Called Inspiration Diagrams, the new visual thinking app is designed to help students in grades 6-12 to create visual diagrams and outlines that help them to clarify their thoughts, organize and analyze information, integrate new knowledge and learn to think critically.

Inspiration will lead off with an abridged version of the app, Diagrams Lite, which will be available for free in the AppStore in March. That will be followed by a full version, which will be available for purchase in April.

Why is this product launch significant? Because in the last 2 years, iPads have made major advances into the classroom, and are now being incorporated into primary school curricula around the world. In addition, Apple recently announced a far-reaching education initiative that will make it easier for teachers and others to create books and materials for the classroom.

You know this education revolution is picking up serious momentum when even the Catholic church in the small town where I live is incorporating iPads into one of its grade school classrooms!

The challenge, I suspect, will be for teachers to actually figure out how they will integrate Diagrams into their curricula. Hopefully, Inspiration Software will provide teachers with some resources to help them do this. The ideal scenario, at least in my mind, would be for schools to teach kids how to analyze problems and develop innovative solutions using this mobile thinking tool.

MindMeister for iPad takes mobile mind mapping to the next level in its latest release. Version 4.1 contains numerous new features that enhance its usability and degree of fit for business applications. Here’s what’s new and improved:

Auxiliary keyboard: MindMeister 4.1 for the iPad adds an auxiliary keyboard that sits on top of the iPad’s virtual keyboard (pictured above). This gives you fast access to recently used icons and speeds the creation of new topics. This is a very smart way to handle this toolbar – rather than creating a dedicated one that takes up valuable screen real estate, this narrow horizontal toolbar appears and disappears along with the iPad’s virtual screen. Why didn’t anyone else think of this before?

Context menu: Tapping a node (MindMeister’s term for a map topic) now causes a context menu to pop up, which enables you to cut, copy, delete and connect topics, as well as access recent topic colors and icons you’ve used.

Node creation gestures: You can now double-tap above, below or beside the current topic to quickly add siblings and child topics. MeisterLabs calls them “gestures,” which I think is a misnomer. To me, in a tablet computing environment, a gesture is a pattern that you trace with your finger on the screen, which the app interprets as a specific command. MindMeister’s implementation is simply a double-tap. Let’s call it what it is. This is a feature I’ve seen in several other iPad-based mind mapping apps, and it really is a productivity booster!

Themes: In recent months, MeisterLabs launched a set of attractive map themes for the web-based version of MindMeister. These are now supported in the iPad app.

Alternate logins: In the browser-based version of MindMeister, you can now login using your Facebook account. Version 4.1 of the iPad app not only offers this alternate login, but also Google and OpenID, with more options to be launched in the near future.

What I’m not seeing is live co-editing between users running MindMeister on iPads, iPhones and the web version of the app. Perhaps that’s coming in 2012? We’ll see.

Full details on MindMeister for iPad 4.1 are available on the MindMeister Blog.

iThoughts integration with Siri on the iPhone 4S

Scott has figured out a clever way to use Siri, the personal assistant in the iPhone 4S, to dictate and paste topics into iThoughts. In addition, by simply dictating a comma between topics, you can insert multiple ones at once. Very cool, indeed!

Why do I like this so much? I have tried using Dragon Dictate on my iPhone to enter topics into some of the iPhone mind mapping apps. The result, although usually fairly accurate, is clunky – you always have to copy and paste the text you’ve dictated from Dictate to your app of choice. The iThoughts/Siri application is seamless: As soon as you dictate a topic or two, they immediately appear in your mind map. Very cool!

Integration with mind map galleries

Using the latest iteration of iThoughts for the iPhone, you can now browse to BiggerPlate.com, select a map from the excellent gallery there, and import it into the app as shown in this video:

You can also do the same thing with XMind’s mind map gallery.

This opens up a world of possibilities for iThoughts users. You’re no longer limited to creating your own maps from scratch. You can now use any maps on these sites as starting points or templates for creating attractive mind maps in iThoughts.

Keep up the outstanding work, Craig!

Considering Mindjet’s announcement earlier this year that it planned to increase its focus on mobile applications, this announcement didn’t come as a surprise to me. Several months ago, a reader of this blog asked me if Mindjet was planning to launch a mind mapping app for the Android platform. I answered that I was not aware of such a project, but it would make sense if the company was planning such a move, considering that it was an obvious gap in their mobile product line. I further speculated that, rather than create a new app from scratch, it would probably acquire a developer of an existing Android app, as they did with MyMind to create the Mindjet for iPhone and iPad apps. That’s exactly what happened.

Misleading download statistics?

According to TechCrunch.com, Thinking Space’s Android mapping app has been downloaded more than Mindjet’s apps for the iPad and iPhone combined by more than 3 to 1: “To date, there have been roughly 325,000 downloads of Mindjet’s iPhone and iPad apps. Thinking Space has actually seen more success with its Android app, clocking more than 1.1 million downloads.” These numbers may be misleading, however: The writer at TechCrunch may not realize that Mindjet acquired the technology for its iPhone and iPad mapping apps from MyMind, may have neglected to include their downloads in this total.

In addition to the growing number of Android-based smartphones, Mindjet for Android will also work on the many inexpensive tablets that utilize this open-source operating system – an area of significant growth. According to Mindjet’s new product page for this app, it will work on any device running Android OS 2.1 or later. As with the new iPhone and iPad apps, Mindjet for Android supports MindManager’s native .MMAP file type as well as round-trip editing – which means that map attributes created in MindManager are preserved after editing in the mobile app.

Unique features

Based on a view of Mindjet’s overview video for its latest product addition, several features of Mindjet for Android stand out that aren’t offered on their iPhone and iPad apps:

• Gestures enable you to access common features quickly. This should be a real productivity plus when you’re creating mind maps on an Android device.
• Text tags are keyword searches that you can set up in the app’s file view. They appear as tabs across the top of the file list, and enable you to quickly locate mind maps that contain those words. Nice!

Here’s the video:

What’s next for Mindjet for Android?

Presumably, Mindjet will add support for its Connect workspace product in the coming months. It will also be interesting to see how this app evolves in the coming months, as the former Thinking Space app gets further integrated into Mindjet’s longer-term product road map. Perhaps there will be a rationalization of app features between the Apple iOS and Android platforms over time, so all of Mindjet’s mobile apps will work the same. For example, Mindjet for Android could adapt the clever pop-up “pie menu” that it inherited from MyMind, and is currently used on the Mindjet for iPhone and iPad apps. That would make sense. Otherwise, Mindjet must promote two completely different sets of features for the two platforms.

Mindjet for Android is a free download from the Android Market.

MagicalPad is a free-form notetaking and outlining tool that enables you to capture and organize your ideas on the iPad. It enables you create multiple sets of hierarchical outlines, and to arrange them in a free-floating workspace that resembles mind mapping.

Adding and embellishing information in MagicalPad

Within a work space you can create any number of titles and nested topics, as well as free-floating topics by tapping and dragging them into whatever arrangement makes the most sense to you. Indenting and outdenting of topics is done with a finger swipe to the right or left, respectively. You can also customize the text and background color of each title and item – which gives you a way of visually classifying your information, in much the same way that you can use topic shapes and colors to group related topics together in mind mapping software.

MagicalPad’s freeform layout makes it easy to prioritize items, create notes and format items to capture your ideas and organize your thoughts. To prioritize ideas and actions in MagicalPad, you simply drag list items up and down a list. You can create unlimited hierarchies within a single list, merge lists or split outlines to add more details on separate lists. You can also expand and collapse content to focus on the right level of detail. MagicalPad has some task management capabilities built into it as well. You can easily transform any item in an outline into a task by simply single tapping its bullet point – simple and quick.

Workspaces add flexibility

What makes MagicalPad even more powerful and flexible is the ease with which you can create and clone multiple workspaces within the app. For example, you could create workspaces for your work, your personal life and any major life roles, plus one to serve as a dedicated idea file. You can switch between these workspaces with just 2 taps, making it easy to move quickly from one set of information to another.

Import/export options

Once you have collected and organized your information, you can export it to Google Docs, Evernote, Dropbox and e-mail in PDF, RTF, OPML and MPX file formats. OPML and RTF both support outlining, so your ideas will maintain their hierarchical format when exported. Many mind mapping programs can import OPML files, which means you should be able to convert your information into a visual map for further development. You can also import RTF, TXT, OPML and MPX files into MagicalPad from other applications.

The developer recently launched a community called MagicalPad Xchange where users can share MPX (MagicalPad Xchange, MagicalPad’s native files format) templates, similar to the mind map galleries on the web. Users can download others templates and upload theirs to share with others. As with mind mapping software, this gallery is a great place to go for inspiration and to see how others are using the app.

The future of MagicalPad

The developer of MagicalPad has ambitious plans for its future. Features he will be working on in the next year include:

• Photos and icons
• Handwriting
• Notebooks
• Enhanced task management
• Tagging, searching and filtering
• Mind-mapping capabilities
• Audio
• Video
• iPhone app

If you look at some of these planned features, it appears that MagicalPad will start to take on more of the functionality of a mind mapping program, where each topic or node serves as a “container” for other content – such as links, attachments, notes and images.

Conclusion

I’ve spent some time playing with MagicalPad on my iPad and am very impressed with its elegant design and ease of use. I’m also excited that the development team has a compelling vision for the future of this elegant outlining solution, and that their vision for what’s possible extends beyond the iPad to other types of devices.

MagicalPad costs US3.99 and is available in the Apple AppStore.

If you’re intrigued by this very cool app and want to see a visual demonstration of it, be sure to check out this video review of it by the Daily App Show on YouTube:

What’s new in MindManager 9 for Mac

Quick entry mode: This new feature is a new dialog box where you can quickly enter a succession of ideas, using only the keyboard. They appear in a list below the text entry field. At any time, you can drag them from the list and drop them onto any open mind map. This looks like it would be useful in MindManager 9 for Windows, too!

A presentation view that supports the creation of slides, much like the Windows version of MindManager 9. As with the Windows version, you can edit and annotate slides during a presentation. The Mac version of MindManager 9 also has one presentation feature that’s unique to this platform – the ability to jump to any slide in your presentation.

Improved exporting: For some reason, previous versions of MindManager utilized a cloud-based service to handle conversions from the native MindManager file type to Microsoft Office Mac 2011 and iWork applications. Version 9 handles all exports from within the program, a major improvement. MindManager 9 for Mac can now export to Microsoft Word, iWork Pages, Keynote and other formats.

Improved filtering: MindManager 9 for Mac is now equipped with the same multi-level filtering tool as the Windows version, which is especially valuable when working with large, complex mind maps.

User interface improvements: The toolbar of the program has been improved for better usability, and is now customizable. Inspectors have been improved and optimized, and you can now have multiple inspectors open at the same time. In addition, MindManager 9 for Mac adds an in-context formatting bar, which should improve your productivity when formatting map topics.

Support for Catalyst: Previous versions of MindManager for Mac were not designed to integrate with Mindjet’s Catalyst online workspace product for teams. This capability isn’t in this new version of MindManager Mac – at least not yet. Mindjet says it will release a version 9.1 shortly that will add this capability.

Mindjet emphasized during a recent press briefing that it has hired a new Chief Products Officer (CPO), Blaine Mathieu, who is part of a renewed commitment to listening to the needs of its customers. Among other things, Mathieu will be responsible for developing Mindjet’s cross-platform strategy (how it develops visual mapping solutions for all computing platforms). Hopefully, this will mean that MindManager for Mac will remain more on par with the Windows version in the years ahead.

MindManager 9 for Mac will be available on June 23, 2011.

New product: MindManager Mobile

Along with the launch of MindManager 9 for Mac, Mindjet also announced a new product: Mindjet Mobile for iPhone and iPad. It’s based on technology recently acquired from MyMind (see my review of this impressive app here), one of the most impressive mind mapping apps available today. Mindjet hired the developer, and plans to invest aggressively in developing mobile applications, according to a company representative.

Here’s what’s most notable about this app:

Round-trip compatibility: If you have ever tried to move a mind map or other file from one software program to another, then you may have experienced this: Things get lost in translation, corrupted or just flat out don’t work any more. Thankfully, the developers at Mindjet made round-trip compatibility between the new mobile app and the desktop version of MindManager a major priority. You can now move a complex mind map from the desktop to the mobile app and back, with no loss of data. If a capability isn’t supported on the mobile app, it simply goes dormant – it isn’t thrown away. Considering how important it is for people to move their maps seamlessly between their desktop computer and their mobile devices, this is a big plus!

Finger slide topic creation: As in MyMind, the new Mindjet Mobile supports finger slide topic creation. In other words, if you slide your finger from an existing topic in a specific direction, a new linked topic will be created in that direction. This makes it possible to build up new mind maps very quickly. Here’s how I described this elegant functionality in my review of MyMind, the predecessor of Mindjet Mobile:

“When you tap and hold on a topic in your mind map, a set of orange arrows pops up – to the sides and at 45 degree angles to add child topics, and vertical arrows to add sibling topics. Simply drag your finger over the arrow that points in the direction where you want to create a new topic, and an add topic dialog box pops up where you can type in the name of your topic. I tried this on my iPhone, and was very pleased at how intuitive this arrangement feels when creating a mind map.”

In-context editing: Another unique MyMind feature that has been retained in its successor is in-context editing. To edit a topic, you double-tap on it. The menu that pops up looks like a blue circular pie chart, with appropriate icons for the functions you can perform (copy, cut, paste and delete, for example).

Dropbox integration: Dropbox has become a de facto standard for storing files from mobile devices “in the cloud,” or utilizing it as an online backup for your mind maps. I’m pleased to see that Mindjet Mobile supports this.

Separate apps for the iPhone and iPad are available now on the Apple AppStore, priced at US$6.99 and $8.99, respectively, after June 15, 2011. Your Apple mobile device must be running iOS 4.0 or later to run these apps.

IdeaMapper’s method of creating visual maps seems a little unusual at first – until you realize that it is primarily designed as a tool to support brainstorming. You don’t add topics to the central topic in the traditional way, by dragging your finger outward from it or clicking some sort of an “add topic” icon. instead, you randomly add keywords in the app’s workspace, and then connect them with lines.

The effect is much like the brainstorming mode of ConceptDraw MINDMAP, where the brainstorming mode allows you to add your ideas as free-floating topics to the workspace. It’s only after you exit the program’s brainstorming mode that you decide what the relationships between all of your topics should be.

When you’re ready to connect your ideas, you select a colored marker from the “tray” at the bottom of the screen, and then drag your finger between the topics to be selected. The fun, colorful interfaces encourages creativity and play. You can select from 25 line colors from a “box” of markers at the bottom of the screen. In addition, four more markers are laying horizontally in the tray that you can “pick up” and use.

IdeaMapper is a little hard to get used to at first, because it behaves differently than any other mind mapping app available today. But as I played with it more, I decided that there is a simple brilliance to this methodology. Why? Because it does a better job of encouraging free-form brainstorming than other mind mapping apps, which tend to inadvertently force you into considering where your idea “fits” within the context of the topics you’ve already added to the map. In other words, if developing breakthrough ideas is your goal, then I believe IdeaMapper will do an excellent job of supporting this objective. When it comes to brainstorming ideas, you want your ideas to be freewheeling, unconstrained by any limitations. IdeaMapper’s simple approach enables this process.

Some solid thinking has gone into this app’s functionality: When you select the “add a keyword” tool, it stays “locked” on, which enables you to add multiple ideas in rapid succession. That’s cool, because it ensures that IdeaMapper doesn’t get in the way of your creative “flow.”

You can draw a line by connecting a keyword to another keyword, or a keyword to the end of a line. Curiously, when you add a connection line, the formerly free-floating text “jumps” onto it. IdeaMapper’s tapered topic lines have an organic look to them, which adds to the app’s creative appeal. You can also add symbols or images from the iPad’s photo library to your map. Icons in IdeaMapper are free floating; they don’t seem to be attached to a parent topic, but may be positioned anywhere. The disadvantage of this approach is that these graphics don’t “follow” when you move a map branch. You need to drag and drop them to the new location manually.

Moving topics in IdeaMapper Is accomplished by tapping on a hand icon. When you tap on the end of a topic line, a box appears at the end of it. Dragging your finger over the iPad’s screen moves the topic. In practice, this works fairly intuitively. However, it was a bit confusing to me that I couldn’t toggle this “hand” tool on and off.

Moving around the workspace is done using a two-finger drag gesture. This works quite nicely, because it prevents you from inadvertently moving your map around the screen. Zooming, as you would expect, is done by pinching two fingers closer together to zoom out, and farther apart to zoom in.

Exporting your mind maps is somewhat limited, with only “mail as a PNG image” and “save to photo library” supported. Hopefully, at some future date the developer will add support for some sort of native mapping format, so you can take visual maps created in IdeaMapper and continue working on them in a desktop- or web-based mind mapping application.

In conclusion, IdeaMapper shows a lot of promise with its intuitive and fun whiteboard metaphor for mind mapping. I give the developer a lot of credit for utiilizing a visual thinking metaphor that most businesspeople are already familiar with – th eubiquitous whiteboard. However, IdeaMapper is still a little rough around the edges in terms of features and functionality. But, like any iPad app, hopefully it will grow and improve in the months and years ahead. Idea Mapper costs only US$4.99 in the Apple AppStore; you can learn more about it on its AppStore web page or on its Facebook page.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/idea-mapper-for-ipad/id387650616?mt=8#

http://www.facebook.com/IdeaMapper

Here’s what’s notable about this new app:

Seamless synchronization: As you would expect, this new app syncs seamlessly with your online repository of DropMind maps. I love to see this kind of integration, because realistically, a mind map you create on the iPad will be developed further elsewhere. DropMind for iPad enables you to view the maps you have stored locally as well as those in your web account, and to work with them regardless of their location. That’s the way it should be!

There is no doubt in my mind that mind mapping apps that synchronize files to a corresponding web app or the cloud (a file storage and backup service like Dropbox) are going to have a big advantage in the years ahead versus those that only allow you to e-mail files to yourself and others.

Properties inspector: Like other well-designed mind mapping apps for the iPad, DropMind utilizes a property inspector – accessible from the app’s toolbar – to enable you to change topic shape, font, and add icons, notes and links.

Nice use of pop-over menus: When you select a topic in your map, DropMind automatically displays a pop-over menu that gives you the option of copying the current topic, creating a sub-topic or deleting the current topic. This is quite convenient for creating new sub-topics, because you can do so right in the workspace. There’s also a toolbar icon that you can use to do this, but I’m a big fan of contextual commands that you can invoke right in your mind map, without having to rely on a toolbar. If a topic you select contains a hypertext link, this pop-over menu will also contain a “go to link” command.

Clever display of topic notes: If you select a topic that contains a note, the contents of it are displayed in a translcuent window at the bottom of the screen. Nice!

Support for floating topics: If you want to create a floating topic, you simply double-click in a blank area of the canvas.

Feedback on moving topics: Some of the iPad mind mapping apps don’t make it very clear what’s happening when you attempt to move a topic. I’m pleased to see that the developers of the DropMind app have paid close attention to making this intuitive. When you select a topic, a red “shadow” of it appears just below it. As you drag your finger to move the topic, it follows along, and places a red box around nearby topics as you pass by them. This shows you where your topic will “land” if you release your finger from the screen. It’s simple and very intuitive. Love it!

Conflict resolution: This is something I haven’t seen in an iPad mind mapping app before. Let’s say you made some changes to a DropMind map using the developer’s web-based mapping tool. Soon after, you modified the version of it that’s stored on your iPad, but didn’t have access to an Internet connection to grab the latest version. Now you have 2 copies of the same mind map, with slight differences. Which one is the right map? This tool enables you to tell DropMind which version should survive and be sync’d across both devices.

Anticipating user needs: Seavus assumes when someone downloads the DropMind iPad app, they may not have an online account. So the app gives you the opportunity to create one. Very smart! Even if you don’t actually use the web-based version of DropMind, this service is still useful as an online backup to the maps that are stored on your iPad.

Conclusion

I am somewhat particular in my expectations of mind mapping apps for the iPad and iPhone. They must have a certain minimum set of capabilities in order for me to take them seriously, namely:

• The ability to capture topic notes
• Support for hyperlinks
• Support for floating topics
• The ability to display icons and symbols
• Common-sense map management tools – how can I export a map, and how easy is the process?
• Undo and redo (these devices have small screens; you need to be able to easily recover from a mistake)

DropMind for the iPad shines on all counts. A great user interface design, combined with easy synchronization with DropMind’s “cloud” application help to make this app one of the best for the iPad.

The OmniGraffle experience starts when you first open the app. You’re greeted by a set of visual instructions that explain how to perform common tasks in OmniGraffle for the iPad. But this isn’t just a static page, but an actual OmniGraffle document. It contains several regions where you can actually try the tasks you just learned about. That’s very cool, and it’s an approach that other visually oriented app developers would do well to emulate. The main menu of the app also contains seven very attractive examples of the types of diagrams that can be created with it, which should inspire users to utilize its extensive capabilities.

Creating basic shapes in OmniGraffle for iPad

This well-designed app contains a number of sets of stencils, which you can use to quickly build professional-looking visual diagrams. Built-in stencils include Shapes, 3D Shapes, Connections, Fonts, Fills, Software, and Variables. Many third-party OmniGraffle stencils are also supported.

To add a shape to your diagram, you simply tap and hold one to select it, and then drag and drop it in the app’s workspace. From there, you can manipulate the shape’s size using drag handles. An “info” button on the app’s spartan toolbar enables you to adjust its other properties, such as fill color, border thickness, shadow and text label positioning. Each shape can have a transparent shadow which falls on objects or layers that are behind it. You can decide just how fuzzy or sharp you want the shadow to be, as well as choosing its position, color, and transparency. OmniGraffle also supports linear and radial fills, blending up to three colors with customizable centers and angles.

From this info menu, you can also modify the canvas of your diagram, including canvas size, background color, units and scale, background grid and diagram layout (or chart, mind map, diagram growth direction and separation between nodes).

This diagram layout dialog box also contains a clever “layout now” button which, when tapped, attempts to rearrange your shapes to conform to the type of diagram you have selected. I dragged 4 shapes into the workspace, selected the icon representing or chart and top-down growth direction and then tapped the “lay out now” button. OmniGraffle moved all of the shapes into a horizontal line, neatly arranged as one level of my org chart. This is a cool feature, which should be very much appreciated by new users of OmniGraffle.

Selecting and moving objects

As you would expect, you move shapes around the workspace by tapping and dragging them. What’s unique and quite welcome is that as you move a shape around the workspace, guidelines pop up to help you quickly align a shape with other adjoining shapes – both horizontally and vertically – as well as to the horizontal and vertical centers of the workspace. This is a real time saver, and eliminates the need to select several objects and then use an “align” command to make them line up properly. Snap to grid functionality and layers enable you to create more complex diagrams.

The method that this app utilizes to select multiple objects is also very clever. You simply tap and hold your finger on the screen adjacent to one of the shapes you want to select. A blue star-like pattern appears on the canvas, beneath your finger tip. When you drag your finger, a selection box follows its direction, enabling you to select multiple adjacent objects — very cool!

The drawing menu

Within the drawing menu, you can add text to a shape, connect shapes, tap and drag to create different sized shapes and create freehand shapes. This two-tiered menu keeps the main menu simple, while a single tap gives you immediate access to the app’s more advanced tools. In other words, if you’re just starting out with OmniGraffle, you can accomplish most common tasks using only the Main menu. However, if you want to have more finite control over your drawings, you simply open the drawing menu to reveal additional options. In my opinion, this is excellent user interface design.

To add text to a shape you simply tap the text button in the toolbar, then a shape or the canvas; you can also double tap a shape to add text to it. From the info menu, You can adjust text label properties, including size, font, color and style (bold, italic or underlined).

To connect shapes, you select the connector line button from the drawing toolbar and then drag your finger between two shapes. The program intelligently connects them. Even if you start dragging the line from within the shape, it still snaps to its outside edge. This intelligent behavior means that you do not need to be very accurate when you tap and drag to start the line, thankfully. You can also create unattached lines and can use drag handles to adjust the endpoints of your line or add a mid-point to it. In addition, you can add a label to a line, which opens up a whole range of possibilities in terms of cause and effect diagrams, concept mapping and more.

The “make a shape” button lets you tap and drag to create shapes of any size; the context menu is used to change the default shape. A freehand drawing button gives you the freedom to create more complex hand-drawn shapes. If you drag a line roughly in a circle until you form a closed loop, the app treats that as an enclosed object, to which you can then add a fill color. I’m not sure how practical the free-hand drawing mode is, because it’s almost impossible to draw a straight line by dragging your finger.

Thankfully, this app also contains an “undo” command, which makes it easy to recover from any design mistakes you may make.

Add tables to your diagrams

Surprisingly, OmniGraffle for iPad even lets you create tables. To do this, you first select a group of adjacent shapes. Next, you touch and hold your selection, then release. The context menu that appears contains a “more” command, which gives you access to the “make table” command. The app automatically groups and arranges your shapes to create a table. The table has one column and as many rows as the shapes of your original selection. For example, if you had three shapes selected, you will end up with one column and three rows.

To add more rows and columns, you simply use drag handles on the right and bottom edges of the shapes. I tried this with three rounded rectangles, and found it very easy to create a table out of them, and then to use the drag handles (which look like miniature tables themselves) to add rows and columns to it. This is a very clever way to handle this functionality!

Adding images to your diagram

In OmniGraffle for the iPad, images behave in much the same way as shapes. You can add many of the same properties to them, such as a stroke or a shadow. An image sub-menu within the info menu enables you to control the image layout (natural size, stretch the image to fill the shape or tile the image within the shape) and opacity. I tried this with one of the images I have stored on my iPad, and found the results to be very cool. By default, the photo I selected filled the rounded rectangle I selected. This is an excellent way to add visual impact to your diagrams. For example, you could place an image of yourself along with your contact information in one corner of your diagram. This feature opens up a lot of possibilities!

Selection and styles dialog box speeds changes

OmniGraffle’s main menu also contains a “selection and style” command, which enables you to view all of the objects that make up your document, and the styles that have been applied to them. A set of buttons at the top of the dialog box enable you to select objects by layer or by a linear list. A second set of buttons at the bottom enables you to show or hide objects by type (lines and connectors, stroke style, fill style, shadow style and font style). These sophisticated tools enable you to select a a group of objects with the same properties and make batched changes to them. For example, this dialog box told me that my document contained two rounded rectangles. Clicking on that type of object in the dialogue automatically selected both shapes in my diagram.

This dialog box is also used to view objects by layer, and to drag and drop objects from one layer to another.

Geometry settings: An even finer level of control

For an iPad app, OmniGraffle contains an amazing depth of features. Using a geometry sub-menu within the info menu, you can even make changes to object properties such as position, size and rotation. You can also select a “lock aspect ratio” setting, which if it is turned on, proportionally changes both dimensions of an object size as you drag it to resize it. These are capabilities you would expect to find in a desktop drawing program, not an iPad app!

Importing and exporting files

OmniGraffle for iPad can import OmniGraffle for Mac files via Apple’s Mobile.me iDisk or WebDAV. You can also export your OmniGraffle document to these two services or iTunes, copy your document as an image to paste elsewhere, send it to the photo gallery on your iPad or AirPrint it. You can also e-mail it as an OmniGraffle file, PDF or PNG image file. Lots of options here! My one disappointment is that there isn’t a version of OmniGraffle for Windows, and I don’t own a Mac. I’d love to see how well a diagram created on the iPad holds up when opened in the Mac version of the program.

Conclusion

if you are visually oriented person and like to sketch or diagram your ideas, you will find OmniGraffle for iPad to be a worthy creative companion. If you’ve never created business diagrams before, this app is the perfect tool to help you get started. Its developers have obviously spent a lot of time anticipating how users will interact with their app, and have come up with some very clever solutions to give OmniGraffle for iPad exceptional usability. Omni Group, the developers of this app, have succeeded in creating a powerful yet easy-to-use tool that should surprise and delight you and should be an excellent complement to OmniGraffle for the Mac.

You can obtain this excellent app in the AppStore for US$49.99 – a bit expensive as apps go, but I think its incredible functionality justifies its price. For more information about OmniGraffle for iPad, please visit the product page on the Omni Group website.

Developers of mind mapping apps have been someone slow to support Dropbox so far, but I expect that to change in the next few years, as tablets continue to grow in popularity. Here is a summary of those that currently support it and those that don’t:

Support Dropbox

• MindNode
• iThoughts HD – yes, and also web server, Mobile.me, WebDAV
• Mindo – yes, and also Box.net, wi-fi, iTunes and Picasa (image of mind map)

Don’t support Dropbox

• iMindMap HD – e-mail only
• MindMeister for iPad – share via MindMeister online and e-mail only
• SimpleMind – share via proprietary server, e-mail, cellular network and wi-fi
• Maptini (formerly CrowdMap) – only via the developer’s proprietary map sharing service
• Popplet – PDF only
• IdeaMapper – PNG and e-mail map image only
• MindCreator – image, freemind, PDF (via e-mail) only
• Total Recall – e-mail image, mind map or PDF
• Idea Sketch – image, photos, Facebook
• MyThoughtsBook – e-mail only
• Iditia – only exports to Google Docs

Some of these are newer mind mapping apps that I haven’t even talked about on this blog yet. Watch for more details on them in the weeks and months ahead.