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Where are the exciting developments?
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jan 23, 2009 at 09:04 AM
P.S.2 Add NoteCase Pro, a more traditional but rapidly developing cross-platform PIM, to my excitement :-)
Posted by Ike Washington
Jan 24, 2009 at 12:59 AM
I have a licence for Rationale and I’ve used it quite a bit. A graphical outliner which helps you focus on the evalutation of ideas (rather than offering to do many things, everything eg Mind Manager) is innovative, I suppose. The version I have, 1.5.4, is slow to open on my laptop, however, and so I tend to outline arguments in Notezilla stickies: a simple notation for evaluating the reasoning + or - a claim >.
What I do like about Rationale is the navigation. Mouse wheel to zoom in and out. Left click and drag to pan. Click to go from one map to another. And the text box can be copied and pasted elewhere without having to export to a file first as in some other programs in this class.
No great innovations. It’s just that these add up to something quite good, a fun environment, at least for this user. Of course, the data starts adding up as a result; and then it does get pretty exciting…
Ike
Hugh wrote:
>Not sure about excitement, but for innovation Flying Logic
>(http://flyinglogic.com/) and to a lesser extent the similar but slightly more
>orthodox Rationale (http://rationale.austhink.com/tour) ought to rate quite
>highly. Not exactly PIMs but certainly graphical outliners.
Posted by Ike Washington
Jan 24, 2009 at 01:40 AM
Just to get back to Steve’s original question: whither the ultimate PIM? My 2 cents. As well as the economic downturn and the effect that’s having on developers’ margins, isn’t it also the case that the PIM market has matured?
Okay, so this is probably just my experience which I’m extrapolating into an instant theory… but my impression from talking to non-tech types who found themselves having to use computers is that increasingly they’re fairly happy with their information management set up.
People who were forced around a decade ago into the search for the perfect PIM as, suddenly, overnight, they went online and became overloaded with information, have kludged together solutions. Pretty good PIM software is out there. It does the job.
See the latest version of EverNote. The innovation there is at the level of technology. Sure, it’s great to access data from anywhere. But as far as information management goes, it does less than earlier versions.
A good business move by EverNote and its VC investors. For many people, the excitement is now in using software to be more creative, to get a real handle on work and so on. Switching from one PIM application isn’t easy. Innovation just confuses. And so they stick with what works. Which will be relatively simple, not innovative in the ways in which many hardcore info splicers & dicers might want.
Ike
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Okay, is it just my misperception or is the field of PIM/Outliners gradually
>shrinking?
>
>It seems that many of the programs that we used to talk about with great
>enthusiasm—UltraRecall, InfoHandler—are going the way of ADM and Ariadne.
>Basically shrivelling on the vine. There seems little new and exciting in the field
>during the past year. Of course, I am awaiting the delivery—promised for this month
>—of Zoot with text formatting. That would be EXCITING. Brainstorm development
>seems to have stalled, and David is working on selling it.
>
>Software development has
>always been volatile, and developers fickle, as those of us who loved GrandView and
>Ecco can attest. So it isn’t surprising to see software come and go. But I guess I don’t
>see so much new stuff coming along.
>
>In the Mac world, things are a little brighter,
>but there are fewer choices to begin with. Applications like Curio and Notebook are
>exciting and remain fresh. But even here you get a program like Journler—which built
>up an enthusiastic following and now seems destined for the scrap heap.
>
>I suppose
>the world wide economic downturn isn’t helping matters. But all the more reason for an
>out-of-work programming wizard to devote more time to the ultimate PIM. Is it out
>there?
>
>Steve Z.