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Van Kasper Spiro | 02-04-2014 | | (0) reacties

Why I love mindmapping in MindNode

I love to mind map It is such an easy way to organize your ideas, but I use it for much more. If I take notes in a meeting, a conversation, a discussion, a presentation, a conference session, I will do that in the form of a mind map. Tony Buzan claims to have invented them. But I’m afraid that his program iMindMap is not the best software around, that title goes to MindNode. I know it because in the past period I have tried lots of them. I used to use MindNode on my Ipad (1) and was very happy with both my Ipad and MindNode. But IOS6 came out (september 2012) and I wasn’t able to upgrade to it with my Ipad. I really hate that. One day when yet an other app would not run anymore I had had  it, and I switched to Android. But MindNode is only available on Iphone, Ipad and Macs, so I started trying out all the alternatives (Paid and free). None of them came close to MindNode.

After a few month I switched back to the Ipad (air), I will explain why some other time in an other post. The first app that I installed on my new Ipad was MindNode, and I fell in love with it all over again, here is why:

• It has a very intuitive interface. Everything works the way you think it should work.
• The mind maps it produces look very simple, but are very clear (and that is what you need)
• Sharing is easy. I can mail them, save them in Dropbox, save them as an image or as a mind-map (mm) file, that I can use in other programs. Perfect.
• It is the only Mindmapping app I know that works so simple that I can use it on my tablet to make real-time mind maps. I mean capturing a presentation or conversation on the go.

The latest version has some improvements that take away most of the critical points I had. I only have two wishes left:

• Change the title. The central text will be automatically the title of the mind map, which is fine. But when you change that text, the title doesn’t change with it.
• It has a smart Lay-out feature, that works fine, except it doesn’t use the bottom and top of the mind map. All nodes are placed on the left or right. I don’t like that.

These are the only two things I can come up with. The cool thing is that MindNode is build by a 1 person company, Markus Müller-Simhofer is the company. I read that he recently hired his first employee. On his website he says his goal is ‘designing intuitive and consumer friendly software’. Well he did. As a software vendor and product owner I know how difficult it is to built really good software, so my compliments to Markus. Anyway, if you want to mind map on a Apple device, there is in my mind no other option than MindNode.