iPhone Mind Mapping with MindMeister

I’m a huge fan of mind mapping. Especially on the iPhone. One of the most interesting projects in the mind mapping world was a service launched several years ago which allowed online creation and storing of mind maps. Not only that, but it allowed sharing of those mind maps in larger groups, or teams. The service was MindMeister and the site was mindmeister.com. I’m quite happy to review today MindMeister’s vision of how mind mapping should look on the iPhone.

Local and Online Mind Maps

The first thing you’ll notice hen working with MindMeister for iPhone is the distinction between local and online mind maps. The local mind maps are stored on your device, while your online mind maps are the one you have in your account at mindmeister.com. Which, by the way, have to be created in order to fully take advantage of this app. You gotta have an account at mindmeister.com prior to using this, otherwise you’ll lose a lot of fun. But if you already have an account when you open MindMeister for iPhone for the first time you’re going to have a nice surprise: you’ll see all your online maps. I know I was surprised to see mind maps created 2 years ago.

Whenever you want to edit a mind map it will be downloaded and added to your local tab. Clicking on a map will let you edit it while clicking on the blue arrow will show some simple metadata about your mind map.

Editing Mind Maps

Editing mind maps is really easy. The interface is friendly (if not quite slick!) and the app is really responsive.

It also supports autorotating, if you want more space. Adding a child node is really easy, just hit the lower leftmost “+” button and you’ll be prompted with a text field in which you can add the node name.

On the bottom toolbar there’s a link to the options you have for each mind map and those options would be “Share” or “Add to Favorites”:

“Add to Favorites” being pretty self-explanatory, let’s see what “Share” means. Actually, it brings up a screen in which you can invite somebody to see your mind map.

The really interesting stuff happens on the other side of the message. The receiver does not get a mind map, but an invitation to join MindMeister and will be able to see your mind map online.

GeistesBlitz

One of the coolest features of this app is called “GeistesBlitz”, which in German means something like “a flash of an idea”. GeistesBlitz is both a separate app on App Store and a feature of MindMesiter app for the iPhone. When you click on the “GeistesBlitz” icon in the bottom toolbar of the app you’ll get a version of the free app included in the one you already have. Here’s how it looks:

What you can do with it? Well, you add something in the text field, hit “Submit” and something magical happens: your text will be added as a node to your default mind map. You have a default mind map called, “My Mindmap” which is available both on web and on your iPhone. Using GeistesBlitz will create a new node, called, you guessed, “GeistesBlitz” and will add anything you type in the text field to this as a separate node. Although it’s harder to explain it than do it, I find this super nifty.

As I alreadey said “GeistesBlitz” is available as a separate app in AppStore, which basically let you quickly add nodes to your default mind map from wherever you are. Which is cool.

MindMeister for iPhone Conclusions

The app interface is easy and slick, as I would expect knowing the online service. But I couldn’t but notice the lack of notes, icons and other bells and whistles you may find in other iPhone mind mapping apps. Sharing is a very strong point as well as the online integration.

With their unique API for creating and managing mind maps I thing Mind Meister are here in a much bigger game. Having a client to work with a mind map become just a part of the game, but the whole Internet is shifting towards collaborative work and distributed information. Having an API here is essential and it’s a little bigger than just promoting a thin client for working with mind maps.

All in all, MindMeister for iPhone is a revolutionary product and it has won its place in the first screen of my iPhone.