I don’t write much on Omnifocus anymore. That’s not because I don’t use it. I use it as much as I ever have. I don’t write about it much anymore, because I haven’t had much more to say.
However, now that there’s a transition underway from OmniFocus 3 to 4 on the iOS, I do have a few thoughts I want to share.
My current devices are a 2013 Macbook Pro and iPhone 11 Pro.
I joined OmniFocus 4 early in the beta. At first, OmniFocus 4 wasn't very usable. It would crash regularly. Simple actions like writing text would create trouble. There were a number of features that I needed in order to get around, and they just weren't easily accessed.
So, I would play with it for a bit and return to OmniFocus 3 where I could work. But in time as I kept playing with OF4 and as the Omni Group has been updating things, I have really grown to enjoy it.
For example, my home screen with OmniFocus 3 most recently looks like this:
OmniFocus 3 home screen
Now, with OmniFocus 4, I have a cleaner looking list of lists, which I really appreciate:
OmniFocus 4 home screen
My lists, in turn, look simpler:
Current/Today list example
I can now edit a task in place, too, rather than go into the Inspector:
OmniFocus 4 editing in place
The inspector exists, but it's just not as necessary now.
A task's note is displayed so it lets me get to any relevant links, again without having to go to the Inspector. A very useful “back button” appears at the top when I do jump through a link:
OmniFocus 4 Back button from projects
All in all, I can access everything as I did before, but somehow the path to get all the pieces feel a bit smoother. Certainly, there was a learning curve as they're always must be in any new environment. But now that I'm there I almost never return to OmniFocus 3, at least on iOS.
I'll be stepping off the beta train for a bit as updates are targeted at those brave souls with iOS 15 betas which I have not installed. I look forward to seeing how it continues to shape up. I understand that status circles are returning which is much welcomed.
