20Aug
It is done – the new MindMeister application for iPhone and iPod touch has finally arrived in the App Store! Those who’ve followed its progress know that it has been a rather slow birth, but nonetheless we’ve made it there in the end.
The new MindMeister iPhone application allows you to take your online mind maps with you wherever you go. Just sign in to your MindMeister account when you first start the app, browse and download your mind maps for local editing and let the application take care of synchronising them with the cloud.
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Feature overview:
- Create, view, and edit maps online and offline
- Seamlessly sync maps with your online MindMeister account
- Share maps directly from iPhone
- Full drag & drop support
- Zoom in and out
- Add children and sibling nodes
- Support for icons, colors, styles *
- Favorites and pending maps
- Geistesblitz (quickly insert ideas)
- Use with or without MindMeister account
- * view only – edit support coming soon!
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MindMeister for iPhone + iPod touch is officially available in the App Store now for only $6.99 / €5.49. It works with any MindMeister account – even the free Basic one – and pretty much all iPhone / iPod touch versions (minimum OS 2.2.1).
Upgrading from MindMaker?
You might remember that the MindMeister iPhone app was developed from MindMaker, which we acquired from Ultravague a while ago (that’s also why the publisher in the App Store is not MindMeister but Ultravague). So if you’ve already been using MindMaker this upgrade is completely free for you!
When you start the new app the first time your existing mind maps will automatically be converted to the new format. Then, once you sign up for a MindMeister account (the Basic one will do – but feel free to go Premium straight away), all your local maps will be synched to the MindMeister server. This means online access and backup, import and export in many formats, easy sharing and collaboration, and much much more.
24Jun
After some rather embarrassing delays in the development of our native iPhone application (gulp), we’ve started the beta test this week finally. It’s a private beta with a few selected users that will run for another two weeks or so and we’re hoping to have the final application in the AppStore soon.
We’ve decided to make ten more slots available for the beta test and we want to offer them to the first ten people to comment on this post. So if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch (whatever generation) please drop us a line here. You’ll then receive an email asking you for the UDID of your device which we need to compile an ad-hoc build of the app for you.
Update: Thanks for the enthusiasm, we’ve closed comments now and are trying to fit everybody into the beta test.
Update 2: The app has been submitted for review by Apple on August 6, we’re anxiously awaiting news every minute.
28Jan
As some of the Techcrunchers (or followers of Ouriel Ohayon) among you might know already we recently entered into mobile device territory by acquiring MindMaker, one of the few native iPhone mind mapping tools currently available in the App Store. No need to bring up iPhone sales stats or any other justification for that decision here, as the reality today is that any self-respecting web (2.0) app needs an App Store sibling to complement its online service for users on the go.
Our ultimate goal is to provide our users with an exceptional mind mapping experience wherever they are and whatever device they use, and a native MindMeister iPhone app is a big step towards achieving that goal. We acquired MindMaker because it’s a great app and gives us a sound headstart in developing a MindMeister application, which we’ve wanted for months (the common name genealogy was just a bonus). The colorful look and feel of the maps in MindMaker is obviously a bit different to our mostly blue maps, but the rest of the app was so well done that it helped us a great deal getting started.
Melchior, the main developer of MindMaker, even gave us a hand in integrating it with the mindmeister.com API and getting the synching working. Here’s a quote from him from our press release:
MindMaker started out as a pet project but quickly became one of the leading iPhone apps for mind mapping”, says Melchior Brislinger, developer of MindMaker. “MindMeister’s acquisition brings integration with a premier web-based service and will accelerate the further development of MindMaker.
The ability to sync data with your online MindMeister account is pretty nifty, we think, particularly for a collaborative tool where different people might update the same data all the time. Create a draft map on the tube, sync it back to the cloud once your 3G connections is up again and let the others finalize it.
Right now we’re busy completing the integration. The app will support graphical views of a user’s mind maps similar to the one in our award-winning web interface. Essential editing functions will be supported on the iPhone / iPod Touch as well, with many more features to be added in upcoming releases.
Syncing between the iPhone and mindmeister.com will most likely be made available as a Premium feature – that means for paying MindMeister users only. Existing MindMaker customers will get a special discounted upgrade offer for a MindMeister Premium account.
So what about all the Blackberries, Nokias and Palm Pre’s out there? Well, for us it was clear that we wanted an iPhone app first, before following that up with other mobile interfaces. We’re Apple people and we admit it. And really, it’s just such a great device, no?
