[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by myndex

I've now read here that such "scheduling" is coutner to the concept of GTD.

Okay, I get that, but:

Some of us DO have something called "appointments" and/or "meetings". :) These are fixed events, that need to be scheduled.

I don't see why, when they are part of a set of OF actions, that they are not able to be flagged as an iCal *event* (a simple check box would do in the inspector, for instance). And have the alarm automatically set.

The general notion is that things with fixed times (the "hard landscape" as David Allen puts it) go in your calendar, not in OmniFocus. OmniFocus manages your tasks that occupy the rest of your time.

You can read the official Omni position on this in Brian's post (#49) in this thread: http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=2533

On the iPhone, iCal will give audible alerts - these alerts are very important!! And I'll assume that OF iPhone does not do alerts (no backgrounding in iPhone) - I have not plunked down the cash yet to buy these apps, but this seems like a serious deficiency.

Your assumption is incorrect. The iPhone app can be configured to populate a WebDAV calendar with alerts for items with imminent due dates/times and subscribe the iPhone Calendar app to it so that you get popup notifications whether or not the OmniFocus app is running and whether or not you have network connectivity.

Right now, the desktop app doesn't populate this calendar, only the iPhone app (when it syncs), but that is due to be fixed in the next update (free), I believe.
I personally haven't found that to be an issue, but my iPod gets synced frequently.

But even if I have an event that is NOT a meeting, I probably want an audible alert.

Say I have an action that is "pay gym membership" - I might want an audible alert on my iPhone a few days before it's due, as a reminder.

Why not just look at your Due Soon list each day? What good is an audible reminder if it comes at a point when you aren't able to immediately act?

I read in the OF for iPhone that it does calender notifications, but I don't see anything like that in the desktop app, and I don't see what it notifies in the iTunes sales page (and I'm hesitant to spend $20 no knowing what/how notifications are scheduled or take place)

You can read about it here: http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=13131

This is not "syncing with iCal" functionality - sticking to do items in a list, and not the calender isn't really "syncing".

Maybe not by your definition, but if you change those to do items in iCal the changes get synced to the OmniFocus, and vice versa. If that's not syncing, what is it? Also, those to do items do have dates if the corresponding OmniFocus events have them, and iCal will restrict their visibility to match the calendar's viewpoint, if you choose. I don't think it is unreasonable to say that the current implementation is not what you want, but to say it is not "syncing with iCal" is.

If my experience is any indication, with OmniFocus on both desktop and iPhone, you won't bother with the regular iCal sync, as there isn't any need for it. It was implemented as a way for those without iPhone/iPod Touch to get their OF info into some sort of mobile device.