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Posts tagged with "omni group"

The Omni Group Posts Omni Sync Server Stats, Service Coming To More Apps

As a follow-up to their previous update on Lion adoption numbers, The Omni Group has published a blog post on Omni Sync Server usage stats. The Omni Sync Server is a cloud-based system that handles OmniFocus databases across Macs, iPhones and iPads. It’s been in “beta” for several months and it’s free, allowing OmniFocus customers to keep their tasks in sync over-the-air free of charge.

The Omni Group monitored usage on the OSS, and found out that roughly 31,500 users were active in the past 8 days (at the time of publishing the blog post). 92% of iOS devices on the OSS were updated to the latest version of iOS, 5.0.1; the most popular Mac computer in usage logs has turned out to be the 2011 MacBook Air with 10%. As for OmniFocus, the majority of active users are opting for the Mac+iPhone combo, with “all 3” being the second most registered option. Surprisingly, “only” 2069 users were active as iPad-only.

With Omni Sync Server, The Omni Group has built its own cloud that syncs user data across the whole OmniFocus ecosystem on OS X and iOS. The developers have also confirmed that the service will come to other document-based Omni apps, such as the popular OmniOutliner. Indeed, the lack of proper automatic sync between the mobile and desktop versions of these apps has forced many users to either switch to different software with Dropbox support or rely on third-party tools such as DropDAV, which turns your Dropbox into a webDAV server compatible with Omni apps and Apple’s iWork for iOS (the latter lacking cloud sync before version 1.5).

You can read more about OmniFocus’ sync and the Omni Sync Server here.

The Omni Group’s Lion Update Stats→

The Omni Group’s Lion Update Stats

The Omni Group has updated its software update statistics document with Lion data:

Because we’re nice folks who want to help the development community, we’ve decided to make the information we gather public (in aggregate form) so that you can also benefit from this knowledge.

Below you’ll find statistical information about all collected configurations to date. The information is provided as-is. We’re not going to tell you exactly how many individual users have submitted the information, nor can we place any guarantee on the accuracy of this information. Remember, this is not a poll of the Mac OS X community at large, just a subset of our customer base.

Looking at the data, you can see how OmniFocus (by far Omni Group’s most popular app) shows a steep Lion usage increase in July (obviously), and a gradual growth throughout January 2012, whereas lesser known apps like OmniWeb have shown an initial decline in user adoption of the latest OS, then stable updates. Surprisingly, OmniOutliner users don’t seem to upgrade to Lion much.

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OmniFocus for iPhone Gets Forecast View, Lots Of Fixes

Users of the OmniFocus application for iPad who also happen to have an iPhone and are tied to The Omni Group’s software ecosystem might want to check for updates in iTunes and download the latest version of OmniFocus for iPhone. Released a few minutes ago, OmniFocus 1.10 adds one major new feature: Forecast mode for overdue, due, and future actions. Forecast was one of the new OmniFocus features exclusive to the iPad version, and a hint of things to come in the much-anticipated OmniFocus 2.0 for Mac. Just like on the iPad, you’ll have a bar along the top displaying a summary of your upcoming week, as well as past tasks and stuff that needs to be taken care of sometime in the future. Forecast mode replaces the Due and Overdue lists and it provides an incredibly useful way to see what’s going on at a glance, without having to find your way around sections and taps. It’s a huge time saver.

OmniFocus 1.10 also comes with several refinements all around the UI and bug fixes, which you can read in detail here. Just to name a few, the first-run sync process has been redesigned to be more intuitive, and the Action and Project editors got “Go to Project” and “Go to Context” buttons. Overall, the app feels a lot faster and it’s clear The Omni Group set out to fix all those minor annoyances that are not so minor when you have to work with an app on a daily basis.

You can find OmniFocus for iPhone at $19.99 on the App Store.

Omni Group Releases OmniPlan 2.0 Public Beta

Back at Macworld 2011, the Omni Group detailed their software plans for 2011 on iPhones, iPads and Macs: the company announced they were working on a major revamp of OmniFocus for Mac inspired by the success of the iPad counterpart, a brand new version of OmniOutliner for the iPad, and a complete upgrade of project planning tool OmniPlan built around sync functionalities and OmniFocus integration. Sync is clearly playing a huge role in the Omni Group’s efforts to centralize the experience across mobile devices and computers: last year, the Omni Group launched Omni Sync Server, a free syncing solution for Mac and iOS users that allows iPad, iPhone and Mac apps to stay in sync over the air. With the release of the first Omni Plan 2.0 public beta today, the Omni Group is bringing Omni Sync Server support to OmniPlan, alongside other collaboration features like tracking of changes and publishing.

During the OmniPlan 2.0 development, Omni Group discovered that “people wanted to bring this workflow and user experience to their teams”, so they decided to completely focus on collaboration as the big improvement for this version. With OmniPlan 2.0, a manager will be able to share a project with his team using MobileMe, WedDAV and Omni Sync Server; tasks can be published automatically upon saving a plan, and changes can be fetched via Bonjour. A manager can also keep track of his own changes or others’ through a system called “visual change tracking” – alternatively, users are also able to manually accept or reject changes on task-by-task basis. One of the most anticipated features of OmniPlan 2.0, however, is the direct OmniFocus integration announced at Macworld: while it appears that the functionality hasn’t been implemented yet in this first beta, Omni Group’s CEO Ken Case told Ars Technica in January that Omni Plan 2.0 would allow a project manager to see a person’s task coming from OmniFocus being marked as complete within OmniPlan. This will be possible thanks to the Omni Sync Server, which deploys the same underlying engine across OmniFocus, OmniPlan and, we hope, OmniOutliner.

Lots of other features found their way in OmniPlan 2.0 beta 1: filtering, filters for publishing actions, better printing support with margin customization options and advanced scheduling options are all available in this new version. You can check out a complete changelog of OP 2.0 beta 1 here.

The Omni Group also confirms OmniPlan 2.0 will be available on the Mac App Store at $199.99 once it’s released, and users who purchased OmniPlan 1.0 either from the Mac App Store or the company’s website after January 6, 2011, will receive a free upgrade. We can’t wait to see what the new OmniPlan will look like with deeper OmniFocus integration; in the meantime, you can go download the public beta here.

OmniOutliner for iPad Sneak Peek

We’ve already covered the plans of the Omni Group for 2011: a huge update to OmniFocus and OmniPlan, deeper cloud integration with the deployment of the Omni Sync Server in multiple applications and the arrival of outlining and text editing app OmniOutliner on the iPad. A few minutes ago, the Omni Group updated its official Vimeo channel to give a sneak peek of the work-in-progress build of OmniOutliner for iOS, which was demoed at Macworld a few weeks ago.

OmniOutliner for iPad, just like the Mac version, will make it easy to capture ideas and structure them hierarchically with drag & drop, multitouch integration and the possibility to nest as many levels as you need with gestures. Users will be able to apply custom styles to text through a popover menu, or styles to entire rows and multiple rows at the once. It sounds very intriguing. OmniOutliner for iPad, according to the Omni Group, will bridge the gap between a word processor and a spreadsheet app.

Frankly, we can’t wait to try out the app and see if the Omni Group manages to pull out a complete reinvention of OmniOutliner like they did with OmniFocus on the iPad. Check out the video below in its HD glory. Read more

Omni Group’s Huge 2011: OmniFocus 2, New OmniPlan, OmniOutliner for iPad


Stronger than ever thanks to an incredibly successful launch of OmniFocus for iPad, the constantly increasing OmniFocus userbase on all platforms and the hype surrounding all their products, Omni Group’s CEO Ken Case gave some details of the company’s roadmap for 2011 at Macworld Expo. The three key products seem to be OmniFocus 2 for Mac, coming later this year and highly inspired by the iPad app, a brand new OmniPlan with cloud sync and collaboration features, a version of OmniOutliner for iPad. Personally, I’m really excited about the overhaul of OmniPlan, which will also get OmniFocus integration:

The new syncing back-end is also designed to work with OmniFocus, which will let individual team members sync tasks assigned to them with either the desktop, iPhone, or iPad versions. “All three versions use the same underlying engine, so once we have that update in place, we’ll be able to roll out OmniPlan syncing to all versions of OmniFocus,” Case told Ars.

The current version of OmniPlan allows syncing via CalDAV, but the new engine will offer much better integration with OmniFocus. For project team members who don’t need to see what all other team members are working on, they’ll be able to see just the tasks assigned to them. When tasks are marked as complete in OmniFocus, the project manager will get a notification of the change in OmniPlan.

We can’t wait to see what will the new OmniPlan look like, and the two-way sync with OmniFocus sounds like a killer feature to me. Not to mention OmniOutliner for iPad, which will be demoed for the first time at Macworld today and is set to ship sometime in the next few months. What you see above is a screenshot of an early build Ars Technica was provided, but I guess the UI will change come the final release (remember the first mockups of OmniFocus for iPad?).

Last, OmniFocus 2 for Mac will be released “later this year”, although the Omni Group (as usual) doesn’t set any deadline. When it’s ready, it’s ready. We just know the feedback for the iOS apps (especially the iPad version) has been huge, and OmniFocus 2 will be built on top of that.

Looks like the Omni Group is off to a great start in 2011.