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Sorry for the confusion. We have never committed to creating an iPhone version of OmniOutliner and we are not currently working on one. The original purpose of this thread was to gather information about what would be expected from an iPhone version should we make one.

In the OmniOutliner world, we are actively developing both OmniOutliner iPad and OmniOutliner 4. An iPhone version may happen some day, we do still see a place for it, but it will be a while before we would have the resources to commit to it if we choose to.

If you have any questions about this, please let me know!
 
Very sad news. So many people use OO for organising thoughts and checklists and this is just the kind of stuff you want to have handy all the time. Nobody has their Mac or iPad handy any time - but everybody has their iPhone in their pocket or at arms length reach pretty much always... The iPhone is where OO would have gained a whole new world of user benefit. Ubiquitous availability of your stuff. Whereas the iPad (as much as I like it) mostly is a replacement for a mobile Mac... Sad to say - but in my eyes you miss a great opportunity to close an important gap in your user experience eco-system.
Hopefully you go for it as soon as OO4 is up and running (as I understand that this is prerequisit for OO/iPhone.
Best regards, Chris
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DerekM View Post
Sorry for the confusion. We have never committed to creating an iPhone version of OmniOutliner and we are not currently working on one.
More than one company has fallen apart because of this type of confusion. While there is "plausible deniability" inscribed in this exchange, the issue isn't about who was right about the status of OO for iPhone. It's about lack of reliable information about a product's future and the impact it may have on long-term user commitment to this product.
I still love OO but the lack of any iOS version has made me shift my workflow away from it. Just this week, I went back to the blog to see what the ETA for the iPad version was. In a way, I simply assumed that there would also be a version for other iOS devices. Fool me once..
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Enkerli View Post
More than one company has fallen apart because of this type of confusion. While there is "plausible deniability" inscribed in this exchange, the issue isn't about who was right about the status of OO for iPhone. It's about lack of reliable information about a product's future and the impact it may have on long-term user commitment to this product.
I still love OO but the lack of any iOS version has made me shift my workflow away from it. Just this week, I went back to the blog to see what the ETA for the iPad version was. In a way, I simply assumed that there would also be a version for other iOS devices. Fool me once..
Plausible deniability? Come on, if you search the archives for posts containing omnioutliner and iPhone, you will find that Omni has had the same message all along (for more than 2 years): we are not currently working on such an app, but it is something interesting to us and we will consider it in the future when we are done with our current committed projects. Anyone reading something else has been reading what they wish to see, not what is there. If you assume what you want rather than reading what is put forth, how is this Omni's miscommunication? How could they have acted differently to get this message across?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
Anyone reading something else has been reading what they wish to see, not what is there. If you assume what you want rather than reading what is put forth, how is this Omni's miscommunication? How could they have acted differently to get this message across?
One of the first insight from studies of human communication is in fact that people put in it much more than what is offered. Including all sorts of intentions, bits of subtext and, yes, wishful thinking. Acting as if human communication were, like machine communication, a matter of coding and decoding is the basis of failure in many spaces, including markets.
The point isn't that it's Omni's one-sided fault that some people have been waiting enthusiastically for an iPhone version of OO. One point is that the consistent but vague message ("we might do this in the future") was sustaining some expectations until we got this new and clear message that, while they have an explicit strategy for another iOS device, they have no intention of broadening their strategy to the large majority of iOS devices. Blaming people for being disappointed is counterproductive as it does exactly nothing to explain the Omni Group's strategy with OO (something they haven't done such a good job elsewhere) and angers some of the product's most enthusiastic supporters. Given the state of outlining as more of a niche feature with a dedicated following, it sounds like a rather inelegant approach and a potentially damning one. When you take in consideration the fact that the product in question is used as part of some very elaborate workflows which clearly benefit from having some clear release schedules, the handwaving by Omni Group followed by a "oh, yes, we forgot to tell you, we won't develop an iPhone version after all" is the prelude to a nightmare.
What the Omni Group could have done includes a number of different things as we're talking about human complexity, not the complicated problems associated with developing the software from a set of specs. But one thing which could have helped would have been a blogpost, similar to the first one about the iPad (before they started reacting viscerally) or a part of that same post mentioning a clear vision for iOS development and/or doubts about the future of an iPhone version. Integrating plans about OO4 would also have made sense. Though it's a tricky strategy, discussing the results of an informal poll about OO's future might have helped, though some apparent lack of interest for the wishes of some usage patterns could have backfired ("we're listening but only if you belong to the powerful part of the Pareto rule").
What I'm expressing here isn't disappointment about the decision not to support the iPhone (and, I assume, the iPod touch). My needs may have expanded away from those about which the Omni Group seems to care. I wished for a new iOS outliner but I wasn't holding my breath.
In fact, what I'm expressing here isn't about me. Not is it about individual members of the Omni Group. It's about the relationship between a widely-respected but still small software development outlet, its fanbase, and the wider public. If the Omni Group were bigger, something as simple as this could lead to a "PR disaster." Given the size of the "group" and relationships it has developed over the years with some categories of users, it can be solved more easily with a healthy dose of respect. It can still lead to headaches and nightmares, but it's still manageable.
If and only if they avoid the mistake of "blaming the user."


It's an attention economy: pay attention to get attention.


(Posted from my iPod touch.)
 
What are people doing in the absence of OO-iP?

I just started using Nebulous Notes (a text editor) in conjunction with DropBox. It's better than nothing, but it's not OO. If it had an easy way to do tabs, it would be a little more acceptable as a substitute...


Are there iPhone outliners that do not require a program on the Mac? Are there scripts to get their outlines in and out of OO?

 
Quote:
Originally Posted by henri View Post
I just started using Nebulous Notes (a text editor) in conjunction with DropBox. It's better than nothing, but it's not OO. If it had an easy way to do tabs, it would be a little more acceptable as a substitute...
I just heard from the developer: the next version of Nebulous Notes will have easy tabbing and untabbing. Since it displays, creates, and edits .txt files which require no special software on the computer, and since OO is good about importing and exporting .txt files, that will probably be my workaround for a while.
 
I too have somehow fallen into the self-delusion that there would be a version of OmniOutliner for the iPhone to complement OO on the iPad.

Henri, with regards to substitutes, here's a copy of a post over I made over on the OmniFocus for iPad forum.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hypotyposis View Post
While I'm at it, any recommendations of what to use to open OmniOutliner's OPMLs on an iPad while waiting for OO iPad to come out?
Quote:
Originally Posted by endoftheQ View Post
Hi Hypotyposis

I'm currently using CarbonFin's Outliner and a colleague's got ZeptoLiner to import OPML.

I was probably going to buy the OmniOutliner App when it came out (after seeing the Board's opinion, having bought OmniGraffle and OmniGraphSketcher and subsequently replaced them!). However, on learning that there isn't currently a plan to bring OO onto the iPhone, I'll be sticking with CarbonFin's Outliner as this is available on both iDevices and I carry my iPhone 24/7 whereas my iPad not so much!

Although there's no Mac desktop version of CarbonFin's Outliner, it does have a web interface and, probably because I'm not a heavy outliner user, I've practically abandoned OmniOutliner on the desktop in favour of Outliner and the associated web interface.

I also like iThoughts and iMandalArt (people either love or loath this one!) for their ability to import OPML and display it as either mindmaps or mandalas.
Hope this is helpful.
 
I apologize for any lingering confusion over our iPhone plans!

We're still strongly considering developing OmniOutliner for iPhone: we haven't made a decision not to support it. In fact, we're just as interested now as we ever were. But as Derek said at the start of this thread, it's just something we're strongly considering—it's not something we've committed to or have actually started working on.

I've already said this on our blog, but it bears repeating here: Designing a great touch-based interface for text outlines is not an easy problem. Creating a touchable outline wasn't easy to solve for OmniFocus, but at least there we knew what basic attributes each task would have: so we could decide which pieces of information to hide at what times, how to size and present everything to put your attention on the right pieces of information, etc. With OmniOutliner, on the other hand, every document gets to define its own schema, with different sets of columns, different summaries, etc., and we don't know what it all means and which bits of information are most important—so we have to build an interface which is much more general and flexible.

For us to actually commit to building OmniOutliner for iPhone, we need to have a clear vision of what it should be—and that's exactly why we started this thread. We're asking all of you what it is that you want, because we know it can't be exactly the same as OmniOutliner is on Mac—or even iPad.

That last point might be the source of some of the confusion out there, so it's probably worth stating again: OmniOutliner for iPhone can't be exactly the same as OmniOutliner for iPad. It's great that the underlying operating system is exactly the same, but the form factors of the different devices require very different designs. That's why Apple's iWork apps don't work on iPhones, while Apple's iMovie app doesn't work on iPads. And, unfortunately, that means that building a great touch-based outlining interface for iPad doesn't mean that we'll have figured out how to build a great touch-based interface for iPhone.

Of course, the other thing we need before we can commit to an iPhone app is to finish the work we've already committed to doing, namely shipping OmniOutliner for iPad and OmniOutliner 4 for Mac.

So that's where OmniOutliner for iPhone stands right now: we're still strongly considering developing it, and we hope that some of the work we're doing now will make it easier to develop should we choose to do so—but we haven't committed to it.

I hope this helps to clarify our plans!

Last edited by Ken Case; 2010-10-04 at 03:46 PM..
 
I Hi Ken and Omni Team.

I was one of the ones that put my detailed wish list up at the start of this thread. However, I (and possibly many here) would be more than happy with a compromise app that dropped many of the niceties, just to be able to see OO documents on the iPhone, and sync them the same way that you can with OF.

I (and possibly many others) could live with just:

1. A generic font like Helvetica
2. Basic formatting only (bold, italic, underline)
3. Basic colours or no colour initially.
4. System wide settings only (not document specific), like OmniFocus

In fact, even an OOReader app (no editing) for the iPhone would be helpful for using Outlines as reference documents when on the go. Not everything we wanted but a good start.


The iPhone is still the killer device for me. Even though I have access to an iPad there are so many times that I would have my iPhone

• In the school yard (I am a teacher)
• In the classroom (might also have my laptop)
• In the lunch room
• Walking around
• In the car
• At the shops
• At friends places
• At church, social, sporting venues


The iPad is smaller than my 15" MBP but it is still a big device. I don't intend to buy OO for the ipad (same as I didn't buy OF for the iPad) because I am usually near enough to a computer whenever I am near enough to the iPad.

My previous PDA was the Palm Tungsten T3, and my favourite outliner was ShadowPlan. Last year I converted all those outlines to OO via the ShadowPlan Mac beta desktop software. So I have been hoping for an integrated desktop/iPhone solution that will keep both sides up to date. I use OF with mobile me and it is great.

I have just bought CarbonFin Outliner to make up for the gap in Omni based outlining on the iPhone/iPod.

Interesting that at the Carbon Fin Outliner site he solely recommends OO desktop for the Mac - if you guys aren't bringing out OO iPhone anytime soon you might consider working with the dev to sync and show OO docs on CarbonFin - I think what most users want here as the "bread and butter" needs is a streamlined way to edit outlines in Mac OO and have the changes show automatically on an iPhone app without manual OPML exporting and uploading to cloud websites, and then back again to OO if you add data on the iPhone.
 
 


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