isn't surprising - but overall the release would make customers happier.

Remember: before last week, folks had no iPad version at all. And while some folks need printing or PDF export, based on the app store ratings, it's not everyone.

The number of emails we're getting asking when these features are coming doesn't equal the number of "I need OmniPlan for iPad" emails we were previously getting. At the time of this writing, just under two-thirds of the app ratings in iTunes are 5-star ones. Total the 4- & 5- star ratings and that goes to just under 70%.

Are there more 2- and 3-star reviews than we'd like to see? Absolutely. But we know how to change that. And it doesn't mean we should force 100% of our customers to go without an app in order to make the third of them that are a little disappointed right now happier.

rrkpl 2012-06-11 06:24 AM

Hi Brian,

As someone who has been using your software since it was first bundled on Mac's many years ago and finds value in being an Omni Customer I have two thoughts for you.

1. Unless your business model is different than mine (we produce corporate documentaries in the energy and defense sector) I, sure can't afford to make one third of my customers a *little* unhappy.

2. I know in mine and other cases I've seen posted both on this forum and the App Store reviews, all you would have had to do to avoid 1/3 customer disappointment is to be up-front about lack of input/output options on your App Store product description. You could have even done it in a positive manor such as:

"Input / Output options-
Inputs documents created by OmniPlan Desktop
Outputs to OmniPlan Desktop or screen capture

That way purchasers would either understand the products limitations or at least feel you hadn't misled them by your silence. For that matter that might be a good thing to add right now before your 1/3 grows in size.

Brian 2012-06-11 04:21 PM

[QUOTE=rrkpl;111428]I sure can't afford to make one third of my customers a *little* unhappy.[/QUOTE]

This is a great goal to shoot for, but I would love to be faced with a choice like "do we make some people unhappy, or no people unhappy?". That one's a no-brainer. :-)

Adding printing/export means either cutting out features that [I]are[/I] in there, or asking folks to go longer with no app at all. Either would have made folks unhappy; it would just be different groups depending on their particular needs...

[QUOTE=rrkpl;111428]all you would have had to do to avoid 1/3 customer disappointment is to be up-front about lack of input/output options on your App Store product description.[/QUOTE]

That's a really good point. Ken's best equipped to a change along those lines, and he's at WWDC (so is even busier than usual), but I emailed him your suggestion. Thanks!


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