Opinions On TheBrain?

Posted by Hugh
Jun 25, 2008 at 01:35 PM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Anyone using the Mac version of Personal Brain? Or is anyone aware of any functional or
>performance differences between the Mac and PC versions?
> >Thanks!
> >Steve Z.

Steve

Thanks to this thread I downloaded the latest PB beta to my Mac 24 hours ago (and the latest Windows beta to my PC). My observations based on this very limited experience:

- the Mac version has a somewhat unMac-like feel (unsurprisingly)
- it appears to lack integration with iCal, Mail, Address and Spotlight, although these are promised (and it lacks a proper Trash - which some Mac afficionados might regard as criminal…)
- it does appear to lack a few features of the Windows version, such as the ability to import web browser bookmarks, and full implementation (including keyboard-monitoring) of the “ESP” functionality
- it lacks the full keyboard-shortcut toolbox Mac users tend to expect with their software
- the user manual for version 4 hasn’t been fully macintoshed yet

The PB user forum is quite enlightening on the Mac version, but - I thought - over-critical, in the light of the recent nature of the PB move into Mac-ery. (In the forum a search on “Macintosh” or “Mac” didn’t turn up anything relevant, but “photos” did.)

It’s probably unfair to give my overall impression on the basis of such short experience, but I’ll do so anyway: PB’s come a long way in functionality since I last tried it several years ago, it seems to me likely to be much less useful as a mind mapper (despite superficial similarities), much more powerful as a graphic equivalent of Windows Explorer, UltraRecall, the OS 10 Finder, or DevonThink or VoodooPad (with any of which it might also be combined), the more powerful the more you put into it as Al has done. In other words, I’d hope that the greater the weight of data, the greater the chance it would throw up hitherto unrecognised connections; it’s probably slightly like DevonThink in that respect. But as others have said, the Pro version looks to be the only way to go, because of its multiple-connections functionality. And $249 is still a very large sum for software!