MindGenius Ltd., a developer of desktop mind mapping software, recently launched a new iPad app that is a good fit with the needs of mobile business users. It is easy to use and contains most of the features that executives are likely to need to take notes in meetings and seminars, create quick visual to-do lists and collect ideas and information.

Here’s what MindGenius for iPad can do, and my initial reaction after working with it for several hours:

Fast topic entry: The developer has designed MindGenius for iPad to enable quick topic entry. Simply tap on the plus sign in the app’s toolbar and a new topic is created. Enter your text, and tap the plus button again, and the process repeats itself. You can also double-tap in the white space adjacent to an existing topic to quickly add a new one. These two methods enable you to quickly add multiple topics to your maps.

Excellent visual feedback when moving topics: As you would expect, moving topics in this app is simply a matter of using the tap-and-drag gesture. But what sets MindGenius for iPad apart is the excellent job it does at providing you with visual feedback, so you know where it will place your topic when you lift your finger from the screen. The topic to which the one you’re moving will be joined is highlighted with an orange outline. So far, not that much different than most mind mapping apps. But in addition, it displays a magnifying glass with a topic shape and an arrow, providing even more visual feedback on what’s about to happen.

For example, in the test map I created, I wanted to change the order of a set of sibling topics (all at the same level). I dragged the bottom one upward. As it passed over other topics, both they and the magnifying glass displayed an orange outline, indicating that the app was anticipating that I wanted to place my moving topic in relation to that one. As long as I dragged it straight down, the magnifying glass showed a downward pointing arrow, indicating that the topic would be dropped below the one I was passing over. The second I moved it to the right, the arrow changed to point right, indicating that MindGenius for iPad would now place it as a child of this topic. Nice!

Map explorer: The iPad app features a map explorer feature that enables you to move your map to a specific topic (in pan mode) or to focus in on a specific topic and its children (in focus mode). When you tap it, a pop-over window appears on the left side of the screen, showing your mind map as an expandable/contractible outline. This makes it possible to navigate large maps easier on your tablet device. Tapping on a child topic in the map explorer displays only it and its sub-topics in the app’s workspace, effectively enabling you to “focus in” on it, free of distractions. If you close the map explorer panel, the app retains the current view; to view the entire map once more, you must open the map explorer and tap on the top-most topic in the outline, which is the central topic of your map. I like this functionality; it appears to be very intuitive.

From this pop-over panel, you can also manage topic task data, add notes and create categories. Since this is the first iteration of MindGenius for iPad and it’s a free app, the developer has only enabled it to display notes and categories from mind maps created using the desktop version of MindGenius. You can’t create or edit categories in this version of the app.

Task data: MindGenius for iPad can display an impressive selection of task data, including:

• Start, end and due dates
• Priority level
• Status
• Percentage complete
• Work and duration (not sure what this is)
• Cost and quantity
• Resources

Like notes and categories, this information is read-only; you can’t add or edit task information in this app, but it will display task data from mind maps created in the desktop version of MindGenius.

Desktop integration: MindGenius for iPad Is 100% compatible with the desktop Version of the program. Notes, categories, resources, pictures and yasks are all retained as you move maps between the desktop and the mobile app. Files can be moved via Dropbox were e-mail.

What’s missing: Topic symbols and boundaries arent included in this app. But keep in mind that this is a version 1.0 product, and that the developer is still fleshing out its strategy. My expectation is that it will be a two-tier model, with a basic free version and a paid one that has more features and functionality.

Conclusion

MindGenius Ltd. has done a nice job with the launch of its new iPad app. the program has above average functionality and usability for an iPad app, and some intuitive features that make it a joy to use – such as the excellent feedback when moving topics and the ability to focus in/focus out when creating mind maps.

But the read-only functionality of notes and categories is a major drawback, in my opinion. Tapping on the screen and seeing nothing happen was frustrating. It was hard to tell at first if this was a bug in the app, or if it simply wasn’t functional in this version. It sounds like this capability will be added in a future iteration of MindGenius for iPad, in either a free or paid version.

There are now at least 9 mind mapping apps available for the Android smart phone and tablet platform, with more on the way.

When I reported on mind mapping apps for Android two years ago, this smart phone platform was fairly new. Android tablets had yet to be introduced, and there were only two mind mapping apps available for this fast-growing platform. 24 months later, there are now 9, with at least one more due to be launched any day now.

A recent visit to the Google Play marketplace for Android software found these mind mapping apps:

• Mindjet for Android (formerly Thinking Space)
• MindMeister for Android
• Mind Map Memo (along with Thinking Space, one of the pioneers of this genre of apps)
• Endare Mind Maps Lite
• MindBoard
• SimpleMind for Android
• MindMapper Mobile for Android
• Mind Tux Map
• MindMemo

ThinkBuzan has also announced that it will launch an Android version of its iMindMap program in the near future.

Inspiration Software, a developer of mind mapping software for education and one of the pioneers of this type of program, has released an iPad app called Inspiration Maps. It offers a perfect set of features for teachers who want to incorporate visual thinking into their curricula, but it’s a little light weight for most business applications.

When you first open Inspiration Maps, you’re greeted with a template screen. Inspiration Maps gives you numerous templates to choose from. Many are educationally focused, but there are some business templates here as well, including:

• Cause and effect diagram
• Group project plan
• Root cause analysis

You can also create a blank diagram, without a template.

Creating a mind map in Inspiration Maps

Each topic in this app contains two buttons, located on alternate corners of the topic shape. The one in the upper left corner, which looks like a thought balloon, enables you to add notes to the topic via a bright yellow pop-over box – not the typical iPad dialog box – a welcome change! When you create a topic note, the button changes color from silver with a pencil to dark gray with document lines – a simple visual cue that it contains additional content. But it doesn’t scream for attention. It’s just right.

The other button, located in the lower right corner, looks like an arrow with a dotted line. Tapping on it creates a new sub-topic, joined with what looks like a hand-drawn connector line. Tapping once selects the sub-topic, while a double-tap enables you to type a name into it. This seems like extra work compared to most mind mapping apps I’ve reviewed. With other apps, when you create a new topic, the virtual keyboard pops up and you can immediately type a description into it. With Inspiration Maps, it takes an extra step.

Adjusting topic and map properties

You can change the properties of your map topics using an inspector button on the app’s toolbar. This opens a dialog box with tabs that enable you to change the topic shape (6 shapes are provided), the style of the topic (color, outline), topic text formatting and diagram-level settings (connector style, map background color). You can use a pinch gesture to manually resize a topic shape – nice!

One minor problem I ran into while editing a mind map is that sometimes I wanted to apply a style only to a single topic, but I inadvertently had several topics selected. That’s because the blue outline color Inspiration Maps uses to show that a topic is selected didn’t look much different on my iPad 1′s screen than the normal gray drop shadow color. Perhaps it’s more distinct on a newer iPad with the higher-resolution retina display, but I found it took a little getting used to on my “old” tablet.

You can also add images to your diagrams easily, Using any stored in the iPad’s photo library. This means you could use its built-in camera to shoot photos and then include them in your mind maps, useful in the classroom but I’m not sure how often it would be used in business applications. When you add an image, Inspiration Maps treats it as the topic shape, not as something you add to one. As with topic shapes, you can use a pinch gesture to resize images.

Brainstorming mode

One of my favorite features of Inspiration for PCs and Macs has always been its brainstorming mode, which lets you quickly add a series of ideas to your map, using only the keyboard and the Enter key. I’m pleased to see that the developer has included it in this iPad version, complete with the distinctive lightning bolt icon.

When you tap on the lightning bolt to enter brainstorming mode, a cloud appears over your map’s central topic (see the screen shot) and the virtual keyboard pops up. The “return” key changes into a “next” key, encouraging you to enter another idea. Each time you type and tap the “next” key, Inspiration Maps adds a new topic with the text you just typed. In this mode, the app doesn’t give you control over topic placement. It just creates room for each topic and places it on the screen. It’s up to you to arrange them the way you want after your brainstorming session.

In short, this operating mode is a very efficient way to add content to your maps quickly. I enjoyed working with it. I can easily see a business executive or a teacher, with their iPad connected to a projector, soliciting ideas from the people in the room, and then adding them quickly to the map on their iPad.

Outline view

Of course, Inspiration Maps has an outline view, just like its big brother on the desktop. This app displays a hierarchical view of your map against a tan looseleaf paper background. The layout is Spartan, but very functional. The left side of the screen displays arrow icons that can be used to expand and collapse the levels of your outline. If any topics have notes, the “filled thought balloon” icon is displayed to the left of the topic text.

When you tap on a topic to select it in outline view, a control bar pops up that enables you to indent or outdent it one level. A plus icon enables you to quickly add a new topic at the same level of your outline. And a globe icon enables you to navigate any hypertext links in your topics. Tapping on a link opens the iPad’s Safari browser and takes you to that URL.

On the far right of the workspace is a drag icon that enables you to move topics up and down the outline. This design is very smart, because it actually prevents you from accidentally dragging an outline topic to a different location in the outline.

Exporting

Inspiration Maps gives you a number of options for sharing your maps:

• You can send them via e-mail
• Save them as images to your photos folder
• You can print them, using the iPad’s AirPrint capability
• You can store and share your maps on Dropbox and iTunes

If you’re outlining a writing project (a common application for Inspiration in schools), you can export your map or outline to word processing apps, such as Pages. On my iPad, iA Writer, DocstoGo and iThoughtsHD also showed up on the export menu.

The one thing Inspiration Maps doesn’t do right now is produce a file format that the desktop version of Inspiration can open and edit. I tried this with a map I created on my iPad. After exporting it to my Dropbox account, tried to open it with Inspiration 9 on my PC, but it gave me an error message.

This isn’t surprising, considering that Inspiration 9 was developed prior to the iPad version. Presumably, the desktop version of the program would need to be compatible with the output of the iPad app, so it can properly interpret its file format and ignore any unsupported features. Perhaps in Inspiration 10? I’m not sure if this would be a priority for the developer, considering that they are completely focused on the education market.

Conclusion

This is a very attractive, easy to use mind mapping and outlining app. As one of the pioners in the mind mapping space, I’ve always had the deepest respect for Inspiration Software. So I Was very excited when I heard that they were working on an iPad app. It’s perfectly designed for the education market, but is perhaps a bit too light weight for business applications – especially considering that in most cases, you’re going to want to create a map on your iPad and then utilize its content in other software, such as a Word document or PowerPoint presentation.

Still, Inspiration Maps is an impressive debut. I can’t wait to see what the developer does with it in the coming months and years. It should be great.

The app is available in two versions: Inspiration Maps Lite is free, but limits you to creating only 5 mind maps and doesn’t support file sharing with other apps or online file storage services. The full version costs US$14.99. Both versions are available in the Apple AppStore.

ThinkBuzan has launched a new integrated approach to go-anywhere mind mapping that it has christened iMindMap Freedom. Along with an all-new online map storage and sharing service called ThinkBuzan Cloud, the developer has released new mind mapping apps for the iPhone and iPad, with versions coming in the near future the Android platform and Blackberry Playbook tablet. These apps can seamlessly share mind maps via ThinkBuzan Cloud, which also includes a web-based version of iMindMap.

Here’s what’s new, and my impressions from working with these new tools:

ThinkBuzan Cloud online mapping and storage

This all-new online workspace (pictured above) features a slick new design that is very easy to use. I created a simple map using the application’s webified version of iMindMap, and found that it delivers the same organic experience as the desktop version. New branches are dragged out from existing ones, and can be easily repositioned in the workspace using the blue ring at the tip of the branch – very familiar to users of the PC and Mac versions of ThinkBuzan’s flagship mind mapping program.

A simple toolbar across the top of the screen provides access to common commands such as text font, size, color and decoration (bold, italic formats) and text alignment (right/center/left/justified). Drop-down buttons enable you to add box branches and relationship lines to your map, while an insert button enables you to create floating topics, add images and boundaries. Above it, a set of text-based drop-down menus give you access to still more features.

On the right side of the workspace, a vertical panel with “window shade” sub-panels enables you to access the app’s icon library, search an extensive image library and add notes to your map (confusingly located within a sub-panel called “properties” – a minor complaint, however).

On several occasions, I tried to leave my mind map without saving it. Amazingly, both times I got warnings that my map wasn’t saved, and gave me an opportunity to do so – great attention to detail!

iMindMap HD for iPad

Next, I updated the existing iMindMap app on my iPad, hoping that would automatically upgrade it to iMindMap Freedom. Alas, the process wasn’t that easy, but it was easy to follow, thanks to some clear, easy to understand prompts from the app’s developers. Once my copy of iMindMap HD was upgraded, I was asked to login to my ThinkBuzan Cloud account. As soon as I did that, I received a message stating that I would next be taken to the AppStore to download a new version of the app, one specifically designed to work with ThinkBuzan Cloud. That installation process went smoothly, and within minutes, I was up and running.

This new app, which is still called iMindMap HD for now, operates much like the last version, with some noticeable improvements. For starters, when you select a topic, two arcs, one blue and the other red, appear at the end of the selected branch (like c-shaped segments of a circle, facing each other – see the screen shot above). This is the iPad adaptation of the concentric rings in the desktop version of iMindMap, which make it easy to move a branch (blue) or add a sub-topic (red). My gut feeling is that the developers discovered that it’s hard to tap and drag objects on the iPad’s screen with a high degree of precision, so the model of the concentric rings didn’t work well in this tablet environment. Placing these icons next to each other, on the other hand, works very well.

Buttons in a toolbar at the bottom of the workspace enable you to select from four kinds of branches: normal, box branches (which enclose their text in a rectangular box), freehand branches (where the shape of the branch follows your finger as you drag it across the iPad’s screen) and relationships.

Branches also have control points, which means you can reshape them at will. You can also drag controls points along the length of the branch, giving you another level of flexibility in shaping branches. I didn’t see any option to add control points, however – not a big deal.

iMindMap HD gives you a great deal of control over the appearance of your map branches. You can add icons, change branch type and color, adjust the font size, decoration, color and alignment, and create topic boundaries from within a convenient multi-tabbed dialog box. You can also add notes, audio, links and task data to selected map branches via a separate “attachments” button.

In addition, you can add images to your maps – either from iMindMap’s provided collection or from your iPad’s image gallery – nice! Finally, tapping and holding your finger over a branch invokes a context-sensitive menu, where you can cut, copy, delete and collapse it.

At the map level, this app enables you to select a background color and whether or not SmartLayout and shadows are enabled.

I was able to synchronize iMindMap HD with my ThinkBuzan Cloud account, open the map I created in its web client and work with it. When I was done, I closed my map, and looked for the changes online. Nothing. Same old map. So I tapped the synchronize button in iMindMap HD. Viola! An updated mind map. It would be nice if this synchronization process happened automatically, but that’s OK – remember, this is a new, integrated product for ThinkBuzan. Perhaps this will be offered in a future release.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I found iMindMap HD a delight to use. It synchronizes quickly and reliably with ThinkBuzan Cloud. The development team has done a marvelous job of creating an enjoyable, easy-to-use app that translates the organic approach of iMindMap from the desktop to this popular mobile platform.

Perhaps the biggest change is that ThinkBuzan is offering its new iPad and iPhone apps for free. When I looked back at a post I wrote in September 2010 announcing the first iteration of iMindMap Mobile HD for the iPad, ThinkBuzan gave it a list price of $32.99. I think they have come to realize that it’s best to enable more people to try mind mapping on their mobile devices, which means some of them may upgrade to ThinkBuzan’s desktop mapping software in the future.

An annual subscription to iMindMap Freedom costs US$13.99, very affordable and well worth the investment, considering the “freedom” you get to work with your maps on multiple computing platforms simultaneously.

The developer of the SpicyNodes mind mapping app for the Apple iPad has announced an ambitious new project that will utilize its underlying technology in a unique way.

IDEA.org seeks to develop the “thesaurus of the future” by combining its SpicyNodes mind mapping technology (click here to read my review of SpicyNodes) with a powerful online dictionary called Wordnik to create a powerful, low-cost dictionary and thesaurus that makes the most of the iPad’s intuitive touch interface.

The developer is also taking a unique approach to funding this project: They seek to raise money to develop it via a popular crowdfunding service called Kickstarter. This is a relatively new model for funding creative projects; in 2011, Kickstarter contributed $67 million to arts projects. You can view the team’s Kickstarter proposal here and follow along on the project’s progress on the IDEA.org blog.

The developers’ mission is to “Inspire millions of people to discover and explore words. This project will build an iPad app for visually browsing and discovering words and the connections between them – and publish it inexpensively or free. The app will be an interactive dictionary and thesaurus in English,” according to its Kickstarter profile.

I was recently contacted by Michael Douma, the leader of this exciting new project. In an e-mail interview, he explains what his development team hopes to create, the unique combination of technologies it will leverage, and some of the innovative features we can hope to see – if they succeed in being able to reach their fund-raising goal (hint: you can help!).

A pledge to help fund this project will enable Douma and his team to work for two months to complete its proposed thesaurus app. Under the Kickstarter funding model, which is an all-or-nothing approach, it needs to achieve a level of US$7500 in funding by the deadline of April 13th.

I encourage you to pledge what you can to support this worthwhile project.

Chuck Frey: What inspired you to create this iPad-based thesaurus?

Michael Douma: Our inspiration for a visual iPad thesaurus app goes back over a decade. For years, I’ve been fascinated with visual representations of knowledge, like mind maps and concept maps. My colleagues and I began working on the web-based SpicyNodes visualization system 8 years ago. Our initial work on SpicyNodes in web browsers used Adobe Flash, but the result was not as intuitive or fluid as we wanted. The Apple iPad opened new horizons. With multi-touch, dragging nodes on the screen is a delight – fast, and smooth. We recently discovered Wordnik, which was founded by Erin McKean and launched in 2009. Erin has created a fantastic database of definitions and related words. This new app pairs our visualization technology from SpicyNodes with the word knowledge of Wordnik.

Frey: What makes it unique compared to other iPad apps?

Douma: No other app allows readers to visually browse words, jumping endlessly from word to word, exploring connections like a mind map.

There are several related projects. Our team currently has an app that makes mind maps out of Wikipedia articles, called WikiNodes. This uses our SpicyNodes visualization technique, which won the 2011 Website for Teaching and Learning award from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).

There are other apps and web sites from other developers that also use nodes. VisualThesaurus.com (not affiliated with our project) is a web site that works in mobile Safari. They were a pioneer in 1998, but they have lower-quality word definitions, no definitions or etymologies, fewer word connections (often readers reach a dead-end, instead of nearly infinite browsing), and are expensive, charging $3 a month or $20 per year. Encyclopædia Britannica’s app ($24 per year) has a link view of encyclopedic articles, similar to our WikiNodes, but less interactive. Discovr has four apps that use radial layouts for browsing people, apps, music, and movies. The TWIG touch thesaurus ($25-35), released last month, is designed for serious word enthusiasts, and displays semantic relationships (meanings) and syntactical relationships (syntax) as branches, but their app is limited to just one seed word at a time, readers can not jump from word to word.

Another unique aspect of our app is personalization and annotation. Readers can label words with their own tags (e.g., “kind words” or “rhymes with ‘zebra’”), will have customized layouts that group words in their own way, like new branches of a mind map. Users can also annotate any word with text, audio, or video, similar to the new features we released this week in our WikiNodes app.

And there are word blends…

Frey: What are “word blends” and how did you come up with this idea?

Douma: Sometimes a word is just on the tip of your tongue. But what is it? Wouldn’t it be great to be able to find a word which is similar to two other words.

For example, the word for something which is difficult, yet delicate, might be “ticklish;” or both large and handsome could be ‘generous.’ By chaining synonyms together in the app, readers can do this, and also discover a sea of other related words. I first saw a proof-of-concept implementation of this in the work of two Harvard students in 2008 who visualized the connections between words in their project. I think it will be great for brainstorming (see the image below for an idea of one approach to visualizing word blends the developers are considering).

Frey: Is the appeal of your app primarily educational? Who else can benefit from it?

Douma: The app is intended to entice people to explore the various meanings and relationships between words. We are focused on the needs of students and teachers, and we think this will be an awesome, free or inexpensive way to get students thinking about what words mean, and expanding their vocabulary. This can be especially useful for visually-oriented or learning-disabled learners, or new learners of English.

More broadly, we think anything interested in visual thinking and brainstorming will find the visual layouts inspiring and useful. The word constellations, and the word blends in particular, will be a go-to tool for writers, and other professionals who wants to find the right word to express themselves.

A secondary audience is word enthusiasts.

Frey: I’ve used the browser-based Visual Thesaurus before. How is this different or better?

Douma: VisualThesaurus.com was a trailblazing project when they launched nearly 15 year ago, but they have stopped innovating. Their business model is be focused on institutional subscriptions. Our app is:

• An app, not a web site
• Free or very inexpensive
• A richer word source, with great definitions from ‘American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language’, and additional definitions from Wiktionary, WordNet, and others via Wordnik.com. VisualThesaurus.com only has data from WordNet.
• Full definitions for every word, easily selected with tabs.
• Other features, like word blends, over 10 thousand easily confused words, sharing, bookmarking and labels, and a more visually immersive experience.

(see the screen shots below for a visual comparison of SpicyNodes and VisualThesaurus)

Frey: How do you plan to leverage the touch interface of the iPad to create a “wow” experience for users of it?

Douma: The multi-touch iPad interface offers an engaging experience. As we have already done with SpicyNodes and WikiNodes, tapping a node brings it to the center of the screen and displays additional details, such as definitions. Dragging the screen uses sophisticated physics-based algorithms so that all the nodes move and spin on the screen in an intuitive way. It feels like you are really touching and dragging words. Animations are fast and smooth, and text will look especially amazing on the new high-resolution iPad.

Frey: How does the Kickstarter funding work, and why did you choose that route?

Douma: Kickstarter is a leading “crowd-funding” site. They are focused on creative projects that have specific starting and ending dates. Projects are funded in an all-or-nothing manner: We only receive the investment if enough people back our project to meet our target of $7,500 by April 13, 2012.

The exciting thing about crowd-funding is that it allows us to shift the financial burden, from students and schools to donors and backers. By fund-raising upfront, we do not need to recoup as much revenue later, and we can publish the app for free or inexpensively. How often we make the app free will depend on how much the Kickstarter raises.

Frey: Tell me about IDEA.org: Who are you? And how does the development of this app fit in with your mission as an organization?

Douma: IDEA is a nonprofit organization committed to enhancing the public’s literacy of science and culture. We think it is an exciting time for public education, as traditional business models and methods of delivering information to the public are evolving. At IDEA, we try to draw on some of the best practices of museums, publishers, software developers, and research labs. The app directly relates to our mission of literacy because we want more people to be engaged in culture, and understanding and communicating clearly are integral to that. I can’t imagine a more ideal project for IDEA than a visual thesaurus app.

Also, this would only be possible with the great work by the team at Wordnik.

Frey: How can readers of this blog contribute to this worthy project?

Douma: We encourage readers to look at our project on Kickstarter and consider backing it. Any amount is welcome, pledges start at just $1. As a backer, you demonstrate to others that you think the project matters, and will receive updates.

If you pledge $10 or more, you will be credited within the ‘thank you’ section of the app, and will receive behind-the-scenes updates as we develop the app, and be invited to share your input. Higher pledges receive rewards like postcards, coffee mugs, and posters. Also for $50, there’s a fun ‘easter egg’ that you can have your own definitions added to the app if users enter a secret code of your choosing.

Frey: Assuming that your fund-raising campaign is a success, what’s your target date to launch this new app?

Douma: Our target is a July 2012 launch, assuming 2 months of hard work. We already have much of the underlying technology in place from our prior work on SpicyNodes and WikiNodes. And Wordnik’s API is ready for our use.

Frey: Where can readers go to learn more about your progress?

Douma: Our Kickstarter page does a great job of keeping everyone informed. Kickstarter will e-mail backers with updates, too. Also, we will be updating our blog with our progress.

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: