Product Reviews

We awarded four mice to the Desktop version of OmniFocus when we reviewed it earlier this year (see MacUser, 1 February, p35), praising its excellent task management features despite one noticeable omission. Due to the lack of support for MobileMe (then .Mac), information was largely constrained to the Mac on which it was originally entered. Clumsy workarounds included copying the data files

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to flash drives to transport between machines, but the lack of seamless synchronisation in the background was stifling for freelancers, whose work takes them to different places.

This will change with OmniFocus 1.1, a free update that adds exactly that - it will synchronise over MobileMe and other WebDav servers. Omni Group has posted a preview version on its website, but it has exceeded expectations with an iPhone version that takes task management on the road. Information is always to hand, helping you to get things done wherever you are, which is, after all, the application's purpose.

Synchronisation between multiple Macs is a big improvement, but breaking free of the Mac desktop, so that information is always at your fingertips, ought to be lapped up by existing converts to the Getting Things Done methodology. There's a small cost involved, but at roughly a quarter of the cost of the desktop version, it's a small price to pay for the freedom that it brings.