Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Aaron Cherof — native Floridian, indoor cat, piano man — is one of the folks who answers your questions when you write — or call — in. We talk about how support works and about the support team’s important role in product decisions. Aaron, a Berklee College of Music graduate, has also written music for a number of Omni videos — and he wrote the theme music for this show. Thanks to Aaron it’s not just awkward silence when the host calls ...
Jun 27, 2018•39 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com This week, a full panel of guests joins us live at the NextDoor developer conference. We discuss the upcoming iOS and macOS features announced during the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, and what it means for the future of apps. On the panel are: Paul Kafasis , CEO of Rogue Amoeba Liz Marley , OmniGraffle Developer at The Omni Group Kristina Fox , iOS Developer at Intuit Ken Case , CEO of The Omni Group and an audience of dozens! ...
Jun 06, 2018•26 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Ken Case, CEO of The Omni Group; Dave Messent, OmniFocus product manager; and Tim Ekl, OmniFocus engineer, join the show for a special episode to talk about HEY IT’S LAUNCH DAY WOO-HOO! We look back on the two years of work on this release — all the database and syncing groundwork, new user interface, and new features — and how all these different pieces didn’t come together until near the end. But then they did! While the app looks fam...
May 30, 2018•26 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Ken Case, CEO of The Omni Group, and Dave Messent, OmniFocus product manager, join the show for a special episode to talk about the enhancements to custom perspectives, a feature in OmniFocus Pro 3. Custom perspectives now work with tags (new in OmniFocus 3), which make for even more powerful ways to view your data. The perspective editor has been enhanced to make perspectives easier to set up, by showing you just what you need to see a...
May 23, 2018•19 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Shannon Hughes — French toast enjoyer, math understander, frequent robot — joins the show to talk about working on OmniGraffle. Which, apparently, involves a whole bunch of different types of rectangles. Shannon started at Omni a week before your host, and started out on the OmniGraffle team and has been there ever since. Your rectangles are in the best possible hands. Some other people, places, and things mentioned: Andrea McVittie Rob...
May 09, 2018•29 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Dave Messent, OmniFocus product manager; Tim Ekl, OmniFocus engineer; and Jim Correia, OmniFocus engineer join the show for a special episode to talk about OmniFocus 3 for iOS and several new features: flexible inspectors, enhanced repeating tasks, batch editing, and the interleaved Forecast view. In OmniFocus 3 for iOS, inspectors are now customizable: you can make them work the way you want them to work. We’ve given repeated tasks mor...
Apr 25, 2018•18 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Aaron Bendickson — system administrator, saint — talks about how he runs things at Omni and, especially, about how he fixes things. Aaron’s just a small town boy from Missoula who went big: he studied at Berklee College of Music and eventually made his way to Seattle by way of Tacoma. When he’s not fixing Omni things, he’s bicycling, competing in pinball matches, and being a dad. You can find Aaron @benaar on Twitter and on Instagram . ...
Apr 11, 2018•28 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Dave Messent, OmniFocus product manager, and Tim Ekl, OmniFocus engineer, join the show for a special episode to talk about OmniFocus 3 (for Mac and iOS) and tags . In the new OmniFocus, tags replace contexts. Tags can do everything contexts can do, and more — you can apply multiple tags to tasks and projects, where with contexts you could apply just one. Dave and Tim go into detail on how this all works, and they discuss some of the or...
Mar 28, 2018•24 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Dave Lonning — world-traveler, world- builder — joins the show to talk about writing documentation for Omni apps — and about how the tools and formats have changed over the years. He also talks about moving, after college, to Japan — where he taught English and later worked on video game localization. He was there in 2011 when a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit. Dave’s hobbies include role-playing games — running and creating — an...
Mar 14, 2018•28 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Ainsley Bourque Olson — knitter, cat person, OmniPlan planner — joins the show to talk about being the product manager of a project management app. And about how to go from Apple retail to world domination. And about how to get by in Norwegian Ballard . You can find Ainsley @ainslaw on Twitter and on Instagram . Some other people, places, and things mentioned: Canada Product Management WWDC Apple Ken Case Project Management OmniGraffle ...
Feb 28, 2018•23 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Orion Protonentis — swashbuckler, bug-hunter, pastry-enjoyer — joins the show to talk about testing Omni apps. And about his life on the stage with swords. After studying acting and stage combat in Hawaii , Tennessee, and Las Vegas, and after tending bar and running nightclubs, Orion — whose first computers were Commodore 64 , TRS-80 , and Apple II — answered the call to come do support at The Omni Group. He later made his way to the te...
Feb 14, 2018•30 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Ken Case, CEO and one of the founders of The Omni Group, talks about what we accomplished in 2017 and what we plan to do in 2018. It’s a big year, especially for OmniFocus 3 for Mac and iOS. You can read all about it: see Omni Roadmap 2018 on our blog. And go back in time, if you like, to the 2017 roadmap . And 2016 and 2015 . You can find Ken @kcase on Twitter. You can also find @omnigroup on Twitter and on Micro.blog ....
Jan 31, 2018•42 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Liz Marley, unlike your host, is not afraid of math — and she brings that fearlessness to work every day on OmniGraffle , which is chock-full of math-y goodness. After getting a computer science degree from Harvey Mudd , then joining The Omni Group in 2005 and working as a tester, OmniBugZapper PM, tester, OmniFocus PM, and tester, two years ago she walked down the hall and switched to engineering. She also volunteers for App Camp for G...
Jan 17, 2018•29 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Mark got hooked on video and special effects at the age of five when he saw a TV show about the effects behind The Empire Strikes Back . After creating videos for vast government bureaucracies and The History Channel, Mark moved to Seattle to come work at Omni — which, from his point of view, is a video production company that happens to create some companion software to go along with the movies. Mark also hosts The Optical podcast , wh...
Jan 03, 2018•29 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Andrea studied fine art at Michigan State and human-computer interaction at the University of Michigan . One day, while working at the school library, it was discovered that she could make websites — which launched her career as a UX designer, and since 2012 she’s been designing apps at Omni. Andrea, it must be told, is firmly against stealing money from puppies — or maybe she’s against treating puppies as a particularly cuddly form of ...
Dec 06, 2017•29 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Brian Covey studied computer science at The Evergreen State College — which your host also attended, but back before computers were a thing. After some normal young-person-bouncing-around a little, Brian came to shore at Omni in 2001, where he became the leader, dear and fearless, of Omni’s Support Humans. You can find Brian @hidvorak on Twitter. (You can contact Omni support at support.omnigroup.com .) You can also find a video of Bria...
Nov 22, 2017•30 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com Curt Clifton came to Omni while on sabbatical from his computer science professorship at Rose-Hulman — and never went back. He’s spent much of his six years at Omni on the OmniFocus team, where he clicks checkboxes for a living. Curt’s a fan of the local association football team . He also likes woodworking and distance-running, though he has yet to explore the synergistic possibilities of doing both at the same time. You can find Curt ...
Nov 06, 2017•29 min
Full transcript and show notes at theomnishow.omnigroup.com For our first episode we interview Kristina Sontag, who runs Omni’s test department — a group tireless, fearless, and strikingly effective in its hunt for bugs. Kristina got her start playing games for a living at LucasArts . Between there and today she’s also worked on educational software , gotten a pilot’s license, volunteered for App Camp for Girls , and helped organize the Emerald City Supporters . When she’s not doing everything e...
Nov 01, 2017•26 min
