An Inside Look at How The Omni Group Builds Apps.
If you own an Apple product that runs apps, it’s likely you’ve heard of The Omni Group. They make fantastic software and have done so longer than the majority of independent OS X companies out there. I first discovered The Omni Group after everyone touted OmniGraffle as an essential piece of their workflow. I thought the application was great but it didn’t fit with me to the extent it did with others. Then came OmniFocus. Right at the cusp of what we can call the GTD Movement. I was immediately drawn to the application because it seemed like they were really taking a very strategic approach to their implementation and implementing GTD itself versus some of the other popular applications out there that took their own. I was really impressed with their process, how little they disclosed, and the overall quality of the releases they’d produce.
The Omni Group is, dare I say famous for their ‘slower’ release cycles. I don’t mind a bit, however, because instead of getting new builds every week with various bugfixes or other corrections that would likely have been caught with additional testing, their releases are some of the most stable. Their process is further compounded with their approach to iOS development. They take it really seriously, rethinking their applications from the ground up to make them completely usable even if people have never used the desktop counterpart. That takes a ton of work and I think people may overlook just how fantastic their iOS products are. We’re so used to new dot releases coming out every month that our perception of software development and ‘how long it should take’ is severely swayed. It’s great to get an inside look into how much The Omni Group puts in to everything they do.