We've
previously covered MindNode in both its iOS and OS X versions and the short version is that we liked them, they're handy and easy to use mind mapping apps. It's a regularly updated and well cared for app, though, with the universal version for iPhone and iPad having since gone through 14 further revisions since our January 2015 look. Now in its latest versions,
MindNode 2.2.2 for OS X and
MindNode 4.2.2 for iOS have added To Do tasks right into their maps. Given how often we use mind maps as the start of a process that concludes with a long To Do list, it's only surprising that we've never thought to hanker for this feature before.
You won't abandon your regular To Do app over this. MindNode is hardly up there with the likes of OmniFocus, Todoist or Things but it's right on a par with Apple's own Reminders which it integrates into. It is positioned right where we now realised we always wanted it. Most of the time if we turn to a mind map it is because what we're doing is so complicated or we've thought it out so poorly that we need to really chew over everything. Sometimes after we've chewed, though, we realise there are only a couple of bits we need or want to actually do something about. So now we can mark those as tasks.
There was never anything stopping you writing 'Do This Bit' next to any of the items on your mind map but now you get a nice little empty circle-like tick box whenever you nominate something as a task to be done. So on the one hand you have an immediate visual clue about how much you've got to do and if mind maps are nothing else, they are visual clues to what you've got to do. Then on the other hand, you have a tick box and you can tick it when you're done. Consequently you then have an immediately visual guide to how much you've completed too.
It seems to us that it's easiest to add tasks on the iOS version. You tap on the screen to add a new node and the keyboard appears with new controls. If you're using an iPad Pro then the regular copy, undo and paste are shuffled around to make room for new icons for Notes, Photo or Tasks. Tap on the task icon and the element of the map that you're writing now will be made a task.
MindNode can hold more than short lines of text so the Photos icon actually gets you all kinds of graphic images as well as your own photos. More useful for the tasks element of the app will be the Notes where you can add as much text and detail as you need without it turning your mind map into an unreadable mess.
That's also easier on iOS, we think. It's not as if it's arduous but on the OS X version if you want to add a task, you write out the element of your mind map as before and now right-click to get a dropdown menu where Add/Remove Task is the sixth option. It is also available in the menubar under Node where it's the seventh down.
In either case, once a element or node of your map has this task icon next to it, you can click or tap your way to completion –– and as you do, there's a visual guide to how far you've got. In each main node you get a circle which fills in as each of the tasks hanging off it are completed. It's exactly as clear and useful on the OS X version as it is on the iOS one yet again we lean toward the latter every time we want to do a map. We might just be biased because we find making mind maps easiest on the iPad where it's as if you're working the map with your fingers.
You can get even more of that sensation if you use MindNode 4.2.2 for iOS on an iPhone with 3D Touch as this lets you start a new main node at the press of your screen. This same feature is available on OS X via the Magic Trackpad 2 but there it feels somehow more like right-clicking and so not as tactile as it is on iOS.
There have been many more improvements over the 14 iterations of the iOS version and about another 14 for the OS X once since we last looked but it's this new task addition that is the most striking. Previously we've liked the apps, now we like them even more.
MindNode 2.2.2 for Mac requires OS X 10.10 or later and
costs $30 in the Mac App Store. The universal iPhone and iPad version MindNode 4.2.2 requires iOS 8.0 or later and
costs $10 in the App Store.
Who is MindNode 4.2.2 for:
Exactly as we said last year: it's for anyone struggling with complicated or messy projects
Who is MindNode 4.2.2 not for:
Only those who must use paper for their mind maps
-William Gallagher (
@WGallagher)
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