[Brian]

Some clarification for folks that find this thread in the future: At the time of this writing, only Apple has access to the code that pops up notifications on the iPhone; third party apps like OmniFocus cannot do it.

iPhone OS 3 will support 3rd party notifications in several ways, will OmniFocus for iPhone be supporting this?

[paulduv]

I second that. And I think it really comes down to the OF developers coming to terms with the fact that a whole lot of people would love to have the missing piece of useable and simple notifications from OmniFocus.

I really hope the OmniFocus developers are intending to be on top of the new notification features... I'm dying for anything that will make reminders, alarms, etc. easier in OmniFocus.

The forums are peppered with comments like, "Yeah, but hard dates are for your calendar". That whole "hard landscape" dogma is just unbelievable to me. Ok, caps-lock is going on: IF I CAN SET A START DATE AND/OR A DUE DATE, PLUS HAVE SOME NOTIFICATION, IN WHATEVER I'M USING, THEN THAT THING IS A CALENDAR.

It makes as much sense to say that OF is not for hard deadlines as it does to say, "Computers are not for writing letters, type-writers are for writing letters." Just because it doesn't have pictures of kittens, doesn't mean OmniFocus can't perform the function of a calendar perfectly well. Much, much better in fact, since we've all gone through all the trouble of creating projects and contexts in OF – something we can't do in iCal, or on our Kitties in Baskets calendars on the fridge.

And let's be serious: clearly David Allen was not visualizing the functionality that could be built into a system like OmniFocus when he counseled that hard deadlines should be on a calendar. Not that I accept that he's the Second Coming, but if his word is gospel, where did he say, "If a system comes along that could handle hard deadlines, and fit just nicely in your existing GTD setup, whatever you do, do not use it for that purpose."?

So I'm begging: Omni guys, please take quick, and full advantage of notifications in the upcoming iPhone update. And there are clearly a lot of people on this forum who feel the same way.

[paulduv]

My little rant was after reading this comment on another thread:

"Of course, your methodology (ring alerts all day long reminding me of things I should be doing) somewhat flies in the face of GTD."

But I see that further on, Ken talks about a feature request he made to Apple to make notifications do-able. So I guess it's on the radar, if it's technically possible. I feel much better.

[danielandrews]

Originally Posted by kman42

I don't think Apple's Push Notification is going to get us notifications in Omnifocus. It is designed for notifications from a server, not the phone. For example, you will be notified if you get a message on an IM service or a tweet. It isn't designed to allow third party apps to provide notifications in the background. Omni would have to set up a server with accounts for all their users that continuously sync'd with their devices to keep a list of when notifications should occur. This seems unlikely.

I think what you are after is for Apple to develop an on-device notification system that allows third party apps to register upcoming alerts so that they occur at specific times. I haven't heard about anything like this.

What he said. Unless Omni were to ...

- Set up a server that would read your sync'd file, then ...
- Submit to Apple every time there is a new due event, which would then ...
- Notify you on your phone ...

The 3.0 implementation of push notifications won't work.

The only possible way for reminders and notifications (besides Apple Calendar) is currently the Push service announced in FW 3.0.

We are finishing a simple reminder application called NotifyMe which supports this (and it's completly different from Omni products). NotifyMe is not trying to compete with Omni and it's great GTD philosophy, so hopefully I won't be banned here for posting this.

Check NotifyMe if you're just looking for simple reminders:

http://powerybase.com/notifyme

[jbkendrick]

Rather than add a layer with iCal, I would prefer to see Omni add an SMS notification feature, similar to Jott, directly to the OF client.

I've submitted a feature request on this and suggested that a notification check box and perhaps amount of time before due to be notified, could be added to the date area on the action inspector to enable a reminder.

The cell number to use for SMS notifications could be entered in preferences for use whenever a notification is enabled. John

[JohnJ80]

Growl for SMS only works if you have your computer live at some point. What about us road warriors that use OF on our laptops and iPhones? Doesn't work.

The mac version needs to have alerts like iCal does. There are actions that need to be completed by a time and need to have reminders. iPhone version needs to support push notifications in iPhone 3.0.

I'd like to see the Omni own up to say that they are going to do this. Otherwise, as much as I adore OF, I'm going to have to look at moving on to something else.

The way I've gotten around this is to kludge up an interface through Toodledo that can send SMS (or email) messages. Here's the AS that does that:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=12624

That said, it's a kludge but it does work.

J.

[JohnJ80]

Here is how I addressed this using Toodledo's SMS and alert function:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=12624

I concur that OF needs to have this capability in both the mac and in the iPhone. When iPhone 3.0 comes out, it should be a breeze on the iPhone. It is straightforward to do it now on the mac.

Those who claim the purist mantle and say "do that on your calendar" don't have to use it if it's there. In point of fact, put a check box in the preferences that says "Don't supply any notifications" or something like that. Don't like it, then don't use it. To say to not have it is basically a ridiculous argument and probably big time limits the market that OF tries to address.

There are quite a number of actions that need both a context and a time to be enabled.

J.

[JohnJ80]

It's a needed feature and there has to be a way to do this.

Here's what I do using Toodledo's email/SMS notification capability:

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=12624

Works, but you get about an hour's notice. Not time of.

J.