MindNode – Classic

I’ve had a Mind Node subscription for years, and used it with much success. It is great for brainstorming as long as you have a regimented perspective with the hierarchical way that layouts and node creation and connection works in the app. However, keep in mind, that’s not the full nature of *brainstorming*! Things are not always strictly hierarchical, nor pure parent-child relationships. Sometimes logic is more mesh-oriented, parents defer to other parents, or a linear flow or connection needs to be represented without imposing hierarchy or priority or parent-child type relationships. Full disclosure — I’m an app-developer myself, and I find that design often suffers from the limitation of narrow perspective — and how an app is used (or can be) informs well about design. I want so badly to use Mind Node as my single brainstorming app, but the inability to gracefully do simple linear flows without imposing hierarchy requires me to have another graphing / diagramming app — I cannot rely on Mind Node as my sole app for brainstorming. I’ve seen other user reviews requesting the same thing. The ability to create and connect nodes without imposing hierarchy or rank visually on nodes (think: just a simple flow chart) would be a major improvement in the app, and would align more closely with the nature of true brainstorming. Here’s to hoping for that in the future!

MindNode has been my spatial planning tool of choice since Version 4. Now V6 has been released with some important updates, at no charge for recent V5 purchasers. One feature that I specifically requested is being able to edit multiple items on iPad like the Mac OS app. Thank you for listening and adding this feature. Of course I appreciate the free update; I’m also good with purchasing major upgrades when the time comes. Just keep doing what you do best. Here are a few quick comments about the product. It has been rock solid with a very uncluttered UI. Import / export modes simplify moving data between apps and quickly creating a complex mind map in MindNode. Theme chooser and outline view work great and stay out of the way until needed. Kudos Update: This is still an excellent app. There are a few features that would make it even better. First, the ability to copy and paste object styles. Second, the ability to assign horizontal and vertical layouts per level; I would like an org chart layout that is horizontal at the top and vertical below each branch for example.

I have been using this program since it was first introduced. Until now I have used it for every condition where I needed to relate unrelated things. As promised, I am rewriting my review since the app support people discovered that my problems are not caused by this app. I had begun using iCloud with all my MindNode documents. One document, in particular, I updated daily and frequently updated from different devices. My problem occurred because iCloud did not handle my more complex documents property. Worse than wrecking my document, iCloud is set up to delete any documents that iCloud does not control. So if I turn off iCloud from holding and updating my MindNode documents I cannot recover them to my local device (iPad or iPhone). There are tricks I could play to keep or recover a single document, but I have over 30 MindNode documents so that is impractical. The MindNode support staff were extremely helpful and emailed me with questions until they narrowed the problem to iCloud. From there they had no suggestions except to not keep my documents in the cloud. I will continue to use MindNode if or when I can get my documents back, but I won’t create new documents or update existing ones until iCloud is out of the picture. Solved my iCloud issue by emailing my MindNode documents to myself. Then turned iCloud off.