I understand the concern but you have to see the problem here in context to the various options that OmniGroup has.
Taking the app out is the lesser of two evils.
If they leave it in, customers will complain about how they’ve been ‘duped into buying an outdated app’. Upgrade pricing/free timed upgrades is not possible at this stage in time, for either the iOS App Store, or the Mac App Store. They’ve tried. Doesn’t work/not allowed.
If they take it out, it’ll mean that customers will have to wait (yes, still not a desired option), but it’ll prevent ignorant/unaware customers from accidentally buying the app, before realising that a new app is coming out.
OmniGroup usually upgrades their apps every 3-4 years, so you won’t run into a similar issue like this in the near future.
I personally wouldn’t recommend this, even as a stopgap solution, unless you have an iPhone (in which case, it’ll be simply downloading the app that you’ve already bought for your iPhone).
Thanks chad! Better than nothing, finally figured out to switch to iPhone drop down in AppStore to do this. Obviously planning with that app is very limited, so still pretty bummed though I certainly understand the issues. Perhaps I should contact customer service, but being able to purchase OF1 for the few of us who just got iPads and are deep into using the system seems fair to me. I hope this is possible. Thanks all!
You can always you the iPhone version on the iPad. It screen rotates, so can meet any iPad orientation. Not ideal but a solution.
It doesn’t rotate, even on an iPhone. You can only use it in portrait on an iPad (or iPhone), hence this being my only bugbear about using it versus OF for iPad v.1.
I hear your reasoning, and looking at these as a company in terms of net effect makes sense.
Some customers, like myself, use the system to run their life from morning to night. GTD followers are typically very dependent on the system for the day to day functioning of their lives and work. I now use my iPad so I can organize my life on the go instead of opening a laptop every time. For a customer like me, this poses a significant disruption and is leaving me losing money and work this week as I find a way to implement a system that works.
On the whole, what I’m hearing, is that it is okay to the OmniGroup that some people’s lives will be seriously disrupted and harm done. A cold calculation, but you are a business, and for some reason I felt warm fuzzies toward this company that were perhaps misguided. A business is a business, I shouldn’t have expected more. Your product is just so awesome.
FYI: For others facing this issue that might want to switch systems, Things by CultureCoded looks like a good GTD consistent program. Certainly not as good as OmniFocus, but a solid alternative I think. It also has desktop/iphone/ipad options that sync: http://culturedcode.com/things
Would you have OmniGroup keep their app up, and have people yell and shout when the new version is released, leading to people claiming that OmniGroup ‘ripped them off’, are ‘a complete scam’ and ‘totally dishonest’?
Or have them take it down in good faith, and alerting potential buyers that a new version is coming, and if they are do not know, preventing them from buying it by shielding it from view?
Interesting how you brought up Cultured Code’s offerings.
A year ago, when I was a productivity vagabond and had just finished using a certain cow-themed online-based productivity webapp (Upset by the lack of updates), I looked at several alternatives, of which included Cultured Code’s ‘Things’.
One constant criticism of their apps has been the lack of updates. Cloud sync was a major annoyance (as far as I am aware, OmniFocus has had multi platform sync for a very long time, in the form of Omni Sync Service (now known as OmniPresence)), along with a stagnant mobile app.
I’m not saying OmniGroup’s faultless here, but I thought I’d like to let you know this.
The truth is OmniFocus is by far the best. Thanks for input about Cultured Code, that seems pretty lame. I in no way want others to suffer. I talked to someone lovely from customer service about this for awhile, and have determined that Apple needs to work on their appstore capability. Many companies face the issue you all are facing, and they are providing no help to you all and customers to have workable transitions. I understand that the appstore is limiting your ability to have paid upgrades etc…
While, of course I don’t want other customers to suffer, this option also damages people and that’s a fact. This damage still matters, even if the other option causes damage as well. You work for the business, so I get you have to do these calculations, but when interacting with the person that is hurt by this situation, I recommend being more compassionate. Cause it sounds like your saying, we don’t care about you and the damage to your life this causes.
Where there’s a will there is a way, I depend on you all, and you have failed me. And offer no reparations, or recourse. I get you’re in a sticky position, but that doesn’t mean telling me to suck it up and deal with it is really the best approach. I would suggest hiring a creativity consultant to help you brainstorm this issue. I know I’m just a number to you, but you’re right that no product parallels yours, and this really negatively impacts my life. Omnifocus is that awesome and important that taking its functionality away has a real impact.
Meghan, we totally agree, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience this is causing! We don’t have any options that don’t inconvenience everyone, so we tried to pick the one that caused the least inconvenience overall. That doesn’t mean we haven’t inconvenienced you, though - we’re sorry.
We’ve got better tools in place to handle this sort of thing on our own online store, and we’ve let Apple know that we wish we had similar options on their storefront as well. We can sell our Mac products on our own store, but we’re not able to sell the iOS ones there. We’re dependent on Apple to change their systems in order to make that possible, and while that hasn’t happened yet, we remain hopeful that it’ll happen in the future.
Side note: posts from an Omni employee have a “Omni Staff” badge next to the poster’s account name; we’ve got an open feature request to try and differentiate posts from us more from the ones contributed by other visitors. I’ll make sure to check with the relevant folks to see if we can do anything in the short term - I know other forums use a special text color, for example. I think that caused a bit of confusion here; apologies for that as well!
“anlandrum1 Jul
I apologize if this has already been asked, but is there any harm in running the iPad OF1 app and the iPhone OF2 app on an iPad simultaneously?”
None that i have seen, I did that for years before I removed the iPhone app on the iPad since it slows down syncing when you don’t keep up all your devices synced and that would mean two databases on the same iPad, that’s the main reason I finally removed it since I didn’t have a phone anyway.
We’ve temporarily removed the iPad app from sale because it shipped with our test build expiration still enabled. It will return to the store as soon as the update that fixes the problem is approved by Apple. Sorry for the confusion!
