@kcase@mastodon.social
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

kcase

@kcase@mastodon.social

CEO of https://mastodon.omnigroup.com/@OmniGroup, a small software company based in Seattle. (We make https://mastodon.omnigroup.com/@OmniFocus, https://mastodon.omnigroup.com/@OmniGraffle, https://mastodon.omnigroup.com/@OmniOutliner, https://mastodon.omnigroup.com/@OmniPlan, https://mastodon.omnigroup.com/@OmniWeb, https://mastodon.omnigroup.com/@OmniDiskSweeper, etc.)
#searchable #fedi22 #OmniGroup #OmniFocus #OmniGraffle #OmniOutliner #OmniPlan #OmniWeb #OmniDiskSweeper #macOS #iOS #watchOS #visionOS

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kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

Do I know any tech writers who would be interested doing some contract work? (The specific project I have in mind is the user guide / reference manual for OmniGraffle 8.)

Feel free to reach out privately, here or via email (kc@omnigroup.com).

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@hynek Very much so!

kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

Always fun to see Pro apps being featured (even as cameos) in an Apple Event. @OmniFocus and @OmniPlan were in a lot of good company this week!

A close-up of two of those powerful Pro apps: OmniFocus and OmniPlan.

misc, to random
@misc@mastodon.social avatar

Trying to build a system to scaffold your brain is such a tricky business, because you have to balance the tools available, how you want things to work, and openness to ways that might work better.

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@misc That's exactly how many people use OmniFocus. You can build an outline of tasks, flag the ones you want to do today, switch to today's Forecast and see them organized there. (In Forecast you can rearrange their order, and choose whether to preserve their original hierarchy or not.)

https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@misc It has a two-week free trial, so you can give it a whirl and see whether it meets your needs without having to pay for anything.

Afterwards, if you choose to purchase, be sure to purchase from our edu store to get the edu discount. A single one-time purchase of $45 will license the app across all native platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro.

https://legacy.store.omnigroup.com/edu/omnifocus

kcase, to retrocomputing
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

Looking through old files this weekend, stumbled across a flier for the 1990 introduction of the NeXTstation. Those were some great academic discounts ($2,000 discount from the $4,995 base model list price)!

Clearly enough to tempt, since I kept the flier. But not enough for me to pull the trigger: I stuck with a borrowed ‘030 NeXTcube for a while longer (until the 33MHz turbo models were introduced).

image/jpeg
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kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@tantramar Well, I suppose in retrospect the obvious answer to write a web browser! (OmniWeb.)

But at the time, I was more focused on leveraging the DSP to generate computer music; rendering sheet music using Display PostScript; and extruding text (rendered with nice vector PostScript fonts) into 3D (using RenderMan).

kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

I find it sad that our industry has trained so many people to expect that a free trial is going to automatically convert into some sort of payment when the trial ends, unless they somehow cancel the trial.

(In all of our apps at @OmniGroup, the trial simply ends and you're no longer able to edit content unless/until you decide to unlock the app by making a purchase. There's nothing you need to cancel. And you can still view any content you created during the trial.)

kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

Today we've shipped some great new OmniFocus features for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS, and web:

https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/omnifocus-updates-for-everyone

We've improved performance across the board, and introduced new custom perspective rules that support filtering based on dates, repeats, and more.

We've also made it easier than ever to install OmniFocus plug-ins, with "Look, Tap, and Approve!” install links.

Enjoy!

kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

It's been one month since my Apple Vision Pro arrived, and since then I've spent about 50 hours each week doing spatial computing in visionOS. Ask me anything!

(Roughly two thirds of that time has been spent with my hands on the keyboard of either my MacBook Pro or my Mac Studio.)

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@airwhale I haven't really thought about it in terms of what can only be done in that environment—there's still a lot I can do with paper and pen, or even in my head! But I do spend time thinking about what can be done more efficiently, and I think we're still just scratching the surface there.

I don’t expect any overnight shifts in how most people use computers. Current devices will have their place for some time. I do expect this mode of operation to become more common over the next decade.

frankreiff, to random
@frankreiff@mastodon.social avatar

The use case for Apple Vision Pro’s Spatial Computing still eludes me.

It’s definitely not casual mobile, eg checking your messages while waiting at the checkout.

It’s not working from home where you have big display(s), keyboard and mouse handy.

It’s not working in a coffee sho, because you’d have to bring your MacBook, keyboard, trackpad and AVP and look nerdy.

It’s not communal media consumption because you can’t share it.

It’s not sports.. because it’s heavy and unwieldy.

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@frankreiff Working from home—or the office—is exactly the primary use case for me. I'll use the keyboard and mouse at my desk that I'm already using, but my apps will no longer be limited by physical displays.

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@frankreiff Serious answers only!

For me, the primary constraints limiting iOS apps are screen real estate and multitasking. With visionOS, those constraints are gone: I can resize windows to be any size and arrange them throughout my space, and I no longer have to suspend one app to use another.

I fully expect that I'm an outlier here, but I do anticipate wearing the headset for hours on end—much as I wore the Valve Index headset when playing Half-Life: Alyx.

[1/]

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@frankreiff I'm definitely susceptible to motion sickness, from the first time I used VR in 1989, to the first time I played Doom on a NeXT, to trying to play Skyrim in VR.

For me, discomfort in Half-Life Alyx had to do with the environment moving around me when my body didn't match those movements; teleport movement controls solved it. I don't experience any discomfort when playing Beat Saber, despite the environment being fully immersive.

I don't anticipate any discomfort sitting at my desk.

kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

If you updated to iOS 17.3 this week and have been experiencing frustration with sharing web page links from Safari to OmniFocus (or to other apps for that matter), it's not just you! There's a bug in iOS 17.3 that broke the standard API for looking up a shared web link, so the receiving app would see the page title but not its link.

We've tracked this down and have a fix on the way for this week's OmniFocus 4.0.5 update.

Mulderc, to random
@Mulderc@xoxo.zone avatar

@OmniFocus @OmniGroup Can I get some type of response in regard to the safari share sheat issue on iOS? Currently it doesn't put the URL anywhere which makes it pretty worthless to share a webpage to omnifocus. Is that intended behavior or is this going to get fixed?

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@gregtitus @Mulderc @OmniFocus @OmniGroup This is a regression in iOS 17.3 that affects sharing web pages to apps. We have a workaround coming in OmniFocus 4.0.5, but here's the underlying issue:

https://mastodon.social/@kcase/111822279866957692

kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

OmniFocus 4 tip: no matter where you are, you can quickly add an item to your inbox or any project or tag using Quick Entry.

On iPhone or iPad, double-tap the floating Plus button (in the bottom right corner of the main outline) to bring up the Quick Entry screen rather than adding to the current perspective.

On Mac, use the global Quick Entry keyboard shortcut (configurable in General Settings). This shortcut works even when the app is hidden, so you can capture an idea and get back to work.

kcase, to random
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

We've now had @OmniGroup apps ready on day one for the launches of:

  • NeXTSTEP 3 (1992)
  • OPENSTEP 4 (1996)
  • Rhapsody Developer Release (1997)
  • Mac OS X Server (1999)
  • Mac OS X (2001)
  • Mac transition to Intel processors (2006)
  • iPhone App Store (2008)
  • iPad (2010)
  • Apple Watch (2015)
  • Mac transition to Apple silicon (2020)

I'm eager to continue that tradition next month!

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

A tip of the hat to @jamesthomson, who also includes the Apple TV launch among his list of day one launches:

https://mastodon.social/@jamesthomson/111779473138502569

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@hermeticlibrary You're reminding me that four weeks from today (on February 16) @OmniWeb will be turning 30 years old! (And I should have had my Apple Vision Pro for two weeks by then. Hmm…)

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@hermeticlibrary I seem to recall that the original WWW.app had live WYSIWYG editing.

OmniWeb never did WYSIWYG editing (by then the web had tables and images which were hard enough to turn into read-only rich text), but did have a source editor where you could edit the current page, preview your changes in the live browser, then save them to your local filesystem (automatically mapping site URLs to local filesystem paths).

(We did all our website editing using OmniWeb for several years!)

flargh, to retrocomputing
@flargh@mastodon.social avatar

I understand that the 2024 Atari is a cynical cash-in on Gen X video game nostalgia, but then they do stuff like this and it gets me excited.

https://atari.com/products/atari-400-mini

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@bynkii @flargh An 800 would certainly be more tempting, especially if it had a full-sized keyboard. (Though do I really have a good excuse? I've still got my original 800 in working order right here…)

kcase,
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

@bynkii @flargh My parents got the Atari for me after I spent the summer pouring through all of the school’s Apple ][ manuals, then went back to school in the fall and realized that two computers for an entire school meant not very much time per month per student!

(We couldn't afford to get an Apple ][. And until I wrote my first program that earned money, we couldn't afford a floppy drive for it—just a cassette tape drive. But I ended up being quite happy with that Atari 800!)

kcase, to apple
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

Excited to be preordering Apple Vision Pro in 9.5 hours! We're bringing all our products to visionOS, so we're making them available as standard equipment for every @OmniGroup employee.

kcase, to apple
@kcase@mastodon.social avatar

We love having products ready to ship on day one for Apple’s new platforms. We are pleased to share that the first Omni app on visionOS for the new Apple Vision Pro platform will be OmniPlan, our tool for powerful project management. With OmniPlan for Apple Vision Pro, your Gantt charts are no longer limited by the size of a physical display screen. How cool is that? We’re excited for the future of visionOS—the first spatial computing platform.

https://www.omnigroup.com/blog/omniplan-coming-to-apple-vision-pro

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