The Omni Mouth » Not yet the great reveal

Not yet the great reveal

posted by Linda on 07.13.06 @ 1:33 pm

You know, I thought we’d get maybe 20 guesses or so on what Brand New Secret Product is. Not HUNDREDS. Holy, uh, fiddlesticks.

So this is one of those occasions when us marketing weasels have to decide between silence, subterfuge, or straightforwardness. And other terms that begin with the letter “S”, like “snake oil” (as in, Our powerful, extensible solution creates a paradigm shift in infrastructure core competencies).

We’re going with a large serving of straightforwardness, with a hint of silence on the side and a sprinkling of delicious, bacony subterfuge. (There’s a reason we’re called weasels, after all.)

Some of you guessed correctly about what Brand New Secret Product is. Some of you are clearly insane and made us laugh until we sprayed Jamba Juice out our collective nostrils. And some of you – check that, LOTS of you – guessed that we’re building some kind of GTD app.

Brand New Secret Product is not a GTD app. However, we have been talking very seriously about building a GTD app, and collaborating with our friends Ethan and Merlin, and hearing so many of you tell us that you’re interested in that kind of software…well, we would really, really like to come up with something. We have some awesome ideas for how it could work.

In a couple weeks we’re sitting down with some folks here in Seattle and brainstorming what this GTD app might do, and how we might be able to get it out the door in a timely manner. We do have a lot on our plates these days, and we’re not a big company; we just don’t know yet if we have the resources. But! If you would like to send us ideas, feature requests, or just a plea for us to make it happen, please email omnitask-planning@omnigroup.com, in the next week if possible. (OmniTask is our code name. Shhhhhh.)

There: some straightforwardness.

Now for the subterfuge! Well, not exactly, but here’s another annoying image of Brand New Secret Product – not blurred this time, but clipped so only a piece of it shows. Go nuts, CSI-enhancers.

And the silence: we’re not going to tell you what B.N.S.P. is just yet. But very, very soon we will have more info and a public beta. I think some of you (no, we’re not saying how many!) are going to be really happy.

P.S. Yes, those of you who guessed correctly will be hearing from me shortly about the private beta. Booyah!

First comment!!!!!

Oh, I guess this isn’t CARS. But my parents are going to the theatre tonight to see Cars.

Anyway, I’m guessing it’s a cool, new, ultra-challenging Tetris game that the Tetris folks are going to ask you to remove from distribution. Actually, you’re too smart to let that happen. Yours will be far better, anyway. Along the lines of Tetripz!, perhaps.

Hmmmm, now is that an Omni pencil cup, or coffee cup?

Or is it something else entirely, like a mysterious Can of OmniWhoopAss?

Hm, smaller at the top than the bottom.

That black bit might be an inkwell?

It’s an omnicoffeemaker!
For those who don’t have an espresso machine, just a cafetiere, it tells you how long to leave the coffee brewing. There is an optional USB espresso device (Note: needs powered USB socket) for those that need it.

One thing’s for sure: It’s not a spreadsheet app. Why? That’s what I guess it is, and I’ve never successfully predicted anything.

[…] I spent the last week on vacation with my family (mostly in Disneyland Paris) and arrived back yesterday. I’m hoping that over tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday we’ll get our server organised and everything set up ready for the SyncBridge beta. As long as we announce before Omni announces their new product I’ll be happy […]

p.s. Here’s my whish for the future if you have some time left: Could you do something like Lotus Improv on steroids?

Guesses:

(one) OmniDraw.

(two) OmniStamp. (I have no idea what this might do, but that looks like it could be a stamp.)

(three) OmniDoorknob.

OmniBaffle.

i don’t have a guess as to the new product, but i would just like to say i’d be VERY excited to see something GTD oriented.

the secret love child of brainstorming and project management? (a la Curio http://www.zengobi.com/ )

*Please* make a GTD app together with Ethan and Merlin. kgtd.app without sync and so long. i would LOVE it and buy it right away. Merlinn and Ethan are my heros and the only reason I’m getting *anything* done atm. Cheers

As we’ve discussed before: OmniCruft.

A Cocoa app that does nothing but present menus, chrome, palettes, themes, as well as recursive configuration options and preferences for same.

Guaranteed to kill 5 hours out of every procrastinator’s working day.

You have not yet denied it might be Oni 2. There is still hope then

I see a yellow lightbulb in front of something dark… maybe some kind of idea manager or another way to browse spotlight meta data?

I’m guessing it’s either a spreadsheet/financial management application or a web editor. I would love it if it were some form of project management app a la ProjectX…

Well, I live in your neighborhood and drink coffee where you do and you’re just driving me nuts. I think I’ll just walk in your front door and ask tomorrow. Why are you doing this? To create suspense? I buy your products AND USE THEM. But it’s not fair to do this. Tell me.

OmniPuck!

OmniBucket. Collect all your projects into one place.

My guess is OmniPaint. The black cylinder is a container holding a pencil and paint brush. Or it could be a film canister. Perhaps it’s a bit of both?

Well, I’m probably too late even for a piece of cake … I don’t eat cake, but I could give it to the young lady next door
Not a GTD implementation … I wouldn’t have guessed that anyway. I imagine an information organiser, something akin to Yojimbo, partly ‘cos I too have just laid out the sponduliks on that one! And Omni would do it even better and I’d buy the Omni one and have to pass Yojimbo on to my wife, whose needs in this line are less than mine. And anyway, there’s a line on that bit of the icon which makes it look like a grid/columns …
But once again, what I’d really like is a great Omni-style SPREADSHEET. Mariner Calc is OK, but I want cocoa, not carbon! Mesa 3 would be there, but it still won’t handle CJK fonts.
Hey … if this is not OmniSpread/OmniSheet, Omnifolks, why don’t you get in touch with the bods at plsys.co.uk, buy Mesa 3 from them and turn it into the killer spreadsheet that it could be!

Mark desperate for a cocoa spreadsheet that’ll handle Chinese!

OmniNote? Man I would love an Omni App that is a Sticky note with .Mac sync so I can sync my notes. I would buy every app you ever made if you did that as thanks!

OmniPage

How about OmniPresent an app which (a) is impossible to quit and (b) orders gifts for you?

If I had only one guess I’d say OmniPaint. If I had more guesses, I’d also say a web-page maker or an incon maker.

No guesses on the app, but I want to mention that I’ve been playing around with OmniWeb 5.5 and it kicks so much ass…

OmniPotent

The most powerful computer program ever created — working at the root level, it knows your every thought and executes it without the need for any user input.

My guess is OmniPaint, not sure where the db curved bottom of the black shape comes from in a “Paint” metaphor. But I need to guess so that everyone in the office will stop asking me what I think on ichat.

Cat is out of the bag…

(Yes, I can put one + one + one together).

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/636007549731/p/5

Does this get me on the beta list or banned from all things Omni for 7 years?

Can we get posts with actual news tagged with ‘news’ or ‘useful’. Conversely, posts like this could be tagged ‘filler’.

Personally, I would love a nice, cocoa based spreadsheet program. A cocoa based Filemaker Pro-like program using SQLite as a backend would be nice too.

I would very much appreciate a project management app from anyone, but especially Omni. I’ve been making do with OmniOutliner and VoodooPad and just discovered Curio. Finally purchasing decision will probably come down to Curio and OmniProject.

I’m guessing it’s a personal publishing client — OmniEdit — implementing Dave Winer’s idea that blogs fit well with the outliner metaphor. Please? Pretty please?

Project Managment software. The basis for my guess is the blurred icon from the previous (although the clipped icon *could* support this too).

The blurred icon shows two documents like the icons for OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner. The back, darker document is rotated counter clockwise (see the other two product icons).

The top document displays a Gantt chart. Based on the clipped icon, there could be date lines showing vertically on the page.

The right icon is a person, similar to the colored icons one finds in old Trouble or Parcheesi games. Many icon sets use similar styles to represent a person. There is a circle for a head and a half-elipse for the body.

Is it OmniDrunkenBatman?

Every time you launch the app it crashes Safari…

I said it above, and I’m going to say it again because I’m just so happy:

OmniWeb 5.5 kicks so much ass.

It’s superfast. And the site specific style sheets are the best thing since coffee.

I’ve barely been able to contain myself since reading this yesterday. I’m very excited by the prospect of an Omni GTD app.

To be usable, any GTD app needs an essential feature: it must provide some way to me to look at my tasks when I am away from my Mac.

Many of us have Macs at home an other OS’s at work. Most days I commute with my PowerBook, but I’d rather not be required to. Even people with a Mac at work would need some way of getting their tasks from one location to another.

Now there are a lot of ways to fulfill this requirement. A few that come to mind are:

1) Syncing with iCal means the task data can go everywhere that iCal data does. One more step and my tasks are synced to my Treo. kGTD’s implementation of this was a great idea. Unfortunately, it is clunky and unreliable. I find that I lose changes unless I am very careful in how I do things. Sooner or later, I need to ditch kGTD because of this unreliability.

2) Another approach is some form of HTML export. Personally, I could stick the exported pages on my webserver. Others could copy them to iPods, thumb drives, etc. Because the data transfer is one-way, it means users have some extra work when they are back at their Macs. HTML export isn’t the most poweful means of remote access to tasks, but it may be the easiest to implement.

3) Let’s not forget good old fashioned paper. If you’ve been looking at GTD, you’ve probably noticed that many nerds fetishize 3×5 cards. Remember that users will probably need to print daily, so the process has to be dirt simple. If I have to do it when I’ve overslept, the cats are unfed, and I can’t find my keys, then anything more than Command-P followed by return is too much work. Better yet, do it with a timer, so the cards are ready when my alarm goes off.

When it comes to printing: don’t forget that people print other things besides their 3×5 cards. You’ll need to seamlessly set the print parameters for 3×5 and then back to their previous settings afterwards. Otherwise, people will get annoyed and won’t use it.

4) The Ferrari of portability is seamless synchronization with a web back-end.

Have you ever used a TMobile Sidekick? Go find somebody with one and ask them to show it off. For all the faults of the device, it contains at least one stroke of brilliance. All data on a Sidekick is continuously synced with back-end servers. TMobile (well, Danger, really) then provides a web interface to that same data. Add an appointment through the web app and it magically appears on the device by the time you pick it up. Delete a contact and next time you go to the web app, that contact will be gone.

Taking on that whole magilla is a lot of work. Omni would really have to create *two* apps, then get them to work together. Plus your revenue models and support infrastructure are all built around sales rather than subscriptions. I’m not getting my hopes up on this one.

Perhaps there is a way to ease the pain? I know of at least three open source GTD web-apps that would provide good starting points. Perhaps Omni could simply define a GTD sync API and leave the other half of the equation to others.

I think the black thing is a phone. This must be some sort of app for mobile phone users.

OmniBush?

You launch the app, and it immediately attacks all other computers in the vicinity…

OmniCoffee Break! Comes with Sudoku, Crossword Puzzles, Word Searches, “What’s the next move?” Chess, and that Bridge game thingy.

Wait a minute, I’ve got it (and this time I’m being serious, my last comic was being funny). It’s a blogging app.

Instead of a new app you should provide OOP with some basics: clones, internal links. Otherwise it’s everything but “professional”.

Oh, it’s obviously OmniBlackBottleOnYellowLinoleum

Project management app is my guess.

If I can guess twice, a Finance application, I would really like to see someone do a Quicken killer.

A suggestion for a future, missing app: A workout tracking solution. Nothing really good around for the mac.

I think I should be one of the few testing the beta since I can make my dog bark on command. Just an example of my special powers. OmniCommand is the correct answer of course.

My guess: OmniIdealizer
Icon: A hand grasping a light bulb

Description: A collaborative brainstorming, organizing, project management application (tightly integrated with OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle, of course).

*sigh* I sooooooo wish I were right. I’d kill for a tool like that right now…

Err… Ignore the “icon” line in my guess above. That was for the other blog entry, but comments were closed on it so I saved my guess… I still hope its OmniIdealizer, or something very similar.

OmniPresent - Force Quit won’t work, restart and power off won’t even work - it’s ALWAYS THERE!

(of course, pronounced differently, it could be a PowerPoint killer)

I wanted to guess at a file-locking app (that black thing is SO a padlock), but I only saw it mentioned on TUAW yesterday

“Our powerful, extensible solution creates a paradigm shift in infrastructure core competencies”

Ooh, ooh, can I have one of those, please? With paradigm sprinkles? My core competencies have been in need of some sort of shift for a long time, and your powerful solution sounds creatively extensible. I just hope it’s compatible with my infrastructure and Futurama DVD’s.

Hoping for a project management application. OmniOutliner and OmniGraffle are already indispensible to me

OmniBlog

no, no…

oh, OmniPaint!

OmniPizzle, my bizzles!

Seriously, where’s my invite. You all know I am right.

I’ve got it! It has to be a web design app!

I also vote for project management, bridging MS Project data to the Mac in a similar way that OG has done with Visio.

Or, my second guess would be more of a OneNote-like app, but that would just be odd with OO sitting right there with its orange icon.

“OmniBaffle” (said Travis, way up there towards the top). I love it.

Regarding a GTD app - I love Kinkless 0.83, and would love a native app that was similar and not beholden to the strange side effects that various settings can inflict upon the KGTD applescript code.

With the black OMNI bit in the icon looking like the base of an inkwell (I’m drowning in inks lately, so everything may be starting to look like an inkwell), I also started thinking of a OneNote style application… inkwell, Inkwell… well..!

As much as I love OmniOutliner, there are some aspects of OneNote that I really like - namely combination of a free-form page with lots of outlining bits. It’s more like a natural notebook in that you can write anywhere, but takes advantage of computer features (indexing, referencing, bla bla bla). I like the combination of the text/outlining features with the ability to quickly lay out a page visually.

Curio is the closest thing I’ve seen to this on the Mac, but it’s list/outline feature is really sub-par compared to OmniOutliner or OneNote…

So yeah! How about a really sick and twisted combination of OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner?! ‘OmniGrout! Gets stains out!’

I’m tired.. I’m just interested that some people made a OneNote connection too.

I’d also be damn happy with a project management tool. I did a quick evaluation of available mac tools recently (after we were unable to really visually timescales and relationships with a big plan made in OmniOutliner), and I was disappointed with what I found.

I’d say OmniPaint as well. That’s a bucket of paint and the yellow thing is some kind of canvas.

At least I hope it would be some kind of Photoshop killer. That would rock. Especially for us MacTel users.

Coffee mug sitting on the Sunday comics page. It’s a comic strip newsreader!

Project Management or hot chocolate recipe….

Maybe both!

I think I’ll skip the guessing and go straight to the begging. Since I moved to the MAC about two years ago I have been looking for an acceptable replacement for my old task management system. The GTD concept is awesome. Kudos to Ethan and Merlin’s work trying to make these concepts a reality for us. Since I’ve been introduced to GTD I understand that the OLD task management system I used would no longer be considered acceptable to me. So, while you are entertaining suggestions and requests… Pretty please…

While I’m going to download and play with the OmniPlan, I doubt that the “creative” individual — writer, student, academic, researcher, etc. — would find it as useful as the GTD development idea mentioned above. I am using kGTD now, but we haven’t heard from Ethan for a while; which is fine, because it’s freeware, and he’s not obliged. However, I’d be more than willing to have the idea professionally developed and sustained for those of us who want such a paradigm, without having to do the whole gnatt chart thing. OmniPlan: organizations; OmniGTD: individuals. Hope it comes about.

[…] Lest we forget, OMG [Omni] USERS ARE CRAZY. The creation of OmniFocus is largely at the users’ behest. As Linda Sharps originally wrote during the development of OmniDazzle: […]

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Not yet the great reveal

posted by Linda on 07.13.06 @ 1:33 pm

Job Openings

Categories

Archives

Search

Links

Authors