OmniFocus 3
A flexible, powerful task manager
Free (IAPs) From OmniGroup, omnigroup.com Made for iPad, iPhone or iPod touch Needs iOS 11.3 or later
What do you need to do today? Are all your projects on track? OmniFocus answers these questions and many more besides, but then so would Wunderlist, and that’s the problem. At $39.99 for the Standard edition and $59.99 for the Pro, OmniFocus is easily one of the more expensive iOS apps. Is it worth it?
OmniFocus’ power lies in the way it slices and dices your data. Tasks can be tagged, put into projects and given due dates. You can mark which tools they’ll require, where they should be performed, and even how motivated you need to be to tackle each one.
The more of this metadata you add, the better OmniFocus performs. So, when we found ourselves with 15 minutes to spare we filtered out any longer jobs and those for which we didn’t have the necessary tools to hand. If we were by the phone, we could switch to our tagged calls; when online, our emails. OmniFocus helps us fill the otherwise wasted pockets of our workday — and you don’t need to fill many to start recouping the cost; particularly not if you work for yourself.
Your tasks feed into a home screen with four key views: projects, tags, flagged jobs and anything that needs to be done close to your current location. These are ‘Perspectives’, the name that’s given to the app’s sorting and filtering features. You can build your own by combining tags, durations, dates and so on, and save them for easy access, but this can only be done if you’re using the Pro edition. Pro also lets you customize the sidebar, but otherwise its feature set mirrors the Standard build.
Whichever version you decide to buy syncs your data between your iOS devices, but syncing with a Mac requires a separate purchase. Version 3 for macOS is in the works, but buy version 2 today and you’ll get a free upgrade when it’s released. In the meantime, Standard tips the scales at $39.99, and an upgrade to Pro costs the same again. 14-day trials of the Mac edition are available from the OmniGroup site, and the iOS versions don’t require payment — in the form of an IAP — during the first two weeks’ use.
OmniFocus makes it really easy to keep your life in order. Entering tasks is simple and filtering them is a breeze. Used in the right way, it can make you more productive.
the bottom line. The perfect tool for anyone who can’t afford their own PA.