OmniOutliner for iPad Review

The day the Omni Group releases a new iPad app always feels a little bit like productivity-nerd Christmas. There is always a lot of anticipation leading up to the event and, despite having spent far too much time thinking about how the Omni UI wizards will go about it, you always find a few unexpected surprises. With today’s release of OmniOutliner for iPad ($20), the Christmas metaphor holds up.

Last year, no sooner did we get OmniFocus installed than we all immediately started clamoring for OmniOutliner. So now it is here. How does OmniOutliner stack up against are expectations? I’ve been using the app through the beta and report the Omni Group delivered, again.

Interface and Iteration

What puts the Omni Group applications above others is their unwillingness to accept “good enough.” The Omni Group spends a lot of time getting the touch interface right. With each new iPad app, they realize they are blazing a trail. They generally throw out all the assumptions made with building an interface for a traditional keyboard and mouse and start over. OmniOutliner is not a simple port of the Mac OS X app. Instead, it is a ground up, outlining application built around the iPad’s strengths (and weaknesses).

Outlining

Outlining real simple. Type an entry and then use the arrow icon buttons at the bottom of the screen to promote or demote entries. For speed outlining, that is it. No magic incantations or multiple button taps. Type the words. Set the level. Move on.

To type on a line, double tap it. A curser drops in and the iPad on-screen keyboard jumps to life. Once done editing, tap the row handle to the left and OmniOutliner exits edit mode. The row handles also include icons to display row level. Any rows without children appear as a dot. Rows with children have an oversized disclosure triangle. Tapping the triangle will collapse and expand the children points below it. OmniOutliner also includes the ability to add notes in an option text field below individual entries. This is one of the Mac OS X features that came over to iPad and it is damn useful.

Tapping the Edit button brings up a series of editing tools to move, group, and delete individual entries. Even easier though is grabbing and moving the row handles and moving manually.

Columns and Customization

It wouldn’t be OmniOutliner without columns and the iPad iteration delivers. You can add columns of various formats including text, numbers, date, duration, pop-up list, and checkboxes. Everything is intuitive and creating and styling new columns is easy. With certain formats, like numbers, OmniOutliner will optionally perform a math functions providing totals, averages, minimum and maximum values, and additional functions.

There is a lot of customization available under the hood. Tapping the Tools icon button opens a popover that lets you set styles and view for the entire document or the current selection. You can also create custom styles for certain outline levels. The screenshot, for instance set a tan background, bold typeface, and numbering for the level one entries.

One of the many nice touches are the built in color schemes. The color picker includes a series of custom palettes. These are the same color options available in the iPad OmniGraffle app and much better than those available in the Mac OS X color picker.

Document Management

Document management is handled in the document view. This app feels a lot like Apple’s iWork apps in this regard. You flick between documents and tap one to open it. There are also options to open documents from iDisk or a WebDAV server. There is no Dropbox access. The Omni Group explained that they are still exploring ways to make online sync better. However, if you really need that Dropbox sync, you can use a DropDAV account and access your Dropbox files via WebDAV. You can also export outlines to iDisk, WebDAV, and iTunes or send them as a mail attachment. Export options include the OmniOutliner format, HTML (both simple and dynamic), plain text, and my beloved OPML.

Summary

When the iPad was first announced, OmniOutliner was one of those apps that I thought would be perfect for it. I often use outlines for brainstorming and organizing thoughts. I also use OmniOutliner to take depositions and prepare witness examinations. Furthermore, every one of the last fifty episodes of the Mac Power Users started life as an OmniOutline. I miss the templates available in OmniOutliner Pro on my Mac and native Dropbox support would have been nice but I’ve been using the iPad OmniOutliner exclusively for a month and the iPad has supplanted my Mac as my “go to” outlining device. Like mind mapping, outlining really lends itself to the touch interface. The Omni Group just “gets” the iPad and it is no surprise that they nailed it again with OmniOutliner for iPad.

Update on Sunday, May 15, 2011 at 4:37PM by David Sparks

Lots of great comments. Here are my thoughts.

Re: Dropbox

I get the frustration over this. Being forced to use DropDAV to get into Dropbox is a pain and (potentially) an expense.

Re: TextExpander Touch

Because Omni uses its own flavor of rich text, including TextExpander Touch support is not as easy as flipping a switch. I too would love this feature.

Re: OPML

Works just fine. E-mail it or use Dropbox (you can still open to OmniOutline form the Dropbox app) to traverse OPML both directions.

Re: Screencast

I may do a screencast on OmniOutliner at some point. However, I’m not doing any more screencasts until I finish the iPad at Work book (probably late July).

Mac at Work Talk with Jason Snell Tomorrow

Don’t miss out on my live streaming event tomorrow with Macworld editor, Jason Snell, where we talk about Mac at Work at 11am PST. The event looks to be a lot of fun. I’m going to go through a short slide deck about the book and then answer questions. The more MacSparky readers in the room, the better.

In Praise of Skitch

Skitch, the image swiss army knife for the Mac has gone through a few phases of existence. First, it was this mysterious beta that you had to have a secret handshake to get in on. Then it became the perpetual beta product that everybody used and nobody paid for. Finally, it is now the successful Mac OS X App store product that has 27 five star reviews.

Throughout all of these iterations, Skitch has remained the perfect app for quick and easy image annotation. Everyone I’ve turned on to this app (ranging from my science teacher niece to my graphics artist friends) loves it. Today I came clean and finally paid for Skitch. How about you?

MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.

Mac Power Users 49: Mac Maintenance

Mac Power Users Episode 49 is available for download. Katie and I cover Mac Maintenance and troubleshooting, including the creation of your own Mac Maintenance toolbox.

You can get it on iTunes here or on the web right here. Enjoy.

Mac Power Users - Two Years

This week the Mac Power Users celebrated its second birthday. In these two years, Katie and I have learned tons, made new friends, and I suck less at talking into a microphone. Thanks everybody.

Home Screens - Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus

This week’s home screen post features Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus (Twitter). I’ve been a fan of Bob’s from afar for some time. He writes great books, is the technology columnist for the Houston Chronicle, and plays a mean guitar with the Macworld All Star band. I got to spend time with Bob at Macworld this year and found out that in addition to his contribution to the Mac community, he is a really nice fellow.

So Bob, what is on your home screen?

What are your most interesting home screen apps?

PhotoCard. Bill Atkinson’s app for sending photo post cards by email or post is a great and truly unique app. Dragon Dictation — I use it all the time to dictate notes and send them, (usually to myself).

What is your favorite app?

That’s easy. Red Laser. Why? It’s the only app I have that’s saved me money almost every time I’ve used it.

Which app is your guilty pleasure?

Lately it’s been Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12 on my iPad. I’ve wasted a lot of time trying for a hole in one… Before that, Pocket Legends or Angry Birds. (But not very often. Apps that are fun have a nasty habit of turning into huge, gaping time sucks, and my editors hate that.)

What is the app you are still missing?

Word. Microsoft Word. I wish I had a real word processor on the iPad. Heresy? Nah. Just as you prefer working with plain text, I have always written in Microsoft Word. Since version 1. It’s love/hate — especially when it crashes — but for the most part I like it: I like its styles, change tracking, margins, headers, footers, WYSIWYG view, and lots of its other features…

P. S. I don’t think its outliner is very good and agree that OmniOutliner Pro rules. But… Word’s built-in outliner is good enough for almost everything I need it for. And did you know that the past couple of versions have had audio recording synchronized with outlining? It’s great for taking notes on the MacBook Pro; I’d LOVE it on an iPad.

How many times a day do you use your iPhone/iPad?

Don’t you mean “how many times a day do I NOT use my iPhone/iPad?”

I use both constantly, all day, every day.

What is your favorite feature of the iPhone/iPad?

A user interface even a mother can love and use.

And apps, of course. Lots of apps.

If you were in charge at Apple, what would you add or change?

I’d find a way to create lower entry level price points for many products. For example, the least-expensive Mac notebook is currently $999. I think Apple would benefit long-term from having a Mac notebook at the $599 or $699 price point. Mac OS X is so superior I hate to think its being denied to some people just because a crappy Windows box is cheaper. Ditto for iPhones and iPads.

Anything else you’d like to share?

iPad For Dummies 2nd Edition is available @ Amazon.com and other fine book sellers on and off the Internet.

Thanks Bob.

Powermate Cough Button

My friend, George Starcher, recently posted about using a Griffen Powermate as an oversized cough button for a podcasting rig. I must admit, since my Podcasting setup doesn’t use a board, I’ve always had a bit of cough button envy and the the MPU listeners can attest to the many random strange sounds that come out of me on some episodes. So I took George’s advice and bought a Powermate. It works brilliantly and sits very nicely next to my Magic Trackpad. Griffen did a good job with the controller software. It even accepts Applescrips. I expect to get creative with this thing. Stay tuned.

Reeder Sync

Macdrifter makes a great point about Reeder, it syncs really fast. I went and downloaded a few of the Google Reader apps I’d given up on in the past and sure enough, they all feel slow compared to Reeder. As much as I like trying new apps, when it comes to news readers, I’ve been using Reeder since it released.

Key Bindings with Mac OS X

With all of Mac OS X’s spit and polish, it is easy to forget there is a Unix computer under there. Reader Francois recently turned me on this excellent collection of Mac OS X key bindings. Take a long look. I’m sure you’ll find a few that can help you out, today. For instance, I had no idea you could tab inside a form box with Option + Tab.

If that isn’t enough, roll your own bindings with KeyBindingsEditor, which I haven’t had time to test but looks interesting.

MacSparky.com is sponsored by Bee Docs Timeline 3D. Make a timeline presentation with your Mac.

Join My Macworld Live Talk on May 12

Macworld Magazine is starting a new program where they feature an author for an online question and answer session. I’m going to be in San Francisco on May 12 at 11:00 a.m. PST to broadcast live and talk about Macs and iPads at work with Macworld editor, Jason Snell. Please join in and tell your friends. It should be a lot of fun. You need to sign up to see the event so get cracking.