I'm ready to switch to OmniFocus, should I wait for new versions?

I’ve been using software called LiquidPlanner for about 15 years for my personal project and task management. For a variety of reasons, it’s time for me to switch. I think OmniFocus will be right for me.

But I know we’re in the middle of versions right now and @MacSparky has promised a new OmniFocus Field Guide. I’m thinking I should wait until the dust settles and then make my big switch. But I admit that I want it now. Moreover, I have some downtime in my work which I could devote to the switch.

Should I wait, or jump in now?

One vote for jump in!

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Jump in. The beast needs time to be tamed. And most likely you will get a very favorable upgrade pricing if ever the new versions would come out soon (which does not seem very likely).

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On 10 May 2021, OmniGroup posted OmniFocus 4 First Look & Invitation to Help Test to their company blog, which includes this:

Like the recently-released OmniPlan 4 update, OmniFocus 4 will be a universal cross-platform purchase, available later this year via either a traditional license purchase or subscription. Customers who own any previous version of OmniFocus will be eligible for a 50% discount on upgrades to traditional licenses of OmniFocus 4, and customers who have very recently purchased a traditional OmniFocus 3 for Mac or iOS license will receive a free upgrade. Anyone who subscribes to OmniFocus will automatically receive access to version 4 when it is released.

Emphasis added, but it makes me assume that anyone who buys OmniFocus from this point on will be getting a free “OmniFocus 4” license, whenever that is released.

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I was in this same boat with Screenflow. I have the non-App Store license but I wanted a second license but I did not know when 10 was going to arrive. With my luck, I knew if I bought another 9, I would be outside the free upgrade window when 10 finally arrived. I made myself wait and picked up v.10 in the App Store while it was on “upgrade” sale for $49.99 a few days ago.

Its good that Omnifocus when ahead and put it out there that you are covered.

I would suggest that if somebody expects this, they email Omni for clarification.

I went through a support hell at either the OF2 or OF3 release (can’t remember which). Long story short, I’d bought OF in a similar situation, with the release known to be coming and rolling out soon-ish. About two weeks after I purchased, they announced “everybody who buys OF from today on will get the upgrade for free”.

This was my first roll with OF, so I had no previous experience with OG as a company. I’d heard good things though.

So I emailed support just to confirm that I’d be good. And no, no, I most certainly wasn’t. I’d purchased before the announcement, so no dice.

I emailed back and forth with support multiple times, and they were insistent that no, really, I’d have to pay for an upgrade. I pointed out they had a 30 day refund policy, which I was still eligible for, and that if the requirement was to purchase it after the date I could just do the refund and buy it again. We went back and forth at least one more time, with me letting them know how silly this was. If I recall correctly I even called them on the phone once.

But no joke - they dug in their heels. I did the refund, and eventually re-purchased. They seemed very sympathetic during the whole process, and I did get an apology from support for the ridiculousness of them not just giving me the free upgrade, but it was an absolutely insane amount of hassle.

Since then I always check if there’s any ambiguity. YMMV, of course. :slight_smile:

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Jump in, the Omnigroup look after recent purchasers with new releases.

I will do the full subscription route so OF pricing isn’t an issue. It’s more of an issue that @macsparky has already announced (I think) that his new OF field guide will cost so I don’t want to buy it twice. I hesitate to jump in without David’s guidance LOL!

I love David’s work and I own the field guides, but the best investment I made around OF is @Kourosh 's Creating Flow with OmniFocus.

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https://twitter.com/kcase/status/1412444310058848268

In case the twitter embed doesn’t work for anyone, Ken Case confirms:

anyone who purchases (or purchased) OmniFocus 3 after we announced v4 will be getting a free upgrade to v4 when it ships.

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You should wait, since Omnifocus 4 will be released any moment now.

Wait…what year is it? Well, since 2 years have passed, the odds of OF 4 being released have increased!

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By definition, we’re closer now to the launch of OF 4 than we’ve ever been. :slight_smile:

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It has been quite a long road

The beta is still stuck in “Design Freeze”. The progress feels quite stagnant for a long time now. Unfortunately OF4 still feels like ancient software and I’m not confident this would change.

That’s disappointing news. I used Todoist(TD) for a bit, but I’ve returned to the OF3 fold. I’m even binging the MacSparky OF field guide this weekend to boost my skills!

I liked the natural language processing in TD, but I prefer the OF3 interface. I hope OF4 gets NLP and perhaps even some AI to associate related projects and tasks. Kind of like how Devonthink can do with grouping documents based on content.