[Ken Case]

Originally Posted by popesammyjoe

They didn't need an open beta test to figure out that this software flat out did not deliver on its core premise of fast task entry, "trusted system", and task synchronization.

I'm sorry to hear that OmniFocus didn't deliver on those core premises for you, and I certainly don't want to dismiss any of your concerns. (Hopefully our latest 1.0.3 release has already addressed most if not all of them!)

While you're certainly not alone in your frustrations, I would submit that you're in a small (but important!) minority: the feedback we've received overall indicates that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of people who have started using OmniFocus on their iPhones over the last five weeks are very pleased with it.

We did work very, very hard to try to make sure the app was solid for release on day one: since we couldn't follow our usual practice of leveraging outside beta testers, we pulled every member of our QA team off of all our other projects so they could focus on testing just the iPhone app. Our testing identified 39 different places the app could crash, and before we submitted 1.0 to Apple we fixed all but a few (those few being some uncommon crashes in Apple's code for which we hadn't discovered a cause or found a workaround). We also identified and fixed a number of performance issues, reducing the load time for my database from minutes to seconds and optimizing the common sync case so it could apply synced changes without doing a complete reload.

Obviously, the limited size of our test pool did mean that we weren't able to exercise the app as fully as when we scaled up to tens of thousands of users. But we've been using the app ourselves this whole time, and we made sure it was working well for everyone testing or using it before we shipped the 1.0 release to Apple on July 4.

But again, I'm sorry to hear that the 1.0 release didn't meet your expectations, and I hope you can see that we're continuing to work hard to address that.

[Leif]

Great work Omni people, thanks!

[popesammyjoe]

My point is that Omnigroup bears culpability for releasing Omnifocus for iPhone 1.0 (OFIP) software that was unusable across its advertised feature set.

I don't think I'm "arrogant" to assume that hundreds of other users are as dissatisfied as myself. "Presumptuous" perhaps, and admittedly more-so in my wider "community" comments.

To say that all features cannot be completely tested is much different from saying that all features cannot be mostly tested. OFIP did not have small bugs, mind you. It flat out doesn't run (where "run" is defined as sustained execution for more than 5 minutes). It doesn't take a MobileMe account to verify sync against a local disk. So, either Omnigroup is guilty of gross incompetence in their testing, or else they decided too soon to charge people $20 for software that crashes. From their incredible successes of the past, I don't have reason to find them incompetent, so I take curtain B.

Agile development supports releasing smaller software sooner, not releasing digital explosions. If Omnigroup were "Agile," they would have released the application in a stable form but with a smaller feature set, then incrementally added more functionality when stability could be guaranteed.

Some posters find this application stable. That's great, but certainly not my experience. Nor is it the experience of the scores of people who have rated this application on iTunes with 1 or 2 stars due to the instability.

The bottom line is that, instead of releasing a product with all these core limitations OmniGroup could have released a sync-less, more stable version initially, or even released the full version as a FREE BETA. But they chose the $$$. So, let me repeat, "it was for reasons other than user satisfaction" that drove this premature release.

I would not be calling out Omnigroup had they offered this initial release of software in Beta form for free. Then I would have lowered my expectations. As it is, they freely chose to take advantage of my trust and my dollars. That is why they broke their values. That is why they owe me, everyone who feels similarly, and most importantly themselves, an apology.

I'll continue reading to hear what you have to say, but am myself going to sign off now. Thanks for the feedback and fair-minded criticism.

[popesammyjoe]

Ken and my posts crossed in the ether. Thanks for the response, Ken. It goes a far way towards making me feel like a valued customer.

[masoric]

this thread was mean for people to say thanks. if you don't have thanks to give, stick it in a different post. Some people just aren't happy unless they're mad.

[wealthychef]

Dear popesammyjoe
I totally agree with your flame. I can tell you that after a month or whatever of trying to use OF for iPhone, it is still not a useful solution and the user experience is abysmal for me. Today I turned on my iPhone as I left work and it still was not showing my to-do list from work when I got home, after going shopping, buying groceries, etc. more than HALF HOUR LATER. It almost always takes at least 10 minutes to synchronize, which means the phone goes to sleep several times before it finishes. it does not show progress or time remaining. It shows mysterious and frightening errors about having to reset the database. It's slow and useless. I'm hoping 1.0.3 fixes some of this, but really it's been a big disappointment and a waste of money and time so far. It's way better to just print out my todos on a piece of paper than to try to fight with OF/iP. I'm hopeful though, from the other posts, that things are now going to be tenable and I'll have the tool I paid for a while ago.

[Leif]

Originally Posted by masoric

this thread was mean for people to say thanks. if you don't have thanks to give, stick it in a different post. Some people just aren't happy unless they're mad.

Guess you need to create a new thread, some people decided to use this one for their own purposes.

[Young Daniel]

I really don't mind using the software while it's still in development. While there are improvements to be made, the imperfect software drastically improved my life the day I got my iphone. There were some sync frustrations, but the alternative is to have nothing at all.

I do not think it's fair to criticize the skill of the developers...if you can't help or fix a problem yourself you have no right to attack someone doing more then you are.

I do not think it's fair to criticize the dedication of the developers...obviously they are doing they best they can to develop the best product.

Given their limitations in fully testing the software, I also do not think it's fair to expect a fully functioning program from any developer besides apple. Add to that the 3-10 day delay in displaying the updates in the app store which delays further bug fixes and discoveries...I wouldn't expect any faster of turnaround from anybody besides apple. It is only realistic to assume that any program will be buggy on the first release and take a week or two for an update, only to discover new bugs and another week or two for those to get squashed. All of these apps are in development.

So with those expectations, which match reality, I think the Omnigroup did a great job transposing task management from the desktop to the iphone. I know my life has improved and I am better off for having a functional, even if slightly buggy, program on my phone then having nothing at all. I know I have lost nothing while going through the development process and have gained much.

Thank you Omnigroup and please stay encouraged in knowing your most of your customers support you and appreciate your efforts.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by popesammyjoe

Some posters find this application stable. That's great, but certainly not my experience. Nor is it the experience of the scores of people who have rated this application on iTunes with 1 or 2 stars due to the instability.

...which is also the case for hundreds of apps on the store, suggesting the problem is not entirely that of the apps themselves but largely of the OS. I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of the instability issues and failures to launch that most people experienced soon after launch (in all apps) were due to the poor or buggy memory management of the underlying iPhone OS and not the app. Again, I think you are being unfair on the OmniGroup here - how could they possibly test for this when the only app they could test with prior to the release of iPhone OS 2.0 and the App store was there own? How could they possibly have tested for poor memory management issues in the OS before (a) it went final and (b) they were up against the scenario of having large numbers of other third-party apps installed and run on the phone as well? How could they possibly know that Apple would release an apparently hideously buggy OS as the final version?

Fwiw.

[blewis]

Originally Posted by popesammyjoe

Agile development supports releasing smaller software sooner, not releasing digital explosions. If Omnigroup were "Agile," they would have released the application in a stable form but with a smaller feature set, then incrementally added more functionality when stability could be guaranteed.

popesammyjoe, don't forget to factor in the agility of Apple's release methodology. Omni had some bug fixes ready in a couple of days for OF iPhone, but that 1.0.2 release sat in Apple's approval queue for about a week. That was frustrating for everyone involved.

While I was too initially disgruntled at the release quality of OF iPhone, I really think Omni has done a good job meeting expectations for fixing the problems that exist.

I'll just remind you that the iPhone OS and the App Store is totally new and undoubtably has had some effect on Omni ramping up the quality on this new release.