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Email + PIM - Is There A Decent One Out There?
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Posted by Bob Mackreth
Dec 6, 2007 at 08:02 PM
That’s the best reason I’ve heard for switching to Macs. How far does this cross-application integration extend? It’s always annoyed me that I seem to have a half-dozen address books, 15 spell check dictionaries, and so on, one for every separate application.
By the way, the Pocket Thinker web site says that the company will be ceasing operation next month. That’s discouraging, but I think for 15 bucks, I’ll buy a copy anyway. (I apparently tried it out some time in the past in a forgotten CRIMPing moment, so it won’t let me install the trial version.)
Posted by Chris Thompson
Dec 6, 2007 at 08:59 PM
The unified PIM data store is a new Leopard feature, so it’s not supported directly yet by all applications, but because OS X has had a unified synchronization architecture for a very long time, any older app that supports iSync still gets data into/out of the unified store (there’s just an extra sync step). For instance, the very Ecco-inspired OmniFocus still retains Tiger compatibility, so it uses the older synchronization architecture. Also, every data store item has a unique URL (e.g. “mailitem://”) so you can embed links to items in apps that just can store URLs.
As for your other annoyances, OS X has had a unified address book and dictionaries for a very long time. Add an image to a contact in the address book and it automatically appears in both Mail and whatever chat program you use. Add a word to your dictionary for a language in one app and it gets automatically recognized by all other apps. Leopard adds a shared grammar checker as well. Any app that uses text services gets the grammar checker automatically; you don’t have to wait for developers to push out new versions of their apps.
—Chris
Bob Mackreth wrote:
>That’s the best reason I’ve heard for switching to Macs. How far does this
>cross-application integration extend? It’s always annoyed me that I seem to have a
>half-dozen address books, 15 spell check dictionaries, and so on, one for every
>separate application.
Posted by Bob Mackreth
Dec 7, 2007 at 01:41 AM
That’s VERY interesting, Chris.
Just took a look at OmniFocus and find that intriguing, too.
Plus, there’s Scrivener, and DevonThink, and Tinderbox…
I wonder if I could convince the Minister of Finance we need a couple of Macs in the house.
Posted by Cassius
Dec 7, 2007 at 01:54 AM
Just FYI, most of the U.S. gov’t uses PCs, but NASA uses MACs.
-c
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Dec 7, 2007 at 01:00 PM
Chris Thompson wrote:
>One thing you might consider is using the unified data store in OS X Leopard.
Chris,
The OS X “unified PIM data store” sounds like the stuff that dreams are made of; I can’t argue with that. In fact, sometime ago I had posted some ideas on interconnectivity of applications in the now defunct outliners.com and, as far as I remember, the examples I had given were very similar to the ones provided by Chris for OS X Leopard. As one can imagine, the needs I had in mind were obviously similar to many other people’s needs.
So does this mean that I am a potential candidate for switching over to the Mac? Not really, for a multitude of reasons such as my need for replicating my working environment over several machines, which multiplies the required investment.
But I do think that the aforementioned functionality is the way to go, and I do believe that Windows will be getting similar capabilities in the future, as will Linux. (In fact, if I am tempted to gradually switch over to another operating system that would be Linux, even if it would mean significant investment in time). As far as I have seen, the operating systems significantly and continuously influence each other in terms of features.
alx