OmniFocus for iPhone: Location-Aware Contexts and More

Merlin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:54:42 -0400

The Omni Group - OmniFocus for iPhone and iPod touch

[Disclosure: I'm a consultant on the OmniFocus project. You can blame me for having requested any of the features you don't like.]

Oh, man. It's so nice to lift the veil on this one. It's been like I knew you guys were getting the big Lego Millennium Falcon for Christmas, but I couldn't tell you until Santa had gone back up the chimney (in his black mock turtleneck and jeans). Anyway.

Merry Christmas, Mac productivity nerds: iPhone synching for OmniFocus is coming. And it is gorgeous, usable, and location-aware. More here on OmniGroup's blog.

From the OmniGroup site:

Using your location, OmniFocus can create a custom list of actions to complete nearby. Buying groceries? OmniFocus can show you the closest grocery store and create an instant shopping list.

Capture tasks anywhere, anytime with OmniFocus: you can enter text, take a picture, or even make a quick voice recording.

Yum. Screengrabs and more -- including a reminder that you should totally visit me at the WWDC OmniFocus meetup tonight -- after the iJump.

FWIW, I'm going to let OmniFocus answer any questions people have (blog post comments, forum) about details of their apps and plans and what have yous. I just wanted to take the opportunity to fist bump the OmniNerds on their fine hard work. They're pathologically dedicated to taking care of their customers, and you can see that in this app. It's crazy-smart and a lot of fun to use.

So! Yes. Tonight. Come to the OmniFocus meetup at the W and fistbump me:

The Omni Mouth » OmniFocus meetup in S.F. on 6/10/08

What: OmniFocus meetup When: Tuesday, June 10th 2008, 6:30 - 8:00 pm Where: W Hotel (map), San Francisco • 3rd Floor, Workroom 2

Please RSVP. Max capacity for the room is 150, so make sure you arrive on time to snag a good seat.

Also, completely off topic, there's a rumor that there might be a totally informal, last-minute You Look Nice Today meetup in SF tonight featuring @scottsimpson and me (@lonelysandwich is at a Fannypack Convention in Prague). Stay tuned to @ylnt for details as they emerge.

[Again, with the Disclosure: I'm a consultant on the OmniFocus project. You can blame me for having requested any of the features you don't like.]

”OmniFocus for iPhone: Location-Aware Contexts and More” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 10, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"

MobileMe: .Mac's iPhone-Friendly Replacement

Merlin — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:16:34 -0400

Apple - MobileMe

There's lots to digest from today's WWDC Stevenote -- not least of which was the dramatic announcement of a 3G iPhone for only $199. But you'll be hearing lots about that in a million places. I want to talk about my first impressions about something even closer to my heart that's at least different this time around, if not entirely new.

Today, Steve announced the upcoming release of Apple's MobileMe service, which will replace the existing .Mac service at the same price of $99/year for an Individual account, while adding some new features, including:

Individual account quota doubled to 20GB of storage, including email and files (.Mac currently offers 10GB at the same price)
MS Exchange-like "push" syncing between applications on multiple Macs as well as your iPhone, via the MobileMe "cloud"
Revamped, web-based Me.com versions of Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Gallery, and iDisk applications

As someone who's had strong feelings, high hopes, and occasional disappointmens with .Mac, I'm going to spend some time over the next few weeks looking into what these changes will mean for the always-on knowledge worker -- particularly now that the service is clearly moving toward tighter integration with iPhones, the iPod Touch, and web-based usage. But first, just a few things to note here (quickly and on first impression):

Lovely tweaks - This is where Apple just obliterates the competition; all the tiny little changes we saw to GUI and workflow on the MobileMe web apps and related iPhone apps reflect a lot of thought and look well-suited for real-world usage. I can't wait to see the improvements to iPhone's Calendar and Contacts, in particular. Kudos, team. An iPhone that makes MobileMe easy and transparent to use is a big win all around. (N.B.: as you might expect, Apple's site has many lovely demonstration videos in their MobileMe section)
Love the "Push" - No longer having to physically plug in your iPhone to sync stuff like Mail, Calendar, and Contacts is terrific for the multiple-device user. Knowing that (at least as long as you're online) everything matches up just means big peace of mind to me. Maybe most importantly, one hopes that the new Push approach addresses some of the previous sync problems that have plagued .Mac users (Nuclear reset, anyone?).
Love the (baby) steps toward true cloud computing - Having such gorgeous and functional apps on the iPhone is a big step in the right direction. How the services that those apps access evolve will be interesting to watch; adding something like broader support for Preferences syncing and better/easier iPhone password management would also be big wins.
Hiya, Windows hold-outs - I don't know enough about "Enterprise" buying decisions to speak intelligently about business adoption, but I will say that MobileMe seems like a smart way reach out to individual Windows users and say, "See? Look how easy this all is!" Similarly, a lot of people I talk to these days are down to a single Windows device, and that's the one they have to use at work. MobileMe potentially keeps them connected to their Apple world, even when they're on a PC. That said....
Where the heck is a modern, functional iDisk? - It looks like the iDisk web interface has been updated (very pretty, actually), and yeah, there's double the storage, but what can I do with all that stuff when I'm not in front of my home computer? Where's the mobile part? I was really hoping to see something more impressive with iDisk this time around -- like a website with honest to gosh, Google Docs-like editing and management. And what about the iPhone? Can I do anything with my iDisk documents on there? That feels like a swing and a miss for a service with mobile in the name.

Questions

Will stability and reliability of MobileMe greatly improve over .Mac? Take everything else away, and at the heart, any .Mac/MobileMe product will not survive if Apple doesn't fix the uptime and sync problems. I know sync is hard. But, lots of things are hard and when other companies are doing it more reliably and for free, it should be easy to see there's a bar consumers expect you to reach.
How will iPhone additions like Push and GPS affect real battery life? If Steve's battery estimates are anything like real-world, it'll be great. But I have a feeling those are CandyLand Gumdrop numbers. I realize this is an iPhone-specific note, but I'll say that a half-day of "Every 15 Minutes" email checking was an eye-opener for me. I can't imagine what kind of power that thing pulls when it's running full-time GPS for an hour or so.
Ready for some competition? With the introduction of independent applications using the iPhone SDK, we can look forward to a bonanza of new functionality that -- based on the game demoes we saw today -- could be pretty eye-popping. Although I don't know details of what functionality is exposed to developers, I have to imagine that the combination of ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and speedy 3G access will bring some much-needed competition into Apple's back yard. I wonder how Apple will react to that.

Bottom Line

Boy, if there's any product that us fanboys want to love, this is it. But it's been a tough few years, even for the superfans. We've watched half a dozen or more other companies' services build similar or better features, provide higher reliability, and charge lower or zero cost in a way that seems to outpace Apple's offering without breaking a sweat.

So, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on this and reporting back to you on how it's working for me. I want it to work great, and I think it can, based on Apple's high standards and ability to control all the pieces. I also stand by what I said in this post from January about the untapped possibilities of .Mac:

...Apple might eat the lunches of about three different industries over the next couple years.

If they can pull it off, if they can fix .Mac, and if they have the vision to re-imagine themselves as the company who makes your entire digital world safe, fun, ubiquitous, and flawlessly integrated.

Please share your thoughts, hopes, wishes, and remarks about MobileMe or anything else related to the Keynote announcements here in comments.

[These were quick notes I jotted this afternoon. Pardon any typos; I will fix them as I see them, as well as giving myself a day or two to add links on other coverage as it arises. I have a feeling a lot of people will be talking about MobileMe]

”MobileMe: .Mac's iPhone-Friendly Replacement” was written by Merlin Mann for 43Folders.com and was originally posted on June 09, 2008. Except as noted, it's ©2010 Merlin Mann and licensed for reuse under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. "Why a footer?"