[santra]

iPad 1, 3 GB free space, MobileMe, 300 KB OO file, 10,000 rows in outline

30 seconds to load
60 seconds to close
10 seconds to create row
10 seconds to delete row
10 second to indent row

and entire outline will not smoothly scroll from top to bottom; it scroll to F, loads new rows, scrolls to M, has to load more new rows, etc. This is with an outline that has only one column. I guess this app is not yet capable of heaving lifting. There are memory management issues here. I don't recall OF having these latency problems.

Same test on 4-year-old MBP Duo Core 2 GHz, same wifi network:

3 seconds to load
1 second to close
0 seconds to create row
0 seconds to delete row
0 seconds to indent row

I've waited a year-and-a-half for THIS kind of latency? And no search?

Somewhat disappointing, to say the least.

-S

[santra]

Does no one else have these latency issues? Or, if you do, do you consider a 1-minute latency "normal"?

Do you think it's just because my file is too "large"?

I'm truly curious, since I'm getting no responses here.

[Brian]

Sorry for the confusion! iPads are amazing devices, but their processors are at least an order of magnitude slower than the ones in a desktop Mac, and they have far less RAM at their disposal. (You mentioned the amount of free space on the SSD in your email. Unfortunately, that doesn't help us: the iOS platform has no concept of virtual memory.)

We wanted to make sure the documents would open on the device so we made the decision to load a certain number of rows at a time. If OmniOutliner asks for more memory than the device has available it'll be shut down by the OS; it can't be of any use to you if that happens.

I apologize if that's disappointing, but given the limitations of the iPad's hardware, we made the best choices we could from the available options.

If you open the document in question on your Mac, then use Activity Monitor to see how much RAM and virtual memory OmniOutliner is using, it's going to be a much bigger quantity than the iPad (even an iPad 2) will be able to give any one app. The device has less memory to begin with; now give about half that to the OS. Now give some some to any other applications that are running in the background; OmniOutliner will end up with a *portion* of the remaining RAM.

You should be able to find ways to make the new device useful in your workflows, but you can't start from the assumption that it's interchangeable with your Mac. The two platforms are simply different. I do hope that helps make things more understandable.

[whpalmer4]

My experience has been that if you put 8-10,000 rows in an OmniFocus database on an iPad 1, you'll see latency issues (and out of memory crashes). An iPad 2 fixes the crashing, but not the latency.

OmniGraffle for iPad got a substantial performance tuneup in the first few months, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the same happen with OmniOutliner for iPad.

[GeoffAirey]

Originally Posted by santra

Does no one else have these latency issues? Or, if you do, do you consider a 1-minute latency "normal"?

Do you think it's just because my file is too "large"?

I'm truly curious, since I'm getting no responses here.

On an iPad (not ipad2)

8 seconds to load the app
less than a second to open a document
less than a second to go back to the documents view
seconds to close (depends what you mean by close)
less than a second to create row, delete row or indent Row, but my outlines don't tend to have more than 100 rows yet.

[santra]

Well, Brian, here's what I've found out:

Files that are about 10 KB will work.
Files that are of a 3-digit KB size, forget it.

Frankly, I'm mystified. I guess the lack of RAM explains it.

But I find it rather ironic (and insane) that on a device that will play (or stream) a video file, which is HUGE, that OO can't handle something that's a mere few hundred KB.

I feel like I'm back in the 80s... At least that 300 KB file of mine would fit on a 5¼-inch DD floppy disk!

You say, "You should be able to find ways to make the new device useful in your workflows." Yes, I have: creating, editing, and using tiny, tiny outlines.

The more I think about it, the more I find myself scratching my brain over this. I use OmniGraffle on my iPad every day. Phenomenal app, and it has to be somewhat demanding because of the graphics involved. Yet OmniOutlines are merely text, so why the big RAM conflict?

Obviously I don't understand enough about the back end.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by santra

But I find it rather ironic (and insane) that on a device that will play (or stream) a video file, which is HUGE

Yes, a video or audio file can be huge, but you only use a very small portion of it at one time, and that portion marches through the file in an orderly fashion. Displaying the content 15 minutes in doesn't require much knowledge about what was displayed more than a few seconds earlier. That's a great simplification which unfortunately doesn't hold for an outline.

Also, the data structures that describe the relationship of the rows with each other, how the text is to be styled, etc. all take up space, potentially much more than the text itself. If your outline resembles a Simplenote note with checkboxes, then yes, one might look askance at the overhead, but if you are making use of many of the options offered it isn't so unreasonable. Undoubtedly the app can stand to have some tuning done; OmniGraffle certainly improved on its original performance with the 1.1 release. Tuning it to optimize the thousands of simple rows case at the expense of more featured smaller outlines might not be the right decision to make the most customers happy, however, especially if doing so also increases the difficulty of maintaining the app and adding future features. The old adage about software development: "fast, cheap, correct: pick two" certainly comes to mind.

The more I think about it, the more I find myself scratching my brain over this. I use OmniGraffle on my iPad every day. Phenomenal app, and it has to be somewhat demanding because of the graphics involved. Yet OmniOutlines are merely text, so why the big RAM conflict?

How many of your OmniGraffle documents have many hundreds or thousands of objects, to match the thousands of rows in your outlines?

[santra]

Great explanation about the data architecture of the different media/data types, Palmer. Thanks.

With OmniGraffle, I have different problems. Porting from the Mac to the iPad does a number on odd fonts, background color shifts, and canvas sizing. All fixable, though; and it's amazing the Graffle on the iPad has Layers control!