[BwanaZulia]

Is this still on track?

BZ

[michelle]

The last estimate we made was end of April/early May. We're working on an updated estimate. We'll give a full update on our blog by the end of this week. Sorry for the delay, but I want to make sure everyone at Omni is in agreement on the new date. Unfortunately we won't have a beta ready by the end of April.

Michelle

[dude]

Complete bummer.

[BwanaZulia]

Yeah, I have this sinking feeling we are going to get into a never ending waiting period with this.

As much as I love OmniGroup (bought 4/5 apps) their development lifecycle always seems to be much slower than A) expected and B) other houses.

The guy behind iGTD seems to be ripping out features and releases on a daily/weekly basis yet OmniFocus, now in development for 5+ months by a company that has done OSX development for 10+ years, based on pre-existing software packgage can't get a beta out.

I am sorry if I am being harsh, but that is the way it looks from the outside.

BZ

[michelle]

We understand your frustration. We started talking about this application much sooner than other applications we have developed. We did this because the application was inspired by our users and we wanted your feedback along the way. We REALLY want to get this application to you, but it's simply not ready yet.

It takes us a long time to release an application because of our commitment to quality. We don't want to rush things or release an application before it's ready. We also have a very aggresive list of features we are trying to implement.

Our competition is doing some cool stuff. If their solution works for you we encourage you to try it. As I mentioned, there will be more updates on the blog this week.

Michelle

[pheski]

Originally Posted by michelle

We understand your frustration...snip...snip...
We don't want to rush things or release an application before it's ready. We also have a very aggresive (sic) list of features...snip...snip...Our competition is doing some cool stuff. If their solution works for you we encourage you to try it....snip...snip

This attitude, and my experience with other OMNI products, makes it possible for me to get by with kGTD while waiting reasonably patiently for OF, which I am quite confident will be worth the wait.

So the part of me that wants you to work 24-7 with chemical supplements is taking second place to the part that says, do it right and all will work out in the end.

That said, I check daily for news of a sneaky-peek....

Peter

[Luhmann]

As I posted in another thread, I think there are two different design philosophies at work: The iGTD approach is to get something out that is imperfect but usable and work like mad in response to user-feedback. The Omni approach seems to be to spend a lot of time gathering user feedback first, and then work to get the product perfect before releasing it. The advantage of the first approach is that you get market share through frequent updates (each time an update is released people read about it on sites like MacUpdate), and through the word-of-mouth of early adopters. The latter approach earns loyal customers who know a company has a commitment to quality.

It is interesting to note that Apple tends to be in the latter category, while most open-source projects are in the former. Note that iGTD while not open-source is "donation ware" while Omnifocus will be a commercial product.

For now I'm using iGTD, but that doesn't mean I won't be eager to download and try OmniFocus when it is ready. I'm sure it will be worth the wait.

[BwanaZulia]

My kGTD and loyality to OmniGroup is just too big and strong right now to give iGTD anything but a glance. If I am going to migrate, I am going to do it once and hopefully that will be from kGTD -> OmniFocus.

While I appreciate the "Collect and delelope" approach the Open Souce approach also has the upside of feedback based on a real product.

I would like to see OmniGroup move towards the Google model which is to get something out there early and do incremental steps forward as feedback is collected.

BZ