[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by shhQuiet

On another topic:
Am I the only one checking the app store every few minutes to see if OO is there? :D

You could save yourself the trouble, if you want. As I recall, the app doesn't just automatically go "live" in the store when approved — Omni has to flip the switch. You can sign up to get a notification when they do. See Ken's blog post at http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/entry/...iner_for_ipad/ for details.

[shhQuiet]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

You could save yourself the trouble, if you want. As I recall, the app doesn't just automatically go "live" in the store when approved — Omni has to flip the switch. You can sign up to get a notification when they do. See Ken's blog post at http://www.omnigroup.com/blog/entry/...iner_for_ipad/ for details.

<sigh> I know... I've already signed up for it... DAMN THIS OCD!!!

[psidnell]

Originally Posted by shhQuiet

Am I the only one checking the app store every few minutes to see if OO is there? :D

No :-)

I also look here just to see how impatient I'm being.

[whpalmer4]

Apple could roll out a new file sharing service that handled the syncing to the iOS local copy automatically for all apps built with the latest bits, and then any app that needed to read/write documents could automatically stay up to date. Right now, you can run the Dropbox app on your iPad, and mark certain files in your Dropbox as favorites, to be kept in the iPad's filesystem (and updated when they are noticed to have changed), and that works reasonably well except that those files may not be accessible to the apps in which you want to use them. Even if you can get the file over to the app via the Open in... mechanism, the app may not be able to send it back to the Dropbox app to have it automatically propagated elsewhere on Dropbox. Apple could provide us with filesystem support that didn't have those restrictions, but no one else can.

[psidnell]

Sounds like you have some inside knowledge, have you been sneaking through the sewers into to Apples hollowed out volcano?

[whpalmer4]

No inside knowledge — just straightforward connecting the dots. What could you do to make Dropbox work better on IOS devices? What I said :) Only Apple is in a position to provide the software that makes it all work, though.

[Tam]

Add me to the list of those obsessively checking the app store too. I use OO all the time on my Mac and can't wait to have it on my iPad too (and hopefully one day my iPhone).

I hope Omni will add Dropbox support too. Lots of other productivity apps have it (e.g. Quickoffice and GoodReader). Given the premium price of Omni's apps, they really ought to have such features. MobileMe is okay, and I do have an account, but I just find Dropbox does a better job and I'd rather keep all my syncing in one place.

I don't really get why Omni is wasting time and money on their own sync server, given there are plenty of 3rd party solutions out there, surely their limited resources are better deployed elsewhere.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by Tam

I don't really get why Omni is wasting time and money on their own sync server, given there are plenty of 3rd party solutions out there, surely their limited resources are better deployed elsewhere.

They aren't wasting time and money, they are providing a valuable service, for free. No other provider is able to repair problems with OmniFocus or OmniPlan sync databases, for example. Omni is providing a sync service that should just work, for anyone who needs it, and you don't have to worry about the security of your data to the degree you might with someone else (if you don't trust their IT staff, you probably shouldn't use their software!). They are going to be more motivated to keep things running smoothly than any other 3rd party. If you call up the Omni support staff with a sync problem when using their server, they can look directly at your database to troubleshoot and repair. The hardware investment is a Mac Mini and some disk, last I heard, so it's not like they are blowing the year's hardware budget. They can afford to give it away because it is so inexpensive to provide. If the support ninjas spend less time on sync problems, they are more available for other issues, so everybody wins.

[Tam]

So are you saying something different is going on when OmniFocus syncs to Omni's server as opposed to when it syncs with something in the cloud? Or is it just quicker/easier to troubleshoot as they have the data right there?

I'm not so much concerned with the security of data. I probably actually trust Omni more than someone like Dropbox given the excellent customer service I've had from them whenever I've had a problem over the years.

If the investment is that low, point taken. Then again, I'd query how robust the solution is if it's just a mac mini sitting in their office. (Though of course bigger cloud companies have their share of outages too.)

I can certainly see the merits of it for OmniFocus. I'm less convinced for something like OmniOutliner.

[whpalmer4]

I've been using it almost exclusively for as long as it has been available, and I'm a pretty intensive user. The only outage I've encountered was a planned one a month or two ago, and I got plenty of warning. Can't say the same about MobileMe, with a much larger budget! I've also seen plenty of apologetic tweets from Dropbox saying that yes, their service is down and their provider is working on it. If the OSS goes out, you can just point your software at a different WebDAV server and continue to work in the same manner (albeit without access to files you had only on the OSS), whereas when Dropbox is down, you've got to switch to an entirely different way of working if you've been relying on Dropbox as your file conduit.

Nothing different happens during the sync to the OSS vs. the sync I would do to Apache running on my iMac, but the support ninjas have tools where they can quickly see the sync activity, etc. and they can repair the database if it comes to that.

Marginal cost to supporting OmniOutliner, OmniGraffle, OmniGraphSketcher, OmniPlan is probably vanishingly small; it's all just standard WebDAV traffic, and they built the server infrastructure for OmniFocus.