Why can't I use OmniFocus 2.1 on OS 10.9/Mavericks?

I’m not asking about Snow Leopard support but the second last version of OS X. I there were real technical reasons I think Omni would have communicated on that. But they don’t. And lizard only stated as briefly as possible only that it “needs” Yosemite.

I really don’t see the point here and I really don’t know how to make myself clearer: You can’t trust a system or vendor that changes OS requirements just … so …

@mat_rhein I have no intention to replace my ultra-portable MB Air 11" - it got a 1TB SSD a couple of months ago and the i7 and 8GB do a fantastic job. At office it is plugged to a 27" DELL monitor (2560x1440) and it just works - the best computer I ever had …

Price aside, the majority of Macs are NOT running Yosemite yet - https://www.gosquared.com/global/mac/yosemite/

I think the discussion about price is kind of a red herring here. But I’d really love to see OmniFocus adopt a subscription model for OmniFocus. I wouldn’t mind paying more for their software per year than I do now (which is almost nothing!), if they had an interest in keeping my productivity system up and running.

I do not have a specific list of all of the APIs changed and bugs fixed that contributed to our decision to drop support for OS X 10.9 in OmniFocus 2.1. However, it is quite common when we report bugs and request features from Apple that those changes are provided in the next version of the OS. So for us to continue supporting an older OS, we would have to work around these bugs, and make do without the newer APIs.

Additionally, supporting older operating systems slows down our efforts to do, well, everything else our customers have asked for. The apps must be tested on multiple platforms, the code must be more complex to handle the variation in how each major (or even minor) version of the operating system behaves.

As of mid-November, 67% of our OmniFocus customers report they’re using OS X 10.10 and I expect that percentage is even higher now. (Apologies that the graph is out of date and includes iOS apps, which make no sense…)

We recognize that this is a tradeoff, but the major part of the work that has gone into OmniFocus 2.1 is to adopt Yosemite features and aesthetics—changes which someone running 10.9 would not benefit from.

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You have got to be kidding me! To recap:

  1. we shouldn’t upgrade to 10.10, because it kills traditional clip-o-tron behavior;
  2. we shouldn’t upgrade to OF2 for full time use, because OF2 does not even give you traditional clip-o-tron behavior when used with Mac OS 10.9;
  3. OF2 is missing many key features of OF1, many months after it’s release; and
  4. we have to upgrade to Mac OS 10.10 – thereby killing traditional clip-o-tron behavior – just to see if the new 2.1 version of OF happens to have added enough of the 1.0 version features to be useful.

Does Omni not understand that clip-o-tron is the way 99% of things get into OF? That it’s the single most important, time-saving feature of OF?

If this comes to pass, I’m going to have to tap out of OF altogether. OF2 has not worked properly – by which, I mean “as well as OF1” – for even one day since it was released. There are show-stopping bugs and features losses that we can’t believe are still unaddressed. Can we please get all of the OF1 features into OF2 before we worry about throwing even more people under the bus?

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As of today, four new features were added to OF 2.1, see for yourself if you find any of the not addressed missing features from OF1 - for me it is all about dumbing down (iOSsifying) a Desktop app.

  • Vibrant Interface — We adjusted the OmniFocus interface to fit better in OS X Yosemite. That included making new toolbar icons, adjusting the appearance of some other elements, and incorporating vibrancy where appropriate.
  • Extensions — OmniFocus for Mac now has Today and Share extensions, just like on iOS. To enable to Today extension, click Edit at the bottom of Notification Center.
  • Sharing — In addition to accepting content from other apps, actions can be shared from OmniFocus using the share button in the toolbar.
  • Tear-off View Options Popover — When the View Options popover is open, it can be dragged away from the window and exist on its own.

And now they have committed to develop OF for Apple Watch … Sigh …

You’re right: this is a huge problem. Announcing your iWatch app while your desktop app is still lagging behind it’s predecessor tells us a lot about the new priorities.

It wouldn’t have been such a frustrating move if the update was about the Today and Share extensions, which only work on 10.10 anyway. But I was looking for the compact layout before I planned to start the trial. Wish this could have been split up into two updates, 2.1 and 2.2.

If what you meant by second last version, I am going to guess you are talking about Mavericks.

I will have to guess that there enough new technologies in Yosemite that OmniFocus 2 used that aren’t present in Mavericks. Mavericks to Yosemite is a big leap forward.

There are apps that are declaring themselves as iOS 8-only or Yosemite-only nowadays. Omni isn’t the only company embracing a Yosemite-only model.

@wilsonng No, I’m only talking about Mavericks. OF 2.0 required 10.9, so it’s not reasonable to complain about OF 2.1 not supporting versions before that.

iOS8 only is not the same as Yosemite-only. OF 2 for iPhone required iOS8 and I did an early change because of OF2 - but I was informed and aware about this.

We’re talking about a system change in a point release: OF 2 Mac required 10.9, OF 2.1 “requires” 10.10 now … and this is a desktop OS.

I think the idea of a point release being a minor release has become a thing of the past. I remembered when we only had point increments to represent mostly bug fixes… version 2.0; version 2.1; version 2.2; version 2.3; etc.

Nowadays we’re already seeing point-point updates… version 2.0.0; version 2.01; version 2.0.2, etc.

We might even get around to point-point-point release with version 2.0.0.0; version 2.0.1.0; version 2.0.1.1; etc.

The world is changing quickly now.

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After my last post, 2 things happened:

@wilsonng wrote replies that have no other intention than to make my question (I repeat it like Cato) - Why doesn’t OF2 run on the last 2 releases of OSX, Yosemite AND Mavericks - look ridiculous and calm down the discussion. I can live with that, but get the feeling that Omni has some “discourse endorsers” around here.

The 2nd thing was a PM by @lizard, who offered me this:

======== start ===========
We take our customers’ trust seriously. I don’t have the power to promise anything, but if you don’t feel you can trust us anymore, I encourage you to email sales@omnigroup.com to discuss the possibility of a refund.
========= end ===========

If you have read my question you can clearly see that I in no way asked for my money back, but for a chance to use OF2 with my current hard- and software.

These two led me to the decision not to go, but RUN away from Omni.

As I had testet Things before buying OF - as most everyone does - my demo lic. was expired, but I asked for a new one and got it on Saturday evening (!). Things has a decent Import filter (AppleScript) that copied my tasks over without hassle, ThingsCloud works - I’ll see how far I can get with it.

OF1 and OF2 is removed on my MacBook, iPad, iPhone - and I felt relieved right after doing this - it was like copying that last e-mail from the inbox into you GTD system.

I still can’t believe that that is the way to do business in Seattle, but I’m out - or, as David Allen closes his seminars, “have a great rest of your life”!

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I have no affiliation with omnigroup. I did not intend to make any discourse or question look “ridiculous.”

I do endorse discoursing as a means to get to the root of an issue.

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The discussion of Things is an interesting one, actually… I recently took another look at Things after their latest iOS update. I hadn’t even opened it up in a while, after having played with it years ago – I was generally very turned off by how long it took them to get a reliable sync model put together, with many repeatedly “real soon now” style empty promises.

Even when it finally did come to fruition, it was originally relying far too heavily on the desktop app, so things like repeating tasks wouldn’t actually repeat unless the desktop app had a chance to process them between syncs. I think that’s now been fixed, but again took far longer than it should have, IMHO. Things also still lacks any support at all for time-based or location-based notifications.

What’s most interesting, however, is that I’m guessing Things is continuing to provide support for older iOS and OS X versions, and they’re also lagging far behind in supporting the newest iOS and OS X features. OmniFocus had an update out within days of iOS 8 being released that added a Today Screen widget, interactive notifications, sharing extension, etc. Many other mainstream apps did as well. By comparison, Things’ 2.6 iOS update arrived about two weeks ago.

I don’t know if this is simply a function of trying to maintain legacy compatibility, or if it’s just an overworked development team (Cultured Code’s past delays would seem to suggest the latter), but I for one appreciate the fact that OmniFocus is working more quickly to support the newer platforms. For me, if that means sacrificing support for the older stuff, than so be it.

Obviously, that’s not true for everyone – some people need support for older, legacy operating systems and hardware. However, I think it’s clear that’s not the direction Omni is really going in anymore, nor are most developers who want to try and stay on the bleeding edge of supporting the new features that Apple is adding.

It depends on who “most developers” are. Vocal indie developers on Twitter? Yes, this camp definitely drops support for OS versions very early. I can’t name a serious-business-double-digit-pricetag app that already requires Yosemite, though. Stuff that people might consider mission critical for work, like Skype, still work on 10.6 or lower(!). And that is only the Mac world - remember that Windows 7 was released at the same time as Snow Leopard and is still very much alive.

And I agree that iOS 7 is (regrettably) a legacy operating system by now. There are glaring security bugs that Apple refuses to patch even though 25% of its customers are still running this OS (on their 2FA devices, nonetheless!). Whatever. But calling Mavericks a legacy system when it is only at 1.5 years of its projected 3 year security lifespan just seems insane to me.

I know the trend is toward rapid releases and a perpetually-beta operating system. But I won’t pay $$$ for software that is helping that trend. Anyway, I’ve started following this board to see where OF2 is heading, and I’m out. At this point I’d rather patch the OF1 binary when it eventually breaks.

We can argue whether OG has the right to do what they propose to do (they do). We can argue whether OG has precedence in their own development history to do what they propose to do (someone can offer insights here). Finally, we can argue whether OG has precedence in the overall history of software development to do what they propose to do (I imagine examples can be found to support OS version changes at point releases).

Let us imagine that no cases can be found to argue against what they propose. Regardless, requiring a full OS change at a point release with the argument that it is to stay on the bleeding edge is a dis-respectful path to customers. The respectable path is to release OF as version 3.00 when it will require OS X 10.10.

I would also not call OmniGroup a company that works on the bleeding edge. By example, we would already have a new database structure in OF that would support multiple contexts if OmniGroup was to be a bleeding edge developer. I leave my cynical comments on this to myself.


JJW

Well, I’m thinking more in terms of the “bleeding edge” of supporting new iOS features… OmniFocus was one of the first productivity apps to support some of the more useful features in iOS 8 in that regard, such as the today widget, sharing sheet, and interactive notifications.

Similarly, OmniFocus was one of the first productivity apps to support location features on the iPhone, and one of the first to adapt iOS 7 support when it came out (albeit it as a paid upgrade, which is another discussion entirely).

Arguably, OS X is another matter, but most of what we’re seeing in 2.1 are primarily Yosemite features anyway.

Arguably, Omni isn’t leading on the edge in other areas, but that’s the rather ironic tradeoff… It seems that dropping support for Apple’s older APIs is one thing, but abandoning support for some of their own legacy code is quite another. Of course, that’s also part of the reason why OmniFocus 1 is still usable for those who are not fans of the 2.x design, and it sounds like the company plans to continue developing the iPhone-only version for as long as possible even after the iPad version is made universal.

@Tomatenklempner does have a point that hardly any expensive software so quickly abandons an established OS. Just a thought: but could this be because there isn’t a very large base of developers at Omni Group? Are they are relatively small company?

They’re not a huge company, and they have a lot of products.

That said, there isn’t a single Mac that can run OS X Mavericks that cannot run OS X Yosemite. People that are remaining on Mavericks are now choosing to remain on it for reasons known only to them.

Those that think Yosemite is too “bleeding edge” may also think OmniFocus 2.1 is also too “bleeding edge” and can stay on the 2.0.x builds ;)

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That said, there isn’t a single Mac that can run OS X Mavericks that cannot run OS X Yosemite. People that are remaining on Mavericks are now choosing to remain on it for reasons known only to them.

If I’m correct, I think my husband’s MacBook runs Mavericks but is too underpowered to run Yosemite.

Well, technically it must meet the system requirements for Yosemite, as those are unchanged from Mavericks. That said, I can see how Yosemite might not perform as well as Mavericks did in certain areas on an older Mac, since of course it’s a newer OS.

There are some fairly simple tweaks that can be used to make Yosemite perform pretty well if you’re on an older system, many of which aren’t really a step backward as they involve turning off or toning down settings that weren’t necessarily in Mavericks anyway.

To be fair, though, OS X Yosemite is a free upgrade, it technically runs on every Mac that supported Mavericks, so I can’t see the departure from 10.9 support being that broadly serious of an issue for most users. Of course it’s unfortunate if you’re one of those users who simply can’t upgrade for other legitimate reasons, but I don’t think that issue applies to most users.