[drlaz]

Rather wish I'd seen this before buying yesterday.

I assumed that sync to server-based calendars would be added, especially when MobileMe expires. Instead I read that OF doesn't seem to want to play with iCloud users, that it has some other plan for iCal sync.

Um, I don't understand the logic here. There's a big plus for easy sync to iCal's ToDo lists, even if they are primitive. For example, other family members or colleagues who don't need OF-type programs (e.g., children) can see them.

[whpalmer4]

No need for regrets, Omni offers a 30-day money back guarantee on their products.

[gianpiero]

Originally Posted by Brian

We also plan to add Forecast view to the Mac app and add other features as needed to help folks be productive.

The calendar sync feature will eventually be removed, though, and we don't expect to replace it in a form that looks like it currently exists. It's used by a very small number of people, but it's among the top features that generate confusion among customers. (Measured in terms of the number of emails that get sent in about it.)

Well Brian, this is really discouraging news.

OmniFocus has been in my top 4 most used apps for a long long time (together with iCal, Mail and Skype), and it's a wonderful piece of software. However, syncing with iCal is and will always be crucial for me, and my folks. When iCal moved to MobileMe based calendars, I posted on Ken's thread and followed your suggestion on keeping a local calendar to keep on syncing to. This solution is by far not as time efficient and productive as the previous one, and I only coped with it in the hope that OmniFocus will eventually work out a better solution.

Now iCloud comes along and I haven't made the transition from MobileMe only because of OmniFocus, just to learn that Omni will not integrate with it.

If Omni's goal is indeed making software to improve its customers productiveness, and given it makes software only for Apple users, moving away from the path of total integration with Apple's OS, software and services doesn't seems to me like a winner strategy. Then again, I don't run your company.

I do run my companies though, and they're all set up with Apple hardware and software. So if the syncing issue between OmniFocus and Apple will only get worse, I'm afraid I'll unwillingly have to look for an alternative solution for project and task-management.

I sincerely hope you at Omni give a second thoght on this matter, because I am indeed an Omnifan and would like to keep being it.

Best regards,
Gianpiero

[whpalmer4]

Gianpiero,

Brian didn't say they weren't going to integrate with iCloud; he said that the replacement feature would not resemble the current calendar sync. Many people would agree that that's a good thing! :-)

How on earth do you manage your calendar if you have your entire OmniFocus database dumped in there? How much time do you spend plugging tasks into spots in the calendar instead of just doing them? Such a workflow would be completely unworkable for me, but I'm always curious about workflows different from my own!

And do I understand correctly that you use this as some sort of groupware? It sounds like you might be well-served if you could get a fire lit under Omni to finish up the OmniPlan 2<->OmniFocus sync conduit.

[drlaz]

Well, if a 'different' sync with iCloud is available, let's hear the details.

As an example of why you can do with syncing OF and a calendar, take my son's college application due dates. I have enough trouble getting him to look at a calendar. I'm not going to set up a multi-user Omni database to share with him, but I can sync some ToDos to his calendar and there we are.

Just as another point, using iCal would guarantee cooperation with the Reminders app, which I am told has no 3rd-party API.

I'm having the same problem as other posters understanding why an Apple software shop would diverge from Apple APIs in this.

[whpalmer4]

No offense intended, but if he isn't willing to look at a calendar, as you say, syncing a few todos there is wasting your time. If it is important to you that those applications get done, you need to be talking about it every day until it is done. Just putting it on a calendar means it either gets blown off until the last minute or blown off entirely — don't you remember being a teenage boy?

There are no details because there is no replacement to deploy right now (or they would be telling us about it). They aren't wandering away from Apple APIs, either — they just aren't choosing to code against every possible Apple feature, just like they don't have any integration with the Address Book or the camera in the Mac software. Apple is the one that is moving to different software, and Omni is choosing not to replicate the old snarl of baling wire and chewing gum in the new technology because it just doesn't work well for most customers, and porting it to iCloud won't change that. Apple has been jettisoning support for syncing calendar data to 3rd party devices, which was the original reason this feature existed.

[gianpiero]

whpalmer4

You must really be a lucky man, if you can manage your workflow with just a few calendars and OmniFocus projects.

Instead, I have a quite busy and complicated life: I run 4 different companies in 4 different countries. In my iCal I have more than a dozen different calendars and in OmniFocus I have more than 30 different projects going on at the moment. So, being able to quickly set time allocations for all my tasks is simply crucial! And all of this is just me.

As for workgroup management, I tried OmniPlan but I had to discard it because it doesn't support budget and cost management. We use Merlin instead, which is not as easy to use but is much more complete and it integrates with iCal.

If the people at Omni have a better way to integrate all that stuff, and allow me to save time at organizing my tasks, I would love to learn about it. So far it has gotten worse.

Hope this answers your questions.

Best regards.

[wskcondor]

Brian, I have to provide another voice (of a user of your mac, iPad and iPhone OF product) to say that inability to sync easily with iCloud is a "breaking" of the experience (and trust in the application support). As the producer of the product, you "may" ask the user to just try to alter workflow or habits some (Apple does it all the time) but this was something that was working and now is broken. The Forecast views "were" awesome and I was looking forward to the mac version of it, but it was only awesome because I could see a forecast of my upcoming actions due AND my hard scheduled time SIMULTANEOUSLY. The former being mostly produced in OF, and the latter being mostly scheduled in iCal. Everything has moved to the cloud, and SIRI is a huge leap-it is significant. If I can't begin to integrate SIRI additions to my hard schedule and to do's I have to choose between the big APPLE, Siri, iCal, Reminders, iCloud and all of that integration....or just OF and building projects.

In the end, we should be DOING stuff, not spending all of our time and energy "planning and scheduling" to do stuff. To that need we have to find a "home" environment to work in, and OF's inability (and no promise to fix) to sync with iCloud is a full stop wall that has gone up between the environments.
I do not think it is a feature that "only a few people use" but most complaints or problems come from.

PLEASE consider fixing OF to sync with iCloud, and letting loyal users know there is a plan.

R,

[pjb]

I use OF on my laptop and on my iPhone all the time every day but if I'd bought OF from the App Store I'd be leaving a miserable 1 star for an expensive program that does not sync with whatever Apple is offering for reminders and calendars. Free programs do it. It might be mess, it might not be ideal, but users would have some hooks to grapple with when creating sharing and exporting options.

[graffy100]

Seconding all the others. Just bought OF for Mac and iPad. Would be really disappointed if you fail to integrate iCloud -- Omni is an age-old Mac developer, shouldn't you be supporting it as a matter of principle? I will not be using your OmniSync solution, sorry.