[BwanaZulia]

As I was using OmniFocus on my "magical" iPad last night and waiting almost a full second for tasks to respond to be completed, I thought about the iPad 2 and the need for speed.

Obviously the new A5 in the iPad 2 should help out with some of the tardiness of OmniFocus, but what other cool things might bring?

- Adding photos to tasks via the camera?
- Sharing my tasks on my TV?

Thoughts?

BZ

[BwanaZulia]

Not one reply?

Well, I hate to say it but OmniFocus for the iPad is still pretty slow on my iPad 2. Each touch of an element takes anywhere from a second to a few seconds to update.

Is anyone else seeing this slowness?

BZ

[whpalmer4]

BZ, what is the context in which the actions you are manipulating are being shown? I find that on my iPad 1, the animations if I am showing a single project or context are quite fast, but if I am in a perspective that includes the bulk of my large database (remaining actions grouped by start date, for example), there is a multiple-second pause after making a change. I am hoping the iPad 2 will speed that up a bit, but not holding my breath, as I am not sure either of the two processor cores in the new chip are much more powerful than the old one. Certainly OmniFocus for Mac doesn't take advantage of multiple cores (I'll be happy to pay for OF 2 for that alone, if it does so effectively!) Didn't do much research on the matter as i was hoping to be able to do empirical studies, but so far that hasn't worked out :-)

Please don't misconstrue my remarks about OF 2 and multiple core support as anything other than an extrapolation from previous statements from Ken about not dropping support for Tiger and Leopard in OF 1.x (thus no ability to use Grand Central Dispatch). I have seen no indication there is any consideration being given to doing the work to use GCD in OF 2, either.

[whpalmer4]

I had an opportunity to visit a friendly local Apple Store to try out the iPad 2 with the two resource hungry Omni apps. While I am sure the doubling of RAM capacity will put an end to my frequent out of memory crashes in OF and OG, the rest of the experience was so similar to current performance that I didn't even bother to open the old iPad to run some side-by-side comparisons. I guess that will make the wait easier to bear! I was briefly tempted to inquire about purchasing an unopened unit someone returned as I was leaving, but I didn't have my gift card on me...

[ITGuy]

I just sent feedback to OmniGroup requesting they do something to improve the performance of OmniFocus on the iPad. I just switched over to the iPad 2 and it's just as SLOW as ever.

I just waited 7 seconds to switch from one day to another in the Forecast view. The average for switching days is about 3 seconds. There must be a way to squeeze out better performance on the iPad 2 with the faster A5 processor and increased RAM.

Does anyone know if OmniGroup is working on an optimized version of OmniFocus to take advantage of the better/faster iPad 2 hardware? Where's the OmniFocus love for iPad 2? LOL.

-ITGuy

[whpalmer4]

They've made quite a few improvements over the years to various versions of OmniFocus to make it more efficient on a single-core system, and I've seen nothing to suggest that there aren't any more possibilities (quite the opposite!) I'm glad to have another voice clamoring for improvement here (though I would prefer they continue working on single-core improvements, which should also help out those fortunate enough to have a dual-core system). You did the right thing to make sure your voice is heard, by sending feedback with the Contact Omni menu item. If there's enough feedback complaining about the performance, perhaps they'll spend the resources to have an experienced hand do some careful performance analysis and act on the findings. I don't think you should hold your breath about seeing much in this department in the immediate future, however — too many other irons in the fire at the moment.