iPhone Mind Mapping Courtesy of iBlueSky
by Theo Priestley on 17/05/09 at 11:31 pm
Theo Priestley is the Director of Process Maverick, a business process management consultancy firm and Senior Editor for iPhoneCTO.
In my daily grind, I often scribble down loose thoughts and ideas on paper and later, try to track them back to what I was thinking. I don’t generally use mind-mapping software, but I’ve increasingly found myself reaching for iBlueSky for iPhone.
iBlueSky by Tenero is a brainstorming and mind-mapping solution for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It allows you to collect and organise ideas at a moments notice then email them as a PDF or PNG file to any contact. You can even export your work to Novamind, OPML and Freemind formats.
Tenero has brilliantly set up a mind-map alternative to the usual ‘What’s it all about’ text and sets it up nicely for you to follow through with your own ideas. Add a project and you’re presented with a blank canvas with the opportunity to kick off your brainstorm. Naming the central branch will name the project. The icon on the bottom right allows you to add further branches and naming them as you go. Thankfully, Tenero has added a drag feature so when things get a little cluttered, you can move branches around to clean the view up a little. Pinch and zoom is there, as well as some really useful features including the ability to copy and paste entire branches of the map to and from other projects.
The clever stuff happens when you want to email it to either yourself or a contact. It actually comes direct from Tenero and not your own mail server (due to restrictions placed by Apple). This has a lot to do with the file formats iBlueSky supports, allowing Tenero’s servers to do all the hard work and not the app itself. An email arrives within 3-4 minutes with all the file formats attached. I’d like to see support for selecting the formats you want to receive instead of mailing all of them.
Tenero has come up with a simple, yet effective tool. It may seem borderline ‘business’ focused, but if you’re out and want to capture those thoughts post-meeting, it’s an invaluable tool.
Happy brainstorming!
