The Omni Group is an American software company that develops software for the

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

, iOS, and

watchOS watchOS is the operating system of the Apple Watch, developed by Apple Inc. It is based on iOS, the operating system used by the iPhone, and has many similar features. It was released on April 24, 2015, along with the Apple Watch, the only d ...

platforms. The Omni Group was informally founded as a

NEXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT Computer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its range of propri ...

consulting company in 1989 by

Wil Shipley William "Wil" Jon Shipley (born October 16, 1969) is a Macintosh software developer, best known for co-founding and heading The Omni Group in 1991, where he did consulting work and developed software for the NeXTSTEP operating system, Rhapsody a ...

, who immediately brought on Ken Case and Tim Wood. The three incorporated together under the name Omni Development, Inc. in 1993, because the name "Omni Group" was taken by another Seattle firm. Omni initially produced custom database software for the NEXTSTEP platform for clients such as the

William Morris Agency The William Morris Agency (WMA) was a Hollywood-based talent agency. It represented some of the best known 20th-century entertainers in film, television, and music. During its 109-year tenure it came to be regarded as the "first great talent ag ...

and

McCaw Cellular Communications McCaw Cellular Communications was a cellular telephone pioneer in the United States. Savvy licensing of cellular spectrum in the early 1980s put McCaw Cellular in an extremely strong position, quickly outpacing the growth of the "Baby Bells" in t ...

(then

Cingular Wireless AT&T Mobility LLC, also known as AT&T Wireless and marketed as simply AT&T, is an American telecommunications company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Inc. and provides wireless services in the United States. AT&T Mobility is the t ...

; now AT&T Inc.). During this period they also ported a number of games to NEXTSTEP, then later to

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...

(after Apple acquired NeXT in 1997). Around 2000 the company decided to start focusing on their own consumer applications for the Mac, and as of 2004 the vast majority of their revenue came from their consumer products. In 2003, Ken Case took over as the chief officer of Omni, and in March 2004 Wil Shipley left with another Omni employee, interface designer

Mike Matas Michael Matas (born March 23, 1986) is an American user interface designer and icon artist. He has previously worked at The Omni Group doing interface and graphic design work. Matas co-founded Delicious Monster. In 2005 he went to work for Appl ...

, to form

Delicious Monster Delicious Monster is a software company based in Seattle, Washington, that sells the shareware software program ''Delicious Library''. Its founders are Wil Shipley, one of the three co-founders of The Omni Group, and Mike Matas, who worked as an ...

. Matas later left for Apple. The Omni Group also administers several

mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...

s related to macOS and software development. They also provide several frameworks for

Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter an ...

software development under an

open source license An open-source license is a type of license for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial comp ...

OmniGraffle OmniGraffle is a diagramming and digital illustration application for macOS and iOS created by The Omni Group. Uses OmniGraffle is used to create graphics and visuals. The application features several design tools, along with a drag-and-dr ...

and OmniOutliner have won

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...

Editors' Choice Awards. At the Macintosh

Worldwide Developers Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is usually held at Apple Park in California. The event is usually used to showcase new software and technologies in t ...

in 2001, OmniWeb 4.0 won two

Apple Design Awards The Apple Design Awards (ADAs) is an event hosted by Apple Inc. at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The purpose of the event is to recognize the best and most innovative Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a fa ...

: "Best Mac OS X User Experience" and "Best New Mac OS X Product." In 2002, OmniGraffle 2.0 won two more Apple Design Awards.

Products

Productivity

* OmniDazzle * OmniDictionary *

OmniDiskSweeper OmniDiskSweeper is a freeware disk space analyzer utility for macOS developed by The Omni Group, which recursively searches a filesystem and displays entries sorted and color-coded by size, from largest to smallest. Alternatives include DaisyDisk ...

* OmniGraphSketcher * OmniOutliner *

OmniPlan OmniPlan is a planning and project management software product from The Omni Group, headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The software was released as a public beta on June 6, 2006. In a June 2007 evaluation of OmniPlan 1.0, Macworld, a web site ...

OmniWeb OmniWeb is a discontinued web browser that was developed and marketed by The Omni Group exclusively for Apple's macOS operating system. Though a stable version is no longer maintained, it is still available as a free download and unstable version ...

OmniFocus OmniFocus is a personal task manager by the Omni Group for macOS and iOS. The declared goal of the program is to be able to capture thoughts and ideas into to do lists. The program uses concepts and techniques described in the book and producti ...

OmniPresence allows a folder sync via OmniSync or WebDAV server.

Frameworks

The Omni Group uses many

frameworks A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of. Framework may refer to: Computing * Application framework, used to implement the structure of an application for an op ...

in their applications, and releases them under an

.The Omni Source License: a modification of the MIT License
/ref> Most of the frameworks are dependent on the macOS platform, and require

Xcode Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It was initially released in late 2003; the latest stable release is version 14.2, released on December 13, ...

2.3 and thus

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living Felidae, cat species and a member of the genus ''Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily pr ...

. * OmniAppKit * OmniBase * OmniFoundation * OmniHTML * OmniNetworking * Omni Web Framework

Games

As users of a platform that was not targeted by commercial porting houses, the Omni Group historically did

source port A source port is a software project based on the source code of a game engine that allows the game to be played on operating systems or computing platforms with which the game was not originally compatible. Description Source ports are often c ...

s of games for NeXTStep/OpenStep

pro bono ( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...

, especially maintenance updates of id games. They continued to do so during the transition through Rhapsody into macOS, catching the eye of the existing Macintosh games industry in the process, and were then contracted to port a number of games commercially. * '' Activision Anthology Remix'' * ''

Alchemy Deluxe Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim ...

'' * '' Aliens versus Predator 2'' * '' Big Money! Deluxe'' * ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...

'' * '' Doom II: Hell on Earth'' * ''

Fallout Nuclear fallout is the residual radioactive material propelled into the upper atmosphere following a nuclear blast, so called because it "falls out" of the sky after the explosion and the shock wave has passed. It commonly refers to the radioac ...

'' * ''

Fallout 2 ''Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game'' is a 1998 role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Productions. It is a sequel to ''Fallout'' (1997), featuring similar graphics and game mechanics. The ...

'' * '' Freedom Force'' * '' Giants: Citizen Kabuto'' * '' Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.²'' * '' Incoming'' * '' No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way'' * '' Oni'' (

) * '' Quake'' * ''

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to '' Quake''. The game's storyline is continued in its ...

'' * '' Quake III: Arena'' * '' Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix''

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Omni Group, The Macintosh software companies Companies based in Seattle Software companies of the United States Companies established in 1989 Video game companies of the United States Video game development companies Apple Design Awards recipients