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Originally Posted by NickHibma
My biggest issue with OF2 is the lack of essential changes. In this forum a lot of people have suggested good ideas and I've not seen any of them implemented in the past 2 years. The beta was a big step backwards: just a new GUI (who cares!?), and soooo sloooow (beyond repair).
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I think one of the biggest gripes that people were complaining about was OF1's UI as cemented in this line "just a new GUI (who cares!?)"
Well, I think we should care about a new GUI. We've had enough people groaning about how OF1 looks old and outdated. But when OF2 comes out with a new private test and saw a "prototype" of the new UI, people still aren't happy?!?! Remember - this is a prototype - not the final golden master. Things can and will change.
I think including something as simple as the review mode into the Mac desktop version was a good first step. That's part of the new GUI. Testing out different things like the animated slabs was something that Omni had to test on people to see if it was well received or not. Testing out that new balloon pop-up inspector was important to see how it affected people's workflow. I know I didn't care for it and prefer to have the inspector in a pane on the right side of the window and have stated so in my feedback to Omni. These are all design decisions that Omni had to try out before making any concrete decisions.
I think the UI is the first of many steps. I think OF2's first iteration is helping to transition over OF1 data to OF2 seamlessly. I'm probably thinking that OF 2.5 will have a considerable data structure change. This might just affect your OF database and you will no longer be able to revert back to the old data file. OF 2.0 will probably allow people to slowly but surely move over to a new data structure over time.
Nobody said that the Private test version was the "final" or golden master. Take a deep breath. It's far from over.
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So, OF fits the 'bad customer support' category quite we'll by now!
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well, then Apple infamously belongs here. We've seen the growing pains of Final Cut Pro X and the firestorm that was caused by a brand new version. Critics flamed on and said "well, it's a brand new UI. Who cares? I want my old Final Cut Pro 7 data to transfer over easily."
Heck, even the new iWorks is going through growing pains. They introduced a rebuilt-from-the-ground-up version and will be adding much of the functionality back.
Apple has been effectively sticking back in stuff into thew new FCPX and has perhaps surpassed FCP7. It offered a new paradigm, new workflows, and tossed out old structures that were probably outdated and would interfere in the new workflow.
So I think Omni is on the right track here. There's a lesson from J.D. Meier's Agile Results system. It's called incremental versioning. You don't have to get it perfect the first time. Just push out something that is deemed acceptable and then improve on it. If you wait until you get the "perfect" version, you'll probably be waiting forever...
Don't forget that this was a "private test" version. Nobody paid a penny to test out OF2 and offer their own opinions and workflow ideas to improve OF2.
I know that people were in a huff when Omni said they were going silent for a while and no new private release builds will be coming until much later. This was a good time for Omni to step back, take in all the user feedback collected during the private test, figure out what worked and what didn't work, then start releasing another private test eventually.
So, let's just wait until we have to plunk down some our hard earned pennies. Then we can critique the state of task management apps.
On the state of task management apps, I don't think anyone will find the right one for them. i have a couple of friends who try to show off the newest kid on the block that they just bought on the Mac App Store or on the iTunes store. I just kindly chuckle while I'm still humming away getting things done with the tools I have on hand.
The Holy Grail is probably something that will never be reached. The only perfect task management app I know is probably Iron Man's virtual assistant called "Jarvis".
"Hey Jarvis, can you get me two tickets to the Super Bowl by January?"
"Jarvis, what's the meaning of life?"
The perfect task manager is something that can read your mind and have finished the task even before you know what you wanted.
Well, we're not at that state yet but hopefully in this lifetime.... *sigh*