You can make like an intergalactic outlaw or keep in touch like a pro with two of the new apps and updates featured in the week’s roundup. And the other two featured apps show off the growing versatility of macOS Big Sur and CarPlay, two Apple platforms that deserve a little extra love.
Get the scoop in this week’s edition of Awesome Apps of the Week.
OmniFocus is now available anywhere in your web browser.
The new web app makes it possible to access your tasks on Windows and other operating systems for the first time. It is designed to work alongside OmniFocus for Mac and iOS.
Sadly, it doesn’t allow you to use OmniFocus if you don’t own an Apple device at all.
When Apple rolled out iOS 5 way back in 2011, one of the software’s highlights was a new app — Reminders — to help you keep track of tasks.
Since that time, Reminders hasn’t evolved much. However, the type of task manager people are looking for has changed dramatically. TickTick offers greater control, more granularity, and is an all-around better to-do list app.
iOS widgets are a great way to check in on your day. Apple gave us its own take on widgets with the core apps built into iOS 10, but you can do better.
If you’ve never taken a look at some of the great third-party iOS widgets available, you’re missing out. Here are six of our favorite iOS widgets to replace the stock Apple widgets. (If you don’t know how to add widgets, go to the bottom of this post for instructions on adding and using them.)
Extensions are coming to iOS 8, and Omni shows us just how cool they can be with a new version of OmniFocus 2 for iPhone plus the brand new OmniFocus 2 for iPad.
They say your email inbox is a terrible place to manage tasks. I’d disagree. I think it’s the perfect place. After all, most of my tasks come in via email, and any app that can share information can share it via email. Why bother dickering with an extra app, keeping all that important stuff in two places, when it can all be easily managed in one spot?
I’ve been doing exactly this ever since I ditched OmniFocus, which is so long ago I can’t remember how long ago it was. With a little bit of setup in your everyday news and browsing apps, you can turn your inbox into a proper universal task list. Here’s how.
This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.
Back when I worked exclusively on my iPad, writing posts for Cult of Mac and everything related to that, I had a hell of a time getting some things done. It seemed like every tiny step needed to be researched before I could get anything done.
In the end, I quit and went back to a split iPad/iMac setup, but not for the reasons you might think.
OmniFocus for iPhone got an update today which lets it refresh itself in the background, in what is probably a foreshadowing of things to come in iOS7. It uses the now-familiar workaround of location-based updates, which lets an app download data in the background when you arrive or leave a predefined location.
The Omni Group has been testing its new OmniFocus Mail Drop, a service which lets you forward emails to a secret address, whereupon they end up — moments later — in your OmniFocus inbox. This means that we can finally (finally!) add emails direct to our Omnifocus from our iPhones and iPads.
But with a little jiggery-pokery, you can finagle some automated internet services to do much more. In this post I’ll show you how I now collect news items from Google Reader and have them waiting for me in Omnifocus and Writing Kit, ready to be written up.
It’s back by popular demand.! You have a chance to win $580 worth of stellar productivity apps from The Omni Group for your Mac thanks to Cult of Mac Deals.
If you’ve been on the lookout for some of the best productivity Mac apps on this planet, Cult of Mac Deals has got you covered. One lucky winner is going to take home 5 of The Omni Group’s top-notch apps that will level up both your home and work life.
OmniFocus for iPad just got a big old update, and it adds two huge features, along with the usual tweaks (and in this case, iOS 6 compatibility).
Now, iPad users can enter tasks using Siri, and everyone can take advantage of TextExpander Touch support.
You lucky thing. The summer’s over, or nearly over, and you’re already planning on heading back to school. Just like last year, you will begin this year fresh and full of energy and enthusiasm, only to be ground down by the man. Luckily, we’re here to help with advice on the best apps and gear to get you through the year and into next year’s summer vacation with the least effort possible.
So sit back, relax and take a look at the Cult of Mac back to school/college superguide.
I do all my work these days on an iPad. From organizing reviews through gathering story ideas to actually writing posts and features, and even photographing and editing gadgets for those reviews, it’s all — every last bit — done on Apple’s tablet. I just spent two weeks away from home using the iPad’s 3G connection to work, only opening up my MacBook to sync my FitBit.
And they still say the iPad is just for consumption.
One of the biggest problems with the iPad has been writing blog posts. You really did need a Mac to take care of the multiple browser windows and — most of all — the image uploading. Now, though, while there isn’t quite a wealth of options, there are certainly several credible methods to do this all from the iPad. So make a coffee, sit back and enjoy this how-to:
If you use Omnifocus on your iPad to “get things done,” you know that one of the key features of the system is to capture to do items and tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible to your management software (in this case, Omnifocus). If it’s a hassle to add things to your list of things to get done, you probably won’t add them. If you don’t add them, you won’t do them. It’s a vicious circle.
The OmniFocus forums have a sweet shortcut way to add things right to the OmniFocus inbox, with minimal fuss and muss.
Do you use OmniFocus on your iPhone? Do you use Launch Center Pro? Then you need to watch the above screencast, put together by Michael Schechter of A Better Mess. It uses the latter to create shortcuts and snippets of text to enter into the former, and makes the whole thing way, way faster.
Ideas is an iOS app for managing, organising and sorting your ideas and thoughts. It stands out from the crowd thanks to a refreshingly different interface that does the job very well. It usually costs two bucks, but right now it’s on sale for one dollar.
Nerds who use Omni Group’s kick-ass task manager Omnifocus have a little bit of good news today. No, you still can’t export due tasks to a Google calendar shared with coworkers. You can, however, rely on the new non-beta status of the Omni Sync Server, which gets its official launch today. That’s not all: Sync is coming to all Omni’s apps.
