OmniFocus 4.3 is now available—universally across Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro! This release introduces support for device Focus Filters, a new Favorite Perspective shortcut, and much more.
New in OmniFocus 4.3
While “Focus” has long been a key feature of OmniFocus, OmniFocus 4.3 introduces an entirely new way to focus on your OmniFocus data, with new support for device Focus Filters. Focus Filters, configurable in the Focus section of the Settings app, allow you to customize what app data is displayed when a Focus mode is enabled on your device. With OmniFocus 4.3, you can now set device Focus Filters to automatically filter out any OmniFocus content which is not relevant to the current Focus. (Learn more about setting up Focus Filters on Mac, iPhone, and iPad.)
Also included in OmniFocus 4.3 is a new Favorite Perspective shortcut. With this shortcut, you can change your favorite perspectives by using a Siri command. Or you can take your device Focus customization a step further, by automating which set of perspectives gets displayed in the OmniFocus Perspectives Bar on your device when a device Focus is enabled or disabled.
Illustrated below is an example of a “Workday” Focus configured on a device running OmniFocus 4.3. When activated, this Workday Focus applies a device Focus Filter which hides content outside the “Work” folder in OmniFocus, runs a shortcut that swaps in a set of favorite “Work” custom perspectives, and enables a Lock Screen, Home Screen, and watch face configured to display OmniFocus data.
The new features don’t stop there though! OmniFocus 4.3 also introduces the ability to add comments to perspective rules in OmniFocus Pro, and expands rich text note formatting options in OmniFocus for Mac. Additionally, a new Overdue iPhone Lock Screen widget and Apple Watch complication provides the option to display a count of overdue items (the count displayed in the Forecast widget and complication has been updated to match the in-app Forecast badge, which counts both due soon and overdue items).
Apple Watch Improvements
OmniFocus 4 introduced a brand new independent Apple Watch application that allowed us to bring the full OmniFocus database to the Apple Watch for the first time ever. The expanded feature set was very well received, yet we also heard from some customers (particularly folks who do not live near our servers) that the v4 watch application did not sync, or stay up to date, reliably. In OmniFocus 4.3, this issue has been addressed by syncing to the paired iPhone, prior to syncing with the sync server, whenever possible. This change makes syncing faster and more reliable when the watch doesn’t have a fast connection to the sync server. Additionally, the watch app now attempts to sync automatically whenever it detects that the iPhone app has newer data, and sync errors are automatically resolved by the watch app, reducing the likelihood that the watch app might be in a state in which it cannot sync. We are optimistic that this set of changes will greatly improve the watch app experience!
Outline Enhancements & Bug Fixes
In addition to the new features and the Apple Watch improvements described above, OmniFocus 4.3 also includes a large number of bug and crash fixes across all supported platforms. Many of these bug fixes improve the reliability of the outline, addressing scenarios in which the order of items in the outline appeared to change unexpectedly (or when content displayed in the outline didn’t change as expected). We’ve also unpinned outline content from the bottom of the screen or window when scrolling on iPhone and iPad, to let all content scroll above the floating toolbar buttons, and ensure the bottommost displayed item does not get blocked.
For information about all of the changes included in OmniFocus 4.3, please see the extensive release notes for this exciting update!
WWDC 2024
We’re thrilled to be releasing OmniFocus 4.3 just ahead of Apple’s annual developers conference, WWDC24, which kicks off next week! While most of the Omni team will be participating in the WWDC festivities remotely, Ken will be in Cupertino to attend the Keynote event on Monday and to perform with James Dempsey and the Breakpoints at the LIVE Near WWDC 2024 Benefit Concert later in the week. Please feel free to say hello to Ken if you see him in person! You can let him know what you think of OmniFocus 4—and perhaps ask if he has any leftover OmniFocus 4 launch swag on him?
Whether it’s in person, via email, or in conversation in Omni’s Slack workspace, we love to hear from you! And, if OmniFocus 4 has also empowered you, leaving an App Store review is a great way to share that experience with our team while helping others discover OmniFocus in the App Store.
