just found this thread and it reflects where I'm at now. I’m a reasonably satisfied iGTD user, but a longtime user of OmniGroup products. OmniWeb is my default browser, I love and use OmniGraffle Pro, and I own a license for OmniOutliner Pro (but tend to use Notebook more as it better suits my needs). I love OG’s UI designs and they have a long history of building high quality apps. OmniFocus is no exception.
It’s a beautiful application, but I just find myself taking longer to get things done within it. In an effort to present a clean interface they’ve created an app that makes it more difficult for me to do what I want to do than in iGTD. I prefer OF’s UI to iGTD’s, but iGTD lets me get things done faster.
Two examples that have been discussed on other threads here. First, email. I hate ‘clippings’. Hate it. I have to use the mouse and select some text before I can import the email? That’s fine if I also get iGTD’s one button ‘F6’ trick of hit one button and the email is a task, and I get to set a preference for whether I want to do anything else within iGTD at that time, like see an entry window to modify task attributes or just have it dump into my inbox. I've got it set so that I simply get a Growl notification that it’s been added to my inbox and that’s it. It allows me to process my email VERY quickly. OmniFocus takes exponentially longer for me to do email processing, and that’s unacceptable for me and my workflow.
The other is Focus. What I find extremely ironic and more than a little disappointing is that for an app that seems to be all about ‘focusing’, the Focus function is only effective in the planning side of things (if you equate projects to planning and contexts to execution). Why they didn’t extend Focus functionality to the context side is beyond me. I’ll give you a specific example. In iGTD, I have a smart folder that lets me see everything due today or prior and NOTHING else. I have another that lets me see everything due within the next 3 days. So if I want to FOCUS in on what I have to do today and ONLY what I have to do today, iGTD lets me do that. OmniFocus does not. Say wha?!? In my mind, this is one of the most fundamental things a task manager can do. In fact, when I test a new task mgmt app the first thing I do is add some tasks, give them some dates, then see if I can focus in on only what I need to see and act on today. If I can’t do this, I don’t particularly care what other features the app has. It has failed my first test. I am, literally, stunned that OmniFocus does not allow me to focus in this way. It’s a serious shortcoming and for such a strong design group, it is a horrible design flaw in my opinion.
To compound the difficulty in comparing these apps, iGTD is in for a major reworking. Within the next 2 months I expect to see iGTD2, which will include far more robust smart folder functionality along with tabs and saved workspaces. What this means is that unless OmniFocus adds or changes functionality from what is available today, iGTD will simply do a stronger job of letting the user focus in on precisely what they want to see, ignoring all else.
Frankly, in comparing these two apps I'm rooting for OmniFocus. I love the company and their products, and I have more confidence that they’ll be around in 10 years supporting and continuing to develop than I do in one guy in Poland. He gets hit by a bus, iGTD is dead. So there’s intrinsic risk involved in using that app. But right now, at least for me, it lets me get more stuff done with less effort than OmniFocus does. OF is prettier, but sometimes pretty is as pretty does, and for me right now that makes iGTD the belle of the ball.