Using the iPhone version exclusively: what's missing?
 

To those of you who, like me, are using only the iPhone version of OmniFocus, not the desktop version: what do you think is missing? Are you tempted, like I sometimes am, to buy the desktop version also, just to have the full feature set of the OF concept at your disposal?

I'm asking because I really don't want to use the desktop version — I wouldn't want to even if it were free. My organizer (which is what OF is to me) belongs in my trouser pocket, where it's always accessible, and having a second "home" for it, i.e. a desktop or laptop computer, is — or should be — superfluous.

But OFi is not complete in its present form. Some things are lacking. What would you say needs to be included in the iPhone version, so that it could truly stand on its own feet? And can you think of important iPhone-only features that should be added?

Disclaimer: I have OF Desktop.

One major missing feature of OF iPhone is the ability to create repeating Actions. I can't imagine using just the iPhone version since that feature requires a desktop version to setup.

I have both iPhone OF and Desktop OF and they work quite well together, especially with WiFi syncing. One thing missing from the iPhone app is perspectives. These are quite important to me as I have quite a few projects. Also, having access to the view bar in the Desktop version is very useful since I can easily filter out and/or arrange things differently to see that tasks I wish to see. Finally, the review feature is also very important to me as that is the time to clean things out and re-organise things. Finally (again), getting things into OF on the desktop is much easier, not just because of the small keyboard, but more because of the clipping feature which I use extensively in my news-reader and my email.

Ahem, I guess that's more than one feature, huh?

I've only read a bit of the GTD book. Still working my way through it so I may find a workaround to this... I found that there isn't a 'Next Actions' section if an action would take longer than 2 minutes and you need to defer it. However since you may not have a timeframe as to when exactly you want to do it, it should be in a 'Next Actions' bucket which would keep a track of it. This isn't present in the OmniFocus for iPhone.

Also, the 'Nearby' is a great way to find work you can do that is close to you but for most, you can't use it as an exacting tool. The Nearby feature is in Miles. Good enough to give you a perspective of whats close if you're in the 'Rest of the world'. i.e. there are only 2 countries (I believe) that use Miles and not Kilometers, USA and like Libera or something. Heh.

No settings option for Kilometers.

Hi OF dev team. Didn't expect to see me?
:)

I expect that eventually there will be a way to tell OF that you want your distances shown in kilometers. Until then, multiplying by .6 will give you a quick approximation. Most people won't be able to take an "as the crow flies" route from their current position to where that nearby spot is, so I'm not sure what the fuss over precision is all about.

There may only be two countries that use miles as the standard measure, but I expect one of them houses at least a plurality if not a majority of all OmniFocus (iPhone) purchasers.

A Next Action in OmniFocus is simply the first available action in a project, though in a single-action list all available actions are considered Next Actions. There's no need for a "bucket" to keep track of them, although one might want a display that showed only Next Actions (available on the desktop version, not currently available on the iPhone/iPod Touch version to my knowledge). It is not essential, in my opinion as a multi-year user of OmniFocus and its predecessor, Kinkless GTD. Convenient, yes, sometimes; essential, no.

I'm in one of those countries that uses miles (UK), but I would still prefer to have my distances in metres and km.

On topic... repeating actions are definitely the thing I miss from the desktop, as well as an easier way to input dates and times (it is greatly improved in the current version, but still not great).

Going the other way, what I miss from the iPhone version on the desktop is locations. It'd be nice to be able to input and assign locations to contexts from both and e.g. tie the desktop version into Google Earth or Maps.

I miss the fast data imput, orizontal view in my iphone. In vertical view my speed for data entry is not as good than landscape keyboard.
Is this feauture planned for future release?

[QUOTE=Bluebeep;52684]

No settings option for Kilometers.
[/QUOTE]

I have OF displaying distances in Km, no problem. I think it depends on your general setting on the iPhone or iPod (or maybe on your Mac)

[QUOTE=vegaz;52717]I have OF displaying distances in Km, no problem. I think it depends on your general setting on the iPhone or iPod (or maybe on your Mac)[/QUOTE]
It depends on your region, but the problem is that you can't toggle an option to use one or the other, or both (it is actually a system wide issue, not an OmniFocus one).

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;52688]Until then, multiplying by .6 will give you a quick approximation.[/QUOTE]

Dude that's 1.6 I think. But that's what I mean when the software should do it.

Will just have to wait and see if OF plans on catering other features outside of their primary client base - Liberia.

:)

BTW thanks guys, I setup my regional settings and it worked fine! The KMs show up.