Headspace is an intriguing new visual mapping tool for the iPhone that does an excellent job of making use of the iPhone’s touch-sensitive user interface to help you maintain basic lists and outlines.
Headspace topics are arranged in vertical columns called “groups.” They may have “child” topics, which are indented from the main level of the column – something like a visual version of a hierarachical outline. Items can also be grouped into “stacks,” which makes efficient use of the iPhone’s precious screen real estate. An Item in one group can be linked to an item in another group, which gives Headspace a vaguely mind map-like quality.
To move items around the workspace, you use a single finger to drag and drop them. To pan the workspace, you drag with two fingers. Zooming is accomplished using the popular two-fingered “pinch” gesture, while dragging three fingers across the screen will rotate the view. Nice!
Headspace appears to be best suited for maintaining smaller lists of items – such as to do items and shopping lists. There doesn’t appear to be any way to export Headspace lists to other applications, but perhaps this capability will be added some time in the future. If you want to see how Headspace works, here is a link to the instructions page.
I hesitate to call Headspace a mind mapping program, because it doesn’t allow you to arrange radial diagrams like a conventional mind map. However, because it enables you to connect topics to one another, it does fall under the category of visual mapping. If you own an iPhone and iPod Touch and are looking for applications that do visual mapping, then Headspace is worthy of a look.
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