According to a number of news items published by Mac news websites, MindCad has just released Incubator 2.0 for OS X, a new visual mapping application that is the successor to Pyramid, its existing mind mapping program. Here’s how MindCad describes the relationship between Incubator and Pyramid:
"Incubator is our flagship product and is a universal application which runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs. It provides a view of the underlying datastore via the data drawer, allowing quick traversal of large documents. Incubator also incorporates a new inspector panel, and adds collapsible branches, text justification, manual placement of topic branches, directly adjustable annotation width, and drag-import of linked documents, URLs and vCards.
Pyramid is our entry level product. It has two features that we did not migrate to Incubator. The angular connection line style option is unique to Pyramid. So too is the resizable info panel/drawer. Each Pyramid document has its own info panel/drawer, whereas the Incubator inspector panel is more traditional in that it is fixed in size and shared by all documents.
We split the product line for two reasons. First, we wanted to retire angular connection lines, and particularly, the resizable info panel. Second, we wanted to offer a less expensive introduction to the power of visual thinking. Pyramid has received exceptional acceptance within the creative community, and we certainly hope for the same with Incubator."
There is a significant amount of overlap of features between the two programs. This web page lists them, and indicates which features are only offered by Incubator. My guess is that MindCad wanted to meet the needs of more sophisticated users, without alienating those users for whom basic visual mapping is sufficient.
Are any users working with either Incubator or Pyramid? What do you think of these programs? Please post your thoughts in the comments area.
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