[MEP]

I think there is a philosophy behind not putting every single feature into your GTD app, and it's a philosophy of software design that is rooted in OS X's UNIX origins.

Most "GTD" apps end up being just "next action list" apps or "next action and other lists" apps, and that's fine with me. I don't want an Outlook clone with GTD specific features. The goal with apps like OF is to make your application really really good at one specific thing (next actions) and then make it really really interoperable with other applications that take care of the other tasks (like iCal).

By doing this, I can choose the tools for each task that best suit me.

An analogous situation occurs with PIM apps. If I chose to use a monolithic PIM application suite like Entourage or Outlook, I'd be stuck with all of the pieces they gave me, even if some of those pieces were poorly suited to my needs. If, for instance, I really liked Entourage's calendar features, but I absolutely despised its embarrassingly primitive address book features, I'd be stuck with the crappy address book because that's what works with the calendar. But when I use OS X's address book, iCal and Mail apps, I can easily replace any one of those single apps with another application and still integrate it with the other applications I'm using (made easier by things like Quicksilver, applescript and OS X's system-wide databases for calendars and addresses).

Now let's say OF had a calendar built in. What if it didn't suit my needs? What if the OF calendar lacked the one critical calendaring feature that I need most? Well, it works with the next action list, which I love, but other than that, it's not what I need. Sure, Omni could still sync up to iCal or Google calendar or whatever, but you know that the built-in calendar is going to support the best next action-related features.

It's better for Omni to make OF the best next action list app it possibly can and leave the other components to someone else. Make OF very interoperable. Make it very applescriptable and maybe even work in some sync-specific features or allow plugins. Then we can each choose the calendar app that best suits our individual needs instead of being roped into the one that works best with OF.