Today Omni launched a new syncing technology called OmniPresence. You can find out lots more about it here: http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/entry/...hips-this-week
We've integrated it into OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraphSketcher. (And it can work for lots of other types of apps between Macs or, with some app developer work, iPads).
So when are we adding this to OmniFocus?
Well, OmniFocus has had automatic syncing between Mac and iOS devices that can use most WebDAV servers since 2008. So OmniPresence is really the answer to the opposite question: "When are you going to bring OmniFocus-like syncing to the rest of Omni's flagship apps?"
It would not be beneficial to switch OmniFocus over to use OmniPresence. OmniPresence is custom-tuned for syncing documents like diagrams or outlines. But OmniFocus is, under the hood, more of a database than a document. Because of this, OmniFocus syncing is already more intelligent than OmniPresence. When you complete one action on your iPad and add a different one on your Mac, OmniFocus can merge both of these changes into the data, and let you just get work done. OmniPresence doesn't have this database of changes, so if it sees changes from both your Mac and your iPad, it has to make a new copy of the document and nudge you to manually fix the conflict.
On the other hand, every time we build something new, it gives us ideas and experience that we can use to make our other apps better too. We don't have specific plans or schedules yet, but OmniFocus syncing will probably benefit a lot in the long term from the time we've spent on OmniPresence.
We've integrated it into OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, and OmniGraphSketcher. (And it can work for lots of other types of apps between Macs or, with some app developer work, iPads).
So when are we adding this to OmniFocus?
Well, OmniFocus has had automatic syncing between Mac and iOS devices that can use most WebDAV servers since 2008. So OmniPresence is really the answer to the opposite question: "When are you going to bring OmniFocus-like syncing to the rest of Omni's flagship apps?"
It would not be beneficial to switch OmniFocus over to use OmniPresence. OmniPresence is custom-tuned for syncing documents like diagrams or outlines. But OmniFocus is, under the hood, more of a database than a document. Because of this, OmniFocus syncing is already more intelligent than OmniPresence. When you complete one action on your iPad and add a different one on your Mac, OmniFocus can merge both of these changes into the data, and let you just get work done. OmniPresence doesn't have this database of changes, so if it sees changes from both your Mac and your iPad, it has to make a new copy of the document and nudge you to manually fix the conflict.
On the other hand, every time we build something new, it gives us ideas and experience that we can use to make our other apps better too. We don't have specific plans or schedules yet, but OmniFocus syncing will probably benefit a lot in the long term from the time we've spent on OmniPresence.