Jott out of beta (=$$$)

[mcogilvie]

Email this morning announced Jott is "out of beta", meaning there is now tiered pricing. [For those who don't know, Jott is a service that transcribes voice messages into text, which can then be emailed or sent to other programs, et cetera.] There seem to be four possibilities: a free, minimal service with ads, a basic service ($3.95/month), and a premium service($12.95/month), plus a pay-as-you-go option. Links to "premium services" like Google Calendar, Remember the Milk or Toodledo require a paid account. Jott is also introducing a desktop app (using Adobe air for off-the-net use) and some kind of Outlook connection.

I am curious as to how other Jott users will react. I have been using Jott a bit more the last few months, but I will probably stop using it. While the transcriptions are very good, Jott's attempts to add value with, e.g., list management tools seem only fair to me. The primary value of Jott to me is to route stuff into other, better services, and I am paying less for these than I would for Jott.

[ckennedy]

I've been playing with the Outlook plug in this morning. Still early to tell, but so far the ability to drop items directly into my Outlook calendar or task list, plus the interplay between the desktop, web and iphone apps is likely to make the $3.95 per month cost a no-brainer for me.
Craig

[sidsavara]

Pricing seems pretty fair - the service they provide is so useful I agree, $4 a month for the minimum seems totally reasonable. At that price it's still basically free.

That said, I'm generally not a fan of the free beta and then pay for the same service - but it's such an effective way of turning people from "free trial" into customers that I can see why everyone does it. Sneaky ;)

[cellmatrix]

These two apps are free, simple and sync flawlessly together. So, if you are a plain vanilla type like me, they are worth checking out.

[Julian]

Jot express should be useful.
After a quick free download to my laptop, I see the Jott notes created on the iPhone.

[mydifferentfeet]

I am very mobile and travel a good amount for work.

I signed up for the $3.95 per month service and immediately found value in the Outlook app extension. When I saw that I can dictate email drafts via the Outlook plug in, I think I will upgrade to the $11.95 per month version because I can dictate 30 secs worth of email draft instead of 15 secs that come with the $3.95 per month service.

There might be some other benefits the premium service has over the mid-tier service, but that extra 15 secs worth of dictation time makes it worth it for me. Basically, the ability to draft an email from the phone to a client, co-work, friend or family and then do a quick review of it once I get back to the computer should have some tremendous time savings for me. It's easy to justify the expense given it will help me communicate faster and more efficiently with clients.

[cellmatrix]

I have noticed that as of a couple days ago, Jott has removed their iphone application from the apple store and has stripped all reference to the Jott iphone app from their website. Too bad, it was great while it lasted........

[mcogilvie]

I have noticed that as of a couple days ago, Jott has removed their iphone application from the apple store and has stripped all reference to the Jott iphone app from their website. Too bad, it was great while it lasted........

Jott says the app will be back this month after they have tweaked it for machine transcription.

[cellmatrix]

yes I saw that this morning. Since they removed all references to Jott iphone app from their website including where it fits in the free plan, I suspect that the Jott iphone app will not be free once it comes back. I hope I am wrong.

[dschaffner]

yes I saw that this morning. Since they removed all references to Jott iphone app from their website including where it fits in the free plan, I suspect that the Jott iphone app will not be free once it comes back. I hope I am wrong.

The good news is that for those of us who have the app, it still seems to be working.

I find that while I use the iphone app, it's not really all that critical to my system. What I really use is iphone -> jott -> email -> omnifocus, which works nearly flawlessly.

- Don

[vatark]

What I really use is iphone -> jott -> email -> omnifocus, which works nearly flawlessly.Why not just use Omnifocus for the iPhone and sync with your computer's Omnifocus database?

Has the bonus of being a one-off payment for Omnifocus for the iPhone compared to a monthly fee, possibly, for using Jott.

I use Spinvox (http://spinvox.com/) for voicemails from my iPhone and it transcribes them and sends them as e-mails and/or SMS.

They also offer a Jott like service too that is free to use. Might be worth a look for those unhappy with Jott's charging.

[cellmatrix]

The good news is that for those of us who have the app, it still seems to be working.

I find that while I use the iphone app, it's not really all that critical to my system. What I really use is iphone -> jott -> email -> omnifocus, which works nearly flawlessly.

- Don

I tried this, but found the " iphone -> jott -> email -> omnifocus" maneuver always put "(Jott)" at the beginning of the task name and cut the end of the task name off, so that unless the task name was extremely short, it could only be viewed in omnifocus's notes section. This was not practical for me and I got fed up revising, cutting and pasting, just to get the damn task out of my omnifocus inbox - as much work as it would have been transcribing it myself.

I also got fed up with all the extra overhead omnifocus required. In general omnifocus is an amazing program, like many of the other omnigroup products, but if you look at it closely it really is a departure from GTD the way David Allen originally described it. Jott iphone makes you to practice GTD much closer to how David describes it in his book ie: you put dated items in the calendar not your todo list, you don't bother nesting tasks under projects, and you keep notes in separate project support files.

So for plain vanilla folks like me, Jott iphone is easy one stop GTD based task management. I just dictate, the task is fully displayed and placed in the right action/waiting/someday or project list in one fell swoop, and the 90% of the time, the dictation is either correct or I can live with it, so there is very little typing.

I am glad the Jott iphone app still appears to have a future but I suppose I would pay for it if forced to. Its great that its free now.

[dschaffner]

Why not just use Omnifocus for the iPhone and sync with your computer's Omnifocus database?

Has the bonus of being a one-off payment for Omnifocus for the iPhone compared to a monthly fee, possibly, for using Jott.


I do have the OF iphone app. It's great for seeing what I have to do, and for checking stuff off, but it's lousy for ubiquitous capture (it's just too slow). I often think of things to do while driving or walking the dogs. Text entry just doesn't work.

I use the Jott pay-as-you-go plan: 10 min for $9.95. It's cheap.

- Don

[dschaffner]

I tried this, but found the " iphone -> jott -> email -> omnifocus" maneuver always put "(Jott)" at the beginning of the task name and cut the end of the task name off, so that unless the task name was extremely short, it could only be viewed in omnifocus's notes section. This was not practical for me and I got fed up revising, cutting and pasting, just to get the damn task out of my omnifocus inbox - as much work as it would have been transcribing it myself.

I also got fed up with all the extra overhead omnifocus required. In general omnifocus is an amazing program, like many of the other omnigroup products, but if you look at it closely it really is a departure from GTD the way David Allen originally described it. Jott iphone makes you to practice GTD much closer to how David describes it in his book ie: you put dated items in the calendar not your todo list, you don't bother nesting tasks under projects, and you keep notes in separate project support files.


Thanks for your comments.

I'm using mail.app and the OF scipts and have not seen any of the problems you describe with stuff in the OF inbox. Generally its just a matter of finding the project and the context and the item is processed.

I don't really see how OF is a departure from canonical GTD, but maybe I haven't been using the program long enough.

I think I would have trouble just using Jott for all my next actions, as there is just too much to track.

- Don

[cellmatrix]

Thanks for your comments.

I'm using mail.app and the OF scipts and have not seen any of the problems you describe with stuff in the OF inbox. Generally its just a matter of finding the project and the context and the item is processed.

I don't really see how OF is a departure from canonical GTD, but maybe I haven't been using the program long enough.

I think I would have trouble just using Jott for all my next actions, as there is just too much to track.

- Don

Thanks for your comments about the jott to mail.app to omnifocus sync in the jott out of beta thread.

I was reassured that my problem appears to be uniquely my own and that others like you are doing ok with jott to mail.app to omnifocus.

For me, emails from Jott always seem to have either (Jott) or (Jott to actions) at the beginning of the title, and the task name seems always to be cut off in the title after about three words with the full task name is only in the body of the email.

The built in omnifocus mail script just copies the truncated title with (Jott) at the beginning into the task name, and the full task name is buried in the notes section. This requires a lot of cutting and pasting as I explained above.

Since you are apparently not having the same problem, I assume you must be using a different script than I am. If you would be so kind as to provide a link for this script, or otherwise explain how you manage this, I would greatly appreciate it and it would likely inspire me to again give omnifocus a try.

Thanks in advance for your help

[dschaffner]

Since you are apparently not having the same problem, I assume you must be using a different script than I am. If you would be so kind as to provide a link for this script, or otherwise explain how you manage this, I would greatly appreciate it and it would likely inspire me to again give omnifocus a try.


The script I am using is attached.

You might also try looking for help on the very active OF forums: http://forums.omnigroup.com/forumdisplay.php?f=42&styleid=2

- Don

[cellmatrix]

The script I am using is attached.


it worked great, thanks!

[cellmatrix]

The script I am using is attached.

You might also try looking for help on the very active OF forums: http://forums.omnigroup.com/forumdisplay.php?f=42&styleid=2

- Don

Have you noticed that Jott changed their email template again, and now the script does not work anymore?

[dschaffner]

Have you noticed that Jott changed their email template again, and now the script does not work anymore?

[sigh] yeah.

I edited the script and posted my fix over at the Omnifocus forums.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=57223#post57223

- Don

[fingal]

If you were like me and was a low key (free) user of Jott, I found Reqall as a alternative (www.reqall.com). I used to call Jott from my Blackberry, record an action item and by the time I got to work, the message was waiting in my company Outlook Inbox.

Reqall again allows me to do that. Plus in the process I associated Voice Dialing with the side key on my BB. Now I push the button, say "Call My Notes (I named the Reqall phone number My Notes) and I'm ready to record.

Life is good."

[cellmatrix]

[sigh] yeah.

I edited the script and posted my fix over at the Omnifocus forums.

http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=57223#post57223

- Don

yes, the adjustments did the trick, Jott to Omnifocus is up and running again!
Thanks!

[Ben Atwater]

There is also a free native BB client for ReQall
-Ben

[mcogilvie]

There is also a free native BB client for ReQall
-Ben

There's a new 2.0 iPhone client. The description sounds interesting, but it's so slow I haven't tried anything.