MindNode is Becoming MindNode Classic

It's hard to believe that MindNode celebrated its 16th anniversary earlier this year. Over the past decade, the app has expanded from Mac to iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. This expansion necessitates seamless document accessibility and up-to-date availability across all devices. Collaboration with peers on documents is also a key feature. These are things that will soon become an integral part of MindNode.

Document Syncing in MindNode

MindNode was one of the pioneers in adopting iCloud to ensure documents are available on all devices. However, the app was never great at gracefully handling simultaneous changes on multiple devices. This issue often resulted in showing a "Conflict Resolution" dialog. Sharing documents with others who also made changes was particularly challenging. Several years ago, we embarked on a mission to improve this situation. Despite our best efforts, we encountered difficulties bringing our planned changes to MindNode. Providing seamless sync, live collaboration, and other new features was impossible when storing documents as files on disk. We revised our plans and started to develop a new app, "MindNode Next," that now manages its documents directly in the app and synchronizes them using CloudKit. This Apple service powers many of Apple's apps, like Photos or Freeform.

MindNode Next was initially released for Apple Vision Pro early this year, and it's now expanding to iPhone, iPad, and Mac. We can share more information on the launch in a few days.

The Future of MindNode

With the release of MindNode Next, we will soon rename the current version of MindNode to "MindNode Classic." This name change aims to better distinguish between the two versions of MindNode. We understand that MindNode Classic holds significant importance for many of our users, and we are committed to continue supporting it. Our team will continue to work on shipping enhancements and bug fixes for MindNode Classic. For instance, we will enhance connections in several areas in the upcoming update.

Transitioning to MindNode Next

While MindNode Next is already a powerful mind mapping application, some MindNode Classic features are currently unavailable. For instance, manual layout and numerous exporters have not yet been implemented. Some long-time MindNode users may not want to adopt Next immediately, while we add those features in the coming months. Considering that we will continue supporting Classic, there is no need to switch to it immediately. My recommendation is to continue working with existing documents in MindNode Classic and give MindNode Next a try for new projects. This adoption approach has been successful for me over the past year during my slow adoption of Next.

Two Apps, One Subscription

We are also ensuring a seamless transition for you. MindNode Classic and MindNode Next are part of the same MindNode Plus subscription. Consequently, you can utilize both apps without incurring any additional costs.

Due to a request by Apple, we had to hide MindNode Classic on the App Store. You will no longer see it when you search for it, however you can redownload it any time from your list of purchased items or by using the direct link (iOS and macOS).

MindNode has a very exciting future ahead, and I'm excited to share more about the features we are now enabling with the release of MindNode Next for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Thank you for being part of this journey!