OmniGraffle 3

Why there is no outline mode to quickly create flowcharts via keyboard input is beyond insulting. It’s 2025 and this feels like expensive baby software.

While you can now import different visio file formats into OmniGraffle, reality is they arrive somewhat scrambled (I tried every visio format and they all come thru imperfectly). So if you have a complex drawing, you can count on up to 50% of connectors, labels, etc. to be wrong. Also when you export out to visio, there’s only one format available, which MS365 VISIO cannot recognize thus can’t open. In its current state, it remains unusable for anyone working with Visio files (99.99% of Enterprise IT organizations!).

I must say that every detail of the UI is pretty. And the team has managed to stuff an absolutely incredible array of capability into this iPhone app. That said, trying to actually do any meaningful diagramming is painful. Horridly so. Honesty, the ability to edit OmniGraffle files on iPhone should be free, since I could genuinely argue that investing the effort required to produce any meaningful diagram in the handheld UX is payment enough. Perhaps more. While I can accept the subscription fee as reasonable for Mac and even iPad, the value proposition simply isn’t there for the iPhone app. I love the OmniGroup. My first purchase from them was at their MacWorld booth in the Javitz Center in NYC, in the late 90s. So it low-key breaks my heat to write that if you need some ability to create diagrams on a handheld device, I’ve gotta advise you to look elsewhere 💔