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!

A set of four colored icons are included in this map to help you understand which apps are available on which platforms (I wasn’t able to find any for Windows Mobile, but that’s likely to change as this mobile platform grows in popularity). Plus, each tool’s name and icons are “hot spots” – if you click on them, you will be taken to a web page where you can learn more about that application. Click on the image at right to access the full, clickable mind map, or click here.

This mind map was a little challenging to create. XMind Pro enabled me to create and import new map symbols. So far, so good. When I got done populating this map, however, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that it doesn’t support exporting to a clickable image map. I ended up exporting this map to a GIF image. I then had to open it in Adobe Fireworks and manually create each of the clickable hot spots. A little time consuming, but still a very useful end result! Hopefully, this is a capability that XMind Pro will support in the future!

Looking back over my archive of blog posts, the first iPhone mind mapping apps began to emerge in mid-late 2008. But clearly, 2010 was when this new platform for mind mnapping started to reach critical mass, driven largely by the introduction of Apple’s new iPad – the ideal portable platform for mind mapping – and the growing maturity of existing apps for mobile computing platforms.

For ambitious software developers seeking to make an impact on users of mobile devices, the opportunities were significant. One developer who took advantage of this opening was CMS, who packed an impressive amount of functionality into its iThoughts app, and then scored another win by providing similar market-leading functionality on the iPad version, iThoughtsHD.

iMindMap (pictured above) brought its organic mind mapping model to the iPad, creating an experience that’s closer to a hand-drawn mind map than anything I’ve experienced.

Another stand-out during 2010 was MindMeister, which seamlessly integrated its cloud-based mind mapping platform with its iPhone app. Why is this important? Because the most common usage scenario for portable mind mapping is utilizing it to capture the beginnings of an idea, report or plan and then to export it to another platform, such as a desktop program, for further refinement and development.

For most apps, moving files from the iPhone to the desktop was rather kludgy, requiring the user to upload the file to the developer’s server, and then copy and type an arcane URL into their web browser to retrieve their mind map. Also, until earlier this year, it wasn’t possible to e-mail mind maps from the iPhone, due to some restrictions Apple had placed on its operating system. Even though you can do this now, it isn’t as simple and elegant as MindMeister’s solution, which is to provide a tabbed view of your local and online mind maps and then to access all of them quickly and easily.

It also helped that developers added more map export formats to their apps during 2010, with the most common ones being FreeMind, MindManager, NovaMind and OPML, an XML format used for defining hierarchical outlines. This makes it easier to move your maps from your mobile devices to your desktop program of choice.

In addition, during 2010, the Android smartphone platform emerged as a serious competitor to Apple’s wildly popular iPhone. Thanks to its fast-growing acceptance by consumers, two mind mapping apps were launched for this platform: Mind Map Memo and Thinking Space. Watch for more apps to be launched in 2011, as developers figure out that this is a wide-open opportunity to sell apps to eager Android owners.

Finally, CrowdMap brought real-time co-editing of mind maps to the iPad in mid-2010. But collaboration was limited to sharing maps with other users of Apple’s tablet device and the app lacked some essential features, in my opinion. Still, to see this kind of functionality on a plaform like the iPad was quite impressive.

Getting back to the iPad, why do I say it’s the perfect mind mapping tool? The obvious reason is it’s larger screen size is much more conducive to mind mapping than that of the iPhone. It feels like an expansive canvas compared to its smaller brother, and enables you to do more without constantly scrolling or zooming your mind map to keep the topics in view that you’re working on.

But it’s more than screen size that makes Apple’s popular new tablet attractive for mind mapping. Its form factor – not too big, not to small, unobtrusive and easy to balance on your lap – makes it fun to create mind maps. The device doesn’t get in the way as much as it does when mind mapping on a laptop or desktop PC, where your input devices are the keyboard and mouse. In contrast, on the iPad, you use your fingertip to add and manipulate your map’s content. There’s something very tactile about it brings it much closer to the organic feel of hand drawing a mind map. Because it’s small and flat, I also found myself carrying the iPad more places with me. Also, because the iPad is an “instant on” device (you don’t need to wait for it to boot up), it’s ideal for quickly capturing ideas or adding content to a map when you have 10 minutes to spare.

In short, when faced with a choice between creating mind maps for several new projects during the last few months on my laptop or the iPad, I found myself gravitating to the tablet more and more.

In summary, it has been an exciting year for mind mapping on portable devices. 2011 should be even more exciting, as developers begin to create mind mapping apps for a host of new tablet devices that were launched in the fourth quarter of 2010 or are slated for introduction in the first half of the new year. iPad apps should continue to grow in power and sophistication, too. Remember, this isn’t a platform where developers launch one or two major software updates per year, if that. Rather, users of the iPhone and iPad have come to expect more frequent, incremental updates to fix bugs and add attractive new features to their apps.

Happy New Year to the loyal readers of the Mind Mapping Software Blog I wish you much prosperity and many blessings in 2011!

What makes MyMind unique and worthy of your attention? Here are some highlights:

No toolbar: MyMind does away with the typical toolbar at the top or bottom of the iPhone screen, giving you more space in which to create and view your mind maps. While some competing apps use a toolbar that can appear and disappear to get around this challenge, MyMind blows it away completely, in favor of leveraging the iPhone’s touch interface in some very cool ways. See “adding topics” and “context sensitive menu” below to see what I mean.

Adding topics: MyMind employs a tap and hold gesture to enable you to add new topics. 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. All the gestures for common tasks (create, edit, move and delete topic, and fold and unfold map branches) require a double tap only, at most. MyMind is a model of elegant simplicity.

Context sensitive menu: To delete, cut and paste topics, you can use MyMind’s clever context sensitive menu, which can be accessed by double-tapping and then holding your finger over a topic. The menu that pops up looks like a blue circular pie chart, with icons for these three commands (see screen shot, above right). Because the pie has six sections, only four of which are currently being used, I can only assume that the developer plans to add further functionality to this menu in future releases. I applaud this developer for being creative and creating its own colorful context sensitive menu. Its circular shape is ideal for the iPhone; when this menu pops up, you simply slide your finger over to the icon that corresponds to the command which you want to invoke.A small oval pop-up tells you what each command is; when your fingertip is over the command you want to use, simply remove it from the screen.

Save branch as new map: This is a new command that can be accessed from MyMind’s context-sensitive menu in its latest release. It’s a convenient way to divide a complex mind map into several sub-maps. Unfortunately, it doesn’t crate a link between the two maps – perhaps this will be an enhancement for a future release. Nor does it “break off” these topics from the original map; it simply makes a copy of them. Still, it’s cool seeing a developer try some new things that we haven’t seen before in any other mind mapping apps for Apple’s smaller mobile devices.

What’s missing? I don’t see any way to zoom your mind map. Nor does there appear to be any support for attaching notes or hypertext links to topics – two capabilities that I consider to be essential to mind mapping applications. But to be fair, this is a new program, so there is time to add these features in future releases.

The bottom line

I’m very impressed with what I’m seeing so far. AnotherView has entered a fairly crowded market for iPhone mind mapping apps and has managed to carve out its own space with a well-designed app that shows a lot of innovation and future promise. I can’t wait to see what comes next for MyMind!

Adding branches to iMindMap for iPhone is accomplished in a similar fashion to the desktop mind mapping program of the same name: You tap a branch once to select it; a red inside of a blue circle appears at the end of it to designate that it’s the active branch; it’s very easy to see this on the iPhone’s screen, compared to one or two other mind map apps, where it’s a little harder to see which topic is currently selected. To create a new branch, you tap the red dot; the selector turns into a larger, pale red dot appears to let you know that the app is ready to create a new branch. You then drag your finger from it; a new branch grows outward, following the path of your finger.

On this computing platform, where everything is accomplished using the iPhone’s touch-sensitive screen, the experience of creating a map is even more organic, because of the iPhone’s tactile user interface. If you tap on the outer blue circle, a four-pointed arrow appears, and you can easily drag an existing map branch with complete freedom. On a computing platform where it’s hard to accurately tap the screen in a precise location, it’s clear that the developers have done their homework, designing a user interface that not only remains faithful to the desktop version of iMindMap but also plays very well on the iPhone’s diminutive touch screen. Nice job!

You can also add “box branches” for topics that need to contain more than just one or two keywords. Your topic description, as the name suggests, is contained within a rectangular box.

To embellish your mind map’s branches, you click on an “edit” button, which opens a dialog box that enables you to add icons, change branch color, add links and notes, and delete the branch. Centralizing these controls within a single dialog box was a wise design decision, because it enables iMindMap for iPhone to have a very minimalist toolbar – in keeping with the app’s organic nature.

iMindMap for iPhone can be used in both horizontal and vertical modes; the program’s virtual keyboard works in both orientations. Zooming is supported through the commonly-used two-finger “pinching” gestures.

One of the best features of the desktop version of iMindMap that has been incorporated into this well-designed mobile version is speed map mode – which enables you to quickly add a series of topics to your map without dragging them using the selector. On the iPhone platform, this has been implemented very elegantly. You select speed map mode using a lightning bolt icon on the app’s toolbar. You then click the add topic button to add your first topic, tap in a branch title, and then click on a small “plus” button; iMindMap for iPhone adds the branch and automatically opens another one, awaiting you to type in a title for it. Very slick!

iMindMap for iPhone makes it easy to e-mail your completed mind maps to yourself, where you can continue to develop them in the desktop version of the app, with which it has complete compatibility.

Considering that ThinkBuzan is a late entrant to the iPhone mind map app game, its development team has done an excellent job creating a tool that is fun and engaging to use. It contains just enough functionality to enable you to quickly capture your ideas in visual form, along with some supporting details, and then export them to the desktop version of iMindMap for further development. If you want  to see a simple demo of what this terrific mind map app can do, ThinkBuzan has posted a 5-minute video to You Tube that highlights its main features.

I also think it’s a brilliant move by ThinkBuzan to give away iMindMap for iPhone. By offering it for free, they have removed a barrier to people downloading it. Granted, most apps don’t cost more than a few dollars, but still, it’s more of a mental barrier than anything. By giving it away, ThinkBuzan stands a better chance of generating a large number of downloads from the Apple AppStore, which hopefully will further propel its popularity – and will further ThinkBuzan’s mission of growing the popularity of mind mapping worldwide.

Mindjet’s  newest mind mapping tool enables users to:

• Expand and collapse topics
• Cut, copy, past, move and merge topics
• Add icons and change topic colors
• Format topic shapes
• Attach topic notes
• Align and arrange topics
• Zoom and scroll in both landscape and portrait modes
• Use as a stand-alone app or upload and download maps from MindManager Mac, Windows, or Web.
• Email maps as attachments
• Build mind maps in any iPhone supported language

The Mindjet Blog contains a fairly lengthy video demonstration of Mindjet for the iPhone. It looks suspiciously like iThoughts, except for a few minor differences in the layout of the topic dialog box. Not that this is a bad thing. On the other hand,  if Mindjet did license iThoughts from its developer, they picked an app with an excellent pedigree. Along with Tenero Software’s iBlueSky, iThoughts offers more functionality than any other iPhone map app right now, and it has a well designed and efficient interface.

I asked a Mindjet official if they are licensing iThoughts to produce this app, and was told politely, “no comment.” The iThoughts Blog refers to some “recent developments at Mindjet,” so I suspect that an official announcement may be coming from both parties some time in the near future. But the iThoughts blog says that its developer is committed “to be the best and most interoperable – independent – iPhone mindmap tool.” Note the emphasis on independent. Watch this blog for further details as they develop.

Mindjet for iPhone requires version 3.0 of the iPhone operating system.  It is now available in Apple’s AppStore for US$7.99.

Very few details on its functionality are available at this time, but screen shots from the affiliate newsletter show an app that carries over the organic look and feel of iMindMap to this popular mobile computing platform.

If you want to know more about the planned functionality and release date of this app, you can sign up to receive notifications via e-mail here.

I can’t wait to play around with this fascinating new application. I hope it integrates well with the desktop version of iMindMap!

• You can create new nodes directly on the canvas. I presume this means you can do so without having to click on a toolbar icon.
• You will be able to freely position nodes on the canvas. I think this is essential. I’ve played with several iPhone and iPod Touch mapping applications that don’t enable this, and it feels like I’m mapping with one arm tied behind my back!
• Full cut, copy and paste support (this is, after all, an iPhone 3.0 compatible application).
• Multiple main nodes – this is a capability we haven’t seen before on this platform – very interesting!
• Export maps from MindNode (touch) to the native MindNode file format.
• Export as a FreeMind document, OPML (formatted) outline, text outline and PNG image format via email.
• Import maps from MindNode Pro to the iPhone/iPod Touch version; Marcus reports that this will be restricted to documents with less than 100 nodes initially.

It will be interesting to see how this application evolves. I need to contact Marcus to see if I can get in on the private beta test – but first I need to solve the issues I’ve been having upgrading my iPod Touch to version 3.0!

SimpleMind enables you to add, edit and rearrange map topics. Topics may be rearranged by dragging and dropping them, and cut, copy and paste commands can be used to move topics between maps. Undo and redo commands are supported. The developer says that the size of maps you can create in SimpleMind is limited only by the memory of your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Map styles – incorporating background, topic and text colors – can be applied to the entire map, but not to individual topics. The developer says that the ability to create new customized visual styles will be supported in a future version.

What’s missing in SimpleMind is the ability to add notes and links, which I view as essential to mind mapping applications, no matter what platform they are designed for.

Maps can be shared with others via e-mail, or uploaded to the Simple Mind web server. At this point in time, it’s not possible to attach a map in its native file format to an e-mail, because Apple disallows it. Maps can be exported in OPML (structured outline) and Freemind formats. The program’s “save to web” command uploads your maps in a file format that can be downloaded by other Simple Mind users. Optionally, you can also adjust the program settings to upload maps in PDF or PNG file formats (which are view only). You can also upload Simple Mind maps to your own web server. You can enter the server’s address in the program’s settings.

Two versions of SimpleMind are available from the Apple AppStore: a free Express version and a full paid version, for US$6.99.

Bottom line: SimpleMind is a capable mind mapper, but compared to more fully-featured apps like iThoughts and iBlueSky, it has a ways to go to catch up.

I recently purchased an iPod Touch and tried out iThoughts, along with several of its competitors. Developed by CMS, iThoughts provides a well-designed, easy-to-use set of tools that enabled me to create mind maps that incorporate icons, notes, links and colors, quickly and easily.

Here’s a look at what’s notable about this remarkable little visual mapping program:

The user interface

iThoughts makes the most of the diminutive iPhone screen. Map elements are added by utilizing two simple toolbars, one at the top and the other at the bottom of the screen. The top one enables you to add a topic at the same level or at the level below the current topic, as well as providing access to an edit menu that enables you to add an icon to the currently-selected topic, change topic shape (rectangle, rounded rectangle and rectangle are supported), create a note or link and change the color of the currently selected topic. The bottom toolbar contains commands for cutting, copying and pasting topics, as well as e-mailing an outline of your map. These toolbars slide out of the way when not in use, enabling you to see more of your map – nice!

You can move the map around the workspace by dragging a single finger across the screen of the iPhone. Zooming in and out is accomplished using the same two-fingered pinch motion supported by other iPhone applications that support zooming.

CMS says that the iThoughts workspace is much larger than the iPhone’s screen; the specs for the program state that it supports a workspace 100x larger than the screen. While most of us will never create a mind map that large on this tiny mobile computing platform, it’s comforting to know that you can create a fairly large map in iThoughts without worrying about running out of space.

Creating a map in iThoughts

To add a topic to your map, you click on the appropriate icon in the top toolbar. An “edit” dialog box appears, and the iPhone’s soft keyboard is displayed over the top of that, enabling you to enter the text for your topic. A “keyboard” button at the top of this dialog box enables you to slide the keyboard out of the way so you can have access to the other edit functions described earlier. This functionality is well designed! When you’re satisfied with the wording and format of your topic, you simply click the “save” button at the top of the dialog box in your topic is added to the map. iThoughts supports multi-line topics.  Map branches can be collapsed to free up more room on the screen when working with larger maps.

It’s easy to attach notes to topics in iThoughts. Notes may contain hyperlinks to phone numbers, websites, e-mail addresses and other iThoughts maps. Nice! I like the fact that hyperlinks are positioned within notes, rather than as icons attached to topics. This keeps the visual clutter on the diminutive iPhone screen to a minimum. In other words, the developers made a good compromise for the sake of usability.

To reposition a topic, you select it with your fingertip and then drag it to its new location. Not all mind mapping programs for the iPhone enable you to freely position topics like this. It’s welcome to see that the developers of iThoughts built this capability into the program, because it makes it feel more like a desktop mapping application.

I discovered another way to reposition topics by accident, which I consider to be very cool. First, you selected topic by tapping it with your fingertip. Then, you tap your finger in a blank spot of the workspace where you want your topic to be moved. A target appears at that location. When you tap the target again the selected topic moves to then new location. It’s a very simple, very easy way to rearrange topics in your map!

In addition, you can cut, copy, paste and merge topics.

Exporting your map

iThoughts can import and export to FreeMind and OPML (text outline) formats. You upload and download maps between your iPhone and your computer using what seems to be an unusual workaround. To transfer a map out of iThoughts, you first tap on the “transfer” button. This converts your iPhone or iPod Touch into a “mini-web server.” The program displays a URL, which you need to type into address bar of your PC’s web browser. This displays a simple web page with links to the maps on your iPhone. You click on the map you want, and select “save as” to save the file locally on your Mac or PC. To upload a map from your computer, select “browse” or “choose file” on the web page, browse for the FreeMind or OPML file you want and click “upload.” Why not just e-mail the map to yourself? Because apparently the only types of files that Apple will allow the iPhone to send as attachments are JPG images.

Conclusion

iThoughts is the best mind mapping program for the iPod Touch but I have seen so far. I was pleasantly surprised at how many features they managed to fit into this tiny mobile computing platform, and how well designed the user interface is. It behaves much like you would expect a desktop mind mapping application, which is great!

I love it when I review a software program and I discover some cool new feature that nobody has thought of before; that was the case with the ability to “target” the desired destination when moving map topics. Great job, CMS!

iThoughts is available in the Apple AppStore (accessible from your iPhone or iPod Touch); the cost is US$6.99. You can also learn more about this promising mind mapping application by visiting the iThoughts website.