Our new product for a better productivity

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

I'm the CEO of Octonius(company in incorporation) and I think this is the best place to talk about integrating Evernote into a productivity app.

Octonius is intended to be your personal pocket assistant, a smart app that helps you accomplish your daily activities in a personalised way, closer to your life habits.

The app is going to launch - end of february or early march. You can sign up on our page in order to be announced when we launch.

I love to talk more about it, give early access to the app for those really interested in a smarter way to be productive - at work or personal life.

I think the best way do describe it is:

Life is about creating and sharing ideas.

Keep in touch with everyone you care in a beautiful social experience. Work and share ideas together in a smart way.

I believe that we can be more productive by rethinking the way we understand "activities".

Everything we do in life is related to some people and some tasks / files / notes etc. So I can assume (ergo) that an Activity is composed by 2 elements:

• people / contacts
  
• things to do / tasks / projects
  

Why? Because it’s very easy to think like that:

• I do something FOR somebody
  
• I do something WITH somebody
  

So we always do stuff in relation with people. Because this is the essence of life: creating and sharing ideas and experiences.

The best productivity app for me is the one that brings together my contacts and my files, but with a lot of meaningful actions and functionalities.

This is why I decided to create Octonius. A great looking iOS app, carefully crafted with love and with one concept in mind:

Keep close to your contacts, by having their latest status updates from social networks right in front of me (without the need to jump to FB app all the time just to check a status update) - and make it easy to collaborate /work with these contacts in my Evernote notebooks / notes.

I am building some smart sorting options, that will allow you to see, for instance:

• the most important contacts for this week are Y. X, Z - because you work intensively this week on a Notebook / project
  
• your most important contacts are put in the top of the list because you contact them frequently etc etc.
  

I love to have a beautiful address book app, able to save my contacts in Evernote, able to share and see shared and updated notes from Evernote, able to check what friends updated their Facebook or Twitter status without leaving the app... And the list goes on.

I will put here some screens from the app, starting with the dashboard.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

The Contacts view - or the contacts wall - as I call it is a beautiful full screen thumbnails view. When you pull down from the top you got some sorting / filtering options.

I am using this (although you have the option to see contacts in a basic LIST) smart sorting with thumbnails because I believe the best way to remember people is by their face. I always remember your face, then the place where we meet and then your name. Or maybe face, name, place. In any case, I always remember your face.

And I love to see this contacts wall - a beautiful mosaic of my friends and contacts.

The profile images are pulled from:

1. facebook
   
2. gravatar
   
3. twitter
   
4. iOS address book
   

This is how the contacts wall looks:

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Contacts features currently in progress:

1. import iOS and FB contacts
   
2. create a smart merged profile
   
3. big profile images from FB, gravatar and more
   
4. see shared notes with each contact in their profile view
   
5. see a history log: calls
   
6. live status updates pulled from FB - for now
   
7. save contacts to Evernote - for easy access from any device & web
   

Curent options for Evernote integration:

1. access your notebooks and notes
   
2. edit notes
   
3. make new notes & notebooks
   
4. share notes and notebooks with Octonius contacts.
   

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

A big thank you to all of you that signed up for the beta version!

Will give you updates soonish ...

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Coming up to you guys with some more feedback:

• lots of our beta users / early adopters consider this:
  
  • it's important to keep close with the persons you work / communicate often - easy access to their contact info
    
  • many hate to switch apps just to check a status update
    
  • some of them want to know WHEN and IF some files / notes shared were edited/changed by somebody - especially when you work with others in a project
    
  • many of them wanted to save the contacts in Evernote - for use outside the phone/ipad
    

  [*]some power networkers told us:

  • they want to keep their contacts from all social networks - Fb, Twitter and LinkedIn specially - in a smart address book
    
  • make more use of the images / profile photos
    
  • have an always up-to-date profile for each contact, curated.
    
  • easy to share notes with your contacts.
    

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

This is the main view for the notebooks in your account(private or shared)

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

We are testing today the first part of the app, the contacts module.

Importing contacts, merging contacts, exporting them etc.

Also we are implementing the FB status updates - see them in the contact details.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi. Thanks a lot for developing this product. I'm sure that a lot of Evernoters will be interested in it. I merged the threads, though, as they are on the same topic, and we like to keep the forum tidy.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Hi Grumpy! THX for merging it!

I want to invite Evernote power users to give suggestions about this app and features.

I love Evernote and I use it a lot every single day.

[Martin Packer 162]

@cosmin, I can see you weren't getting a lot of feedback, which must be a little discouraging. Personally I'm not ready to leap into your app.

But I have a question on one of the things you posted: When you say "Curent options for Evernote integration:" are these things you're asking us whether we want them? Or are you saying that's currently what the app will do?

Thanks!

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

@cosmin, I can see you weren't getting a lot of feedback, which must be a little discouraging. Personally I'm not ready to leap into your app.

But I have a question on one of the things you posted: When you say "Curent options for Evernote integration:" are these things you're asking us whether we want them? Or are you saying that's currently what the app will do?

Thanks!

Yes, maybe I am not that good at keeping my post organised

But what we have now is this: an intelligent address book, with live profiles and access to your Evernote notes and notebooks.

And this are mandatory features that will be in the app:

1. access your notebooks and notes
   
2. edit notes
   
3. make new notes & notebooks
   
4. share notes and notebooks with Octonius contacts.
   

You can see your notes, edit, share, take new notes right from Octonius.

SO think of it like this: I am keeping an eye on my contacts, see who is trending etc and I have now all my notes in easy reach - so I can share them in a faster way.

As soon as I will bring some more screenshots, you will see how easy it is.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Some people want to have some kind of dashboard, main page where you can see if some of your coworkers have finished working on the shared notes or notebooks. That way you know if you can take from there and finish that task. So Octonius dashboard has this feature: see the last changed notes right from the main screen.

But there was also a much requested feature that I had great feedback from power networkers: I want an address book that shows me a live profile of my contacts and also shows me if and when they changed their FB status for example.

And we integrated this in Octonius dashboard. You see lets say: the last 6 persons who updated their Facebook status.

So these 2 features make the creme de la creme of Octonius UI& UX. Easy to check on your friends and easy to check your notes status.





This is the dashboard screenshot:
 

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

One thing I forgot to mention: Octoni.us will be free. Maybe at some point there will be some Premium features, but for now everything is free. And for the users who sign up for the BETA VERSION - Premium accounts are free!

So I encourage you to take a look at the website www.octoni.us and sign up for the beta version. It will be ready in a few weeks.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Question: how many Evernoters keep their contacts in Evernote? Is this something you guys want?

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

I am working on a public notebook to explain the user interface. Will share it soon here. ☕ ✎

[Pharns 0]

I would like to see integration with Omnifocus and/or Reminders... That would go along with my workflow...

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

It's pretty difficult to implement reminders from iOS. Not sure why. That's why everybody creates their own reminder tools in the app. But it's worth the try. We will check that. iOS Reminders are very useful with all the notifications and stuff.

[Martin Packer 162]

How about connecting to Remember The Milk on the task side? A one-stop shop that pointed at both my to-do and note-taking apps would certainly get my vote (and spend).

[CaptainTime 94]

Only for iPhone? No Android? You also misspelled effortless on your third slide.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

How about connecting to Remember The Milk on the task side? A one-stop shop that pointed at both my to-do and note-taking apps would certainly get my vote (and spend).

Ha, RTMilk has some APIs - making it interesting even for me as a potential user.

I will consider this with the technical team.

Right now we are focusing on:

- bringing the standard Evernote experience: access, edit, share and make new notes

- creating a really super uber address book experience, getting more networks in it: Fb, Twitter, Gravatar, LinkedIn

At this moment I am very sure that almost 80% of my beta testers are not so much Evernoters, but power networkers and people who want to have a smarter address book.

So please, as Evernoters, give your feedback here so we can develop it further.

@ebusinesstutor - no android for now - we are iOS experts and as a startup we can not afford to go in many directions. But android is considered. At this point we want to craft something beautiful and engaging for iOS users.

Regarding the addressbook features - has anybody used Brewster app?

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Regarding the integration of To Do lists, anybody using https://cheddarapp.com ?

I think this is a better app, although is not entirely free.

[Martin Packer 162]

@ebusinesstutor I was kind when I handled the "curent" typo but while we're wordsmithing his material... :-)

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

everything right now is work in progress. you will see the new copy and graphics on the website in a few days. thx for showing me this.

And I am not a native english speaker, so please bear with me.

As my forefathers said: Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

For beta version I have to choose between To Do apps integration and GTD in Evernote.

And I think it should be easy for evernoters to make lists and to-do lists in a note.

Code wins arguments.

[black.rhino 20]

I signed up for beta testing. This app intrigues me.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

I signed up for beta testing. This app intrigues me.

Thank you.

I also did a draft ow wallpaper for you guys.

This is the nornal one http://ciobanucos.fi...s-wallpaper.png

And this is the retina HD one: http://ciobanucos.fi...a-wallpaper.png

This is a new version sd: http://ciobanucos.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/octonius-2-wallpaper.png

And the retina hd: http://ciobanucos.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/octonius-2-retina-wallpaper.png

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

First round of serious tests for the address book part - all night - success!

Time to move forward to the Evernote integration.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Performance tests for the address book part are finished. Great tune-up.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Hi peeps!

Is there anyone here willing to test the first half of the app via testflight app?

I am speaking about the contacts module. Fully featured.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Ok, so the first tests on the contacts module were mind blowing.

Syncing and merging 4469 contacts in one address book is really a benchmark. And we did perfectly well

 

Thx everybody for the tests!

[Martin Packer 162]

You seem to have some duplicate contacts. Is your social circle really that small? :-)

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

I only posted people that allowed me to publish them im my screens. I hope u care about privacy stuff, right?

[Martin Packer 162]

Yes. You might've missed my smiley.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Hi guys! So, the beta  signup is closed. The rest of you not included in the first wave will get the chance to get the app when it's public, but we will make it available on a first came first served basis, depending on the infrastructure.

You can still use the sign up form, to get your place in the line.

Cool features coming up: due date/reminders & alerts, custom notifications etc.

www.octoni.us - the sign up form.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Hi Guys!

I just wanted to post a short update:

1. we refreshed our website at www.octoni.us as we have now a great artist as a big supporter.
2. we decided to compete in the Evernote Dev Cup 2013. 

 

Let's make it happen.

 

 

[Martin Packer 162]

@cosmin ciobanu Good luck! You won't've failed to notice the success earned by the better entrants before.

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Thank you! Not sure why you meant by better entrants. From what we learned - success is hand made.

[Martin Packer 162]

I meant "the best ones from last year". Not "better than you". :-)

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

I figured that out after another coffee We're having a lot of Night Owl Sessions these days

[cosmin ciobanu 3]

Hi!

 

 

We just launched yesterday.

Come see us in the Dev Cup!

https://www.hackerleague.org/hackathons/evernote-devcup-2013/hacks/octonius