[Jim1th]

<_< No, please don't. One of the major strong points of Bonsai is how quickly it launches and how fast data entry is. Any serious list keeper knows how supremely valuable that is. Waiting for an app to connect to the web, no matter how fast the connection, is a huge deal breaker!

adrianbye, on Oct 21 2008, 08:35 PM, said:

Actually I have a better idea. Why not focus on making an awesome web based version which everyone can use. Then focus on making handheld versions for as many platforms as possible - blackberry, iphone, windows mobile. etc

This brings several advantages:
1. If its a web based model you can turn it into a subscription model. Charge us all $5/month to use it. You'll make far more money and bonsai could become your #1 performer.
2. The web based model will be less work for you, so you can drop your mac/pc/other versions
3. You can put more emphasis into supporting the handhelds which will give you wider market share

You guys have by far the best ideas for handling an outliner and I'm really struggling by not having your tools anymore. I'm forced to replace your application by about 3 other applications, segmenting my data and causing a real mess. Some people will complain and say they don't want their data on a web version - I say those are the customers you don't worry about. Its not perfect for me either, but given the choice of no bonsai or a platform which becomes a strong business model for you and will be supported across all future platforms I use at $5/month, I'll take the latter. :-)

For an example, look at how 37signals promotes basecamp and their other products.

[Digger]

Hi Natara,

I wanted to let you know that I am yet another ex Palm business user, now with a Blackberry, who's completely screwed without Bonsai. It was really such a fantastic application, both on the Palm and on the desktop - but Palm is now effectively dead, and Windows mobile will never be more than an also ran.

I see that it's now 9 months since bnystrom posted the original poll on behalf on Natara. Could you guys give us any idea of what your thinking is? Is there at least a theoretical possibility that Natara might port applications to the two platforms in your poll with the most votes (at the time of writing, iPhone 24 votes and Blackberry 21 votes)?

In hope...

Best regards,

Matthew

[sangahm]

Digger, on Apr 21 2009, 04:48 PM, said:

Hi Natara,

I wanted to let you know that I am yet another ex Palm business user, now with a Blackberry, who's completely screwed without Bonsai. It was really such a fantastic application, both on the Palm and on the desktop - but Palm is now effectively dead, and Windows mobile will never be more than an also ran.

I see that it's now 9 months since bnystrom posted the original poll on behalf on Natara. Could you guys give us any idea of what your thinking is? Is there at least a theoretical possibility that Natara might port applications to the two platforms in your poll with the most votes (at the time of writing, iPhone 24 votes and Blackberry 21 votes)?

In hope...

Best regards,

Matthew

Agreed, count me in the Palm to BB crowd. I would really love to see Natara apps on my BB. A couple of things to note: BB's outsell iPhones even though that's not the perception based on the hype. Secondly, BB is more of a business device (from a generic sense, in that it's optimized for phone, email and communication), where the iphone is more optimized to phone and games. Natara apps would probably find a larger market share with the BB crowd.

[G]

I think that iPhone market has a huge financial potential for Natara Bonsai. Some Natara's applications have analogues but Bonsai doesn't. Now there are several products available: LifeBalance and SplashNotes.

Llamagraphics' LifeBalance is very archaic, inconvenient, and very expensive, but it works, it can synchronize data between iPhone and PC/Mac, and it is available. SplashData's SplashNotes is very raw now and can't work properly but knowing SplashData I think that the company improve the software and gain a significant share on the market. For example, SplashID works fine and I migrate all my data from Palm to iPhone without any problem.

Bonsai is a superb application still Natara ignores iPhone market. On the one hand, the idea to pay 30% to Apple is not attractive when you can sell Bonsai for WM without significant merchandise margin. But, on the other hand, access to a huge and growing market is a significant boost for Natara's bottom line and I believe that development costs will be covered easily.

So why Natara doesn't do anything to enter this market? I can think about several possible reasons. First, maybe this is just a lack of technological knowledge and expected difficulties porting Bonsai to iPhone. I don't think that this is a serious problem, especially for such successful and professional team as Natara.

Second, a lack of resources because now programmers are busy with WM version. That could be a bottleneck for the company now and hampers business development.

Third, misunderstanding of market trends and iPhone market potential. This can be a serious issue because many thech companies are very inert and easily miss new opportunities because they don't see new customers with new needs.

And finally, and this is my hope, that Natara just don't want to disclosure any information about Bonsai for oPhone and doesn't want to introduce buggy and raw application. Good reason, but while the company waiting for Christmas, more and more potential customers start using someone's else software and usually customers do not tend to switch easily to a new application.


I really can't understand motives and reasons for not porting Bonsai (and other software) to iPhone and very curious about any other ideas and of cause would like to hear "an official explanation".

[bnystrom]

The Incredible App Store Hype

[G]

bnystrom, on May 27 2009, 05:00 PM, said:

The Incredible App Store Hype

I see you point. Let's compare oranges with oranges. How many application for iPhone have the same functional and flexibility as Bonsai? And what is your expected market size? Some categories can be very broad and competitive but others are very narrow and still free from rivalry.

I just made some VERY rough estimation and with $10 for iPhone version and $30 for desktop with 3 programmers that cost $6000 per month and overhead 20% and 3 months of development you will need to sell ~2500 applications (assuming that 30% of buyer will also buy desktop app). Is this number is big or small? What do Natara's marketing folks can say?

[RBW]

bnystrom, on Aug 1 2008, 12:47 AM, said:

Thought I would test out the "Polling" abilities of the new forums. We get asked on a daily basis, now that Palm OS is in (what I consider) major decline, if we are going to be making our products available for other platforms. I thought this would also make a good poll question. You are allowed to choose multiple answers, but try to be somewhat realistic in what you yourself might be using "tomorrow". B)

I am now a Verizon Blackberry Storm user, anxiously awaiting a BB Storm version of Bonsai. Anxiously means that I might be considered a "motivated" buyer. <hint, hint>

Thanks, and please hurry.

rbw

[Nickster]

Bryan, you can put my name on the list of members who would like to see Natara start developing Software for the iPhone. I had been a Palm Users for years, but I recently made the switch to Apple, and purchased a new iPhone 3GS. The difference between my Palm TX and the iPhone is like night and day, but as many have already mentioned, Apple still lacks good software for the iPhone... if you are comparing against similar Programs available for the Palm platform.

In any case... my vote for R&D into software for the Apple platform.

[a3r]

I'm another iPhone convert. I have found Bonsai to be invaluable on the Palm and have yet to find a good replacement on the iPhone. If you choose to develop for the iPhone, be sure to post beta requests to your RSS; I'd be happy to help.

Yes I did add my vote to the poll. Good luck and hope to use Natara SW soon.

Andrew

[bnystrom]

Just out of curiosity, for those saying "there isn't anything to compare with Bonsai [and/or] DayNotez on platform XYZ... what exactly is it you find lacking. I know each of the perspective platforms have both outliners and "diary/journaling" application (well, not real sure about Pre at this point). I would be interested in hearing what apps you've actually looked at.

(Maybe I should have asked this in a different thread... if you think so, let me know and I'll start a new thread)

[a3r]

Features from Bonsai that I would want to in a todo/outliner app:
- Two way synchronization with a PC (apps that sync do so with Mac or online)
- I prefer the more free form layout of an outliner rather than the, more constrained design of the todo apps
- Filters don't seem as flexible or are non-existent
- Lack of multilevel hierarchy (in several, projects are supported, but you can't nest projects)

Yes there are apps with a subset of some of these features but (in my week and a half), none have it all.

Within Bonsai the features I most use include:
- two way sync with a PC
- notes
- check box
- start, due date
- category
- filters (with flat and hierarchical format)
- priorities
- keywords (to a lesser degree)

[MichaelV]

Count me on the iPhone list. I was previously on the WinMo list, primarily because I had to replace my old Palm-based Treo with something a year and a half ago.

However, WinMo has to be absolutely the worst mobile OS ever developed. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. OK, maybe on my worst enemy, but nobody else. I can't even remember all the problems I had with it, to recount them here, but they were numerous.

So, I replaced the dreaded Tilt with an iPhone a little over a month ago, and I can say that I have never used a better mobile device. Of course, going from the worst to the best is a stark contrast, but the iPhone just flat out works.

As for Bonsai, I have looked at several outliners on the iPhone, and none of them have the richness of the feature set Bonsai has. Bonsai is in a whole different league from all those others. As a long-time user of Bonsai on the Palm platform, I really wish you'd bring that to the iPhone.

Honestly, I know you need to get your WinMo port done because you want to make some money off it to keep the company in business. But really, the platform is so horrible, I'm not sure its future is bright. The Palm Pre is looking promising, and the iPhone is eating Microsoft's lunch. BlackBerry is holding its own. I won't tell you where to put your resources, as I'm sure you've spent a lot of time thinking about this already, but I certainly think the future of the iPhone is a whole lot brighter, and you might want to jump on that bandwagon sooner rather than later.

I read the article about the App Store Hype, but if I'm not mistaken, that was highlighting the problem with 0.99 apps. Bonsai is worth $10 easily. I'd pay $15. Think about it...

[Maxtor]

I'd give $30 for a Blackberry version!

There now... We voted in the poll. You have the results.

How about some feedback? Are you going to do anything with this?
Or should I stop checking back?

[Ian Bratko]

I just joined the forum to see if there was any development towards iPod touch (assume same as iPhone) and/or BB. I carry a BB Curve provided by my employer, so it is my preference. I looked and trialed throughout the BB AppWorld, and while a few DayNotez replacements are comparable, they do not synch to anyuthing I can use. I cannot use my desktop because my employer has banned using the DM software (probably due to lack of experience supporting BB). problematic to be sure.

So I carry an additional Palm Zire 72 until it breaks, and hope that there is a used Zire on ebay to keep me going when it does. When there are no Palms anymore, there should be some decent cheap iTouchs on ebay. I will eventually go to iTouch because that is all that is supported for Life Balance, my preferred outliner/tasklist.

I wonder when there will be a time when all the apps that I need will work on any smartphone my employer chooses? Maybe we will call that device a tricorder!

This post has been edited by Ian Bratko: 15 September 2009 - 12:56 PM

[Harve]

Like Ian Bratko (15/9/09) I joined the forum to see if an iPhone version of DayNotez is being developed. The iPhone diary apps I've looked at are all unsatisfactory in one way or another (won't backup to PCs/merely simple replacements for paper diaries/repeatedly crash) and I will keep my iPAQ going just for DayNotez for the time being.

Incidentally, I'm pleased to see that other well-known WM software companies like SpB are entering the iPhone market - SpB Wallet works well on the iPhone and costs $9.95 as compared to $29.95 for the WM version.

[milkytooth]

Harve, on 24 September 2009 - 01:00 AM, said:

Like Ian Bratko (15/9/09) I joined the forum to see if an iPhone version of DayNotez is being developed. The iPhone diary apps I've looked at are all unsatisfactory in one way or another (won't backup to PCs/merely simple replacements for paper diaries/repeatedly crash) and I will keep my iPAQ going just for DayNotez for the time being.

Incidentally, I'm pleased to see that other well-known WM software companies like SpB are entering the iPhone market - SpB Wallet works well on the iPhone and costs $9.95 as compared to $29.95 for the WM version.

Wow, nice find. Is SpB Wallet safe enough?

[johnbits]

I was originally a user of ShadowPlan until it simply failed to get support. For a long time now, I have very happily been using Bonsai. As business, computer and management consultants, we also recommend products to clients. We currently use Palm OS and Windows CE devices (Bonsai only on the Palm and desktop). With the new Motorola phone release of an Android-based smartphone, there is great interest in migrating from the Windows CE platform to Android. As far as the Palm device I use, I will use it for some time to come, however, I am waiting also for the Palm Pre (WebOS) to be added to Verizon and will probably become a user. I currently see Android and Palm competing against the iPhone, however, based on the open platform of Android and the emphasis for expansion and web-based concepts from Palm, I think they may exceed the iPhone in capability. There will always, of course, be core group users for any proprietary device or system (e.g., Apple).

I agree with the implication from an earlier post that the current OS and devices to watch for growth would be the Google-backed Android devices.

Overall, I hope Natara can make Bonsai available on the widest variety of systems to further integration of information regardless of the base platform used.

John Fisher
BITS

[Machster]

a3r, on 12 August 2009 - 09:13 PM, said:

Features from Bonsai that I would want to in a todo/outliner app:
- Two way synchronization with a PC (apps that sync do so with Mac or online)
- I prefer the more free form layout of an outliner rather than the, more constrained design of the todo apps
- Filters don't seem as flexible or are non-existent
- Lack of multilevel hierarchy (in several, projects are supported, but you can't nest projects)

Yes there are apps with a subset of some of these features but (in my week and a half), none have it all.

Within Bonsai the features I most use include:
- two way sync with a PC
- notes
- check box
- start, due date
- category
- filters (with flat and hierarchical format)
- priorities
- keywords (to a lesser degree)

Let's not forget Search/Find and columns which non of the current iPhone apps have. And to a lesser extent, zoom.

[palmdoc]

A native WebOS version would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[Pete]

I just voted for the iPhone. I'd like ot add my 2cents. I do miss the hotsync capability of the palm OS. I think that it's an oversite for all new Smartphones not to have it. I expect that without a hotsync feature, more data is sent over the air, making the carriers happy at the customer's expense.


Anyway, I suggest that if a iPhone platform is to be done, that an over the air sync be created as well. Evernote is good at this. Documents to go is not. I simply cannot open every applicaiton in my Iphone, and my computer to sync.

Thanks
Pete