Far too expensive
Downloading this app only to find it’s 100 bucks if I want to use it beyond the trial period? Very frustrating.
Amazing, Flexible and One of the Best Support Teams to Help. Thank you.
I am a writing a novel series and I decided I would give Aeon Timeline 3 a go. I have used Aeon Two before for other projects, but for a novel.
This app is not for actually writing a novel rather it is for creating the entire framework. Previously I used a number of applications to craft worldviews, characters (profiles, plots, arcs and their all the associated content, relational diagrams), locations and their descriptions, well I could go on. Now I use Aeon Timeline 3 to do all those things and more. Before, I had files every where, now I have just 2 files to look after. My worldview file and my Novel file in Aeon Timeline 3. Life is so much easier, and more time to write instead of looking for stuff all over.
I use Scrivener to write my events / scenes and that won’t change in the foreseeable future. The other fantastic feature is the synchronisation with Scrivener. I can work in either application and synchronise my novel. Best part for me was being able to take all my information in Aeon Time 3 and have it synchronise to Scrivener, so that information was at hand when writing scenes. I love it. Another positive was support documentation and then the customer service which is exceptional. I use it all the time to ask how to do things and to share experience. They won’t to know. Thank you Aeon Timeline 3 for making life easier and thank you to the staff for being so helpful.
This app is not for actually writing a novel rather it is for creating the entire framework. Previously I used a number of applications to craft worldviews, characters (profiles, plots, arcs and their all the associated content, relational diagrams), locations and their descriptions, well I could go on. Now I use Aeon Timeline 3 to do all those things and more. Before, I had files every where, now I have just 2 files to look after. My worldview file and my Novel file in Aeon Timeline 3. Life is so much easier, and more time to write instead of looking for stuff all over.
I use Scrivener to write my events / scenes and that won’t change in the foreseeable future. The other fantastic feature is the synchronisation with Scrivener. I can work in either application and synchronise my novel. Best part for me was being able to take all my information in Aeon Time 3 and have it synchronise to Scrivener, so that information was at hand when writing scenes. I love it. Another positive was support documentation and then the customer service which is exceptional. I use it all the time to ask how to do things and to share experience. They won’t to know. Thank you Aeon Timeline 3 for making life easier and thank you to the staff for being so helpful.
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this does exactly what i want in a timeline
my make or breaks:
works on mobile- this runs perfect on my ipad and has no problems with the aspect ratio
horizontal timeline- it’s stupid but i can’t explain how many other timelines are vertical and my brain just does not work that way
tags and color markers- i have like 4 stories in the same universe that i want to be able to plan out together due to having some crossover but be able to visually separate them because they are still different stories
the ability to zoom in and out on the timeline- sometimes i want to see every thing and sometimes i like focusing on a specific period of time depending on what i’m doing
some other qol features i like are, the ability to select a character and see what events they’re in, spreadsheet view, character groups, and story arcs.
works on mobile- this runs perfect on my ipad and has no problems with the aspect ratio
horizontal timeline- it’s stupid but i can’t explain how many other timelines are vertical and my brain just does not work that way
tags and color markers- i have like 4 stories in the same universe that i want to be able to plan out together due to having some crossover but be able to visually separate them because they are still different stories
the ability to zoom in and out on the timeline- sometimes i want to see every thing and sometimes i like focusing on a specific period of time depending on what i’m doing
some other qol features i like are, the ability to select a character and see what events they’re in, spreadsheet view, character groups, and story arcs.
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Good but…
First of all…I LOVE the Mac app, its amazing. The phone app pairs well with it and I love that it syncs between them.
However, the phone app is glitchy a lot of the time. Most common issue is that every time I try to scroll to the bottom of a page or list I can’t tap the bottom option. Its very annoying. Also, if you tilt your phone to the side it will send you back to another menu and you will lose whatever you were working on.
However, the phone app is glitchy a lot of the time. Most common issue is that every time I try to scroll to the bottom of a page or list I can’t tap the bottom option. Its very annoying. Also, if you tilt your phone to the side it will send you back to another menu and you will lose whatever you were working on.
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crippled app
The description for this app is deceptive. There is NO option to export data in any way from the iOS app. So on the go, you won’t be able to share anything. The file icon inexplicably drops you into the Files app with no way to get back to the app. The logic of this is baffling.
It’s so good for fiction
It has an outline mode, timeline, it can show durations of events and single pinpoint events, I can even make family trees! This has been the best purchase I’ve made for outlining my large fictional story that spans decades and in many locations in a country. The price is well worth it, a steal even.
If the developers read this:
Honestly I love that you can label “locations” of events but another view that would be mind blowing so I could have everything I want on a single app would be a timeline-map feature such as when mapping out distances between two points and the journey from point A to point B to point C etc. since you can already upload images if you could have some sort of static map image that you upload that you can then pin locations and label the distance between points manually (so that it can work for real maps and fictional ones) and if you can slide through time and each time would have the linked character labels associated with said events in the pinpointed locations , it would be ideal.
If the developers read this:
Honestly I love that you can label “locations” of events but another view that would be mind blowing so I could have everything I want on a single app would be a timeline-map feature such as when mapping out distances between two points and the journey from point A to point B to point C etc. since you can already upload images if you could have some sort of static map image that you upload that you can then pin locations and label the distance between points manually (so that it can work for real maps and fictional ones) and if you can slide through time and each time would have the linked character labels associated with said events in the pinpointed locations , it would be ideal.
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The best outlining tool
This is the best outlining tool out there. I’ve tried them all. With every tool I’ve come across, I never got past the trial period before I encountered a behavior of error that made look elsewhere. This tool has everything I need, and a year later I still haven’t found something better.
I’ve seen a few reviews complaining about the licensing, and honestly, it’s not that hard. It’s a license. You get a year of updates and you get to keep it forever. If you want future updates, to pay half the price of the app. Honestly I prefer this model to anything else I’ve come across. No subscription. No need to pay full price for future versions. It’s the perfect compromise and I wish other companies used this monetization method.
I’ve seen a few reviews complaining about the licensing, and honestly, it’s not that hard. It’s a license. You get a year of updates and you get to keep it forever. If you want future updates, to pay half the price of the app. Honestly I prefer this model to anything else I’ve come across. No subscription. No need to pay full price for future versions. It’s the perfect compromise and I wish other companies used this monetization method.
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A structured-data nerd's dream
If you are all about the fourth normal form, metadata and relationships and categorizations and custom data structures, you will love this program.
Not that any sort of deep-customization is needed to use this app, but for the willing the ability to create your own entities, their relationships, attribute, parentage as well as to specify their relationship to time in as preceise or fuzzy way as you want are quite enjoyable.
You can edit your schemas as you go too and it has graceful ways to deal with dependencies and merging of entities when you make changes. No need to make all of the decisions up front. Really impressive. You can tell the designers were DBAs.
Not that any sort of deep-customization is needed to use this app, but for the willing the ability to create your own entities, their relationships, attribute, parentage as well as to specify their relationship to time in as preceise or fuzzy way as you want are quite enjoyable.
You can edit your schemas as you go too and it has graceful ways to deal with dependencies and merging of entities when you make changes. No need to make all of the decisions up front. Really impressive. You can tell the designers were DBAs.
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So Close
I’ve tried to use this for about a year. And I think it could be terrific. But it is difficult to use. The developers have provided an online knowledge base with different topics. Okay. But I’d actually like a manual that I can reference with out having to open a window and search. I also think that the selection of vocabulary like “parents” and “relationships” makes the software more difficult to understand. The timeline choices are narrow, particularly if you are writing fiction that is more episodic. This app has broad application for projects that are not fiction, such as research projects or businesses. If that is what you are doing I think you will be very happy with this software. Unfortunately, I’m looking for other options.
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Good application for managing $70 million+ projects
A+++
Better and better
I’ve owned Aeon Timeline for quite a while but I confess I never made much use of the earlier versions. They were too confusing to me and I was not able/willing to commit the energy to figuring out how to make it work for me. Now it seems completely transparent and it has made a huge difference in planning my current novel. The ability to see the same data in different views is very valuable. What isn’t visible in the spreadsheet view jumps out in the narrative view. Glad to have this!
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Excellent App
I am very impressed with the App. It is VERY feature rich and easy to use. It is aesthetically pleasing. There are many ways to organize data. There are multiple import and export options. It is truly an excellent app and I had never heard of it before until I came to the App Store searching for a Timeline app because I needed to make one. I am very happy to have found this app!
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Du pur génie
Je cherchais depuis longtemps une application qui me permettrait de faire une ligne du temps pour suivre l’évolution de l’architecture du paysage à travers le temps. Ce logiciel est extrêmement complet, précis et optimisé. Un énorme coup de coeur. Je recommande.
Licensing is a rip-off (do not waste your money)
I bought this at version 3.1.6, and found it useful for managing smaller projects. I bought a new MAC and noticed that I am being charged again, with no restore purchase button anywhere, just a new subscription model and read-only mode. When software companies do this they prioritize profit over value which means the consumer always loses, now I am left with a bunch of useless Aeon formatted project files because I cant edit them on my new MAC without paying once again for the ability to do so, feels like ransomware. Apple needs to stop letting these scammers in the App Store.
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Bad
I tried using this to keep track of my timeline for a book I’m writing no matter how many times I tired it keep trying to use real world times as well as auto correcting dates I put in breaking a timeline every time I did it by putting in current dates messing everything up.
Service tries their best.
Not always stable and in some crucial moments excrutiating, but the support does do their best and they manage. It used be quite straightforward, the software is, becoming so big now, I am losing a bit track and I am sure I am not employing most of it. But then again, for that, for which I need it, it works fine.
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Fake
$$$$$
Lots of Features but Doesn’t Scale Well
I’ve been impressed with the number of features this app (and also the PC version) have to offer. However I have a rather large dataset of approximately 25K+ elements (mostly events) and this tool very noticeably struggles with that amount of data. One serious annoyance is that when creating a new event, it seems to want to save every field after I enter it. Why wouldn’t the app just save everything at once when the event is completely filled out an all the data has been entered? From a programming standpoint this makes absolutely zero sense. My takeaway so far is that this could be an absolutely incredible app if the developers would take the time to optimize it to operate at larger scales.
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Frustratingly, Almost Great
I've tried this twice now and I'd hoped in the interim between uses it would've synced up more with its own functionality. No such luck. The subway view is great, and is the biggest organizational selling point for me. Unfortunately, unlike the timeline, the subway map isn't auto-generated based on entries to the narrative. You have to create your subway map independently of the other tabs. So, there's a lot of repetition, and then what, updates to the narratives require updates to the subway map? There might actually be a way to sync it all up, but my general point of view on productivity apps is, if you have to spend hours figuring a feature out, you're not being all that productive. Figma is intuitive, and arguably a more complex app. So are a lot of apps, actually. I don't mind a learning curve, but I've learned new programming languages easier than this. If you want to improve this app let people enter their content... full stop. The app should be what organizes it visually. I'll be asking for my money back.
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Complicated but worth it
While it has a bit of a learning curve, Aeon Timeline won me over for a few key reasons: 1) Robust timeline feature coupled with a narrative layout 2)Multiple flexible views of the data from timelines to relationships to mindmaps 3) Integration with Ulysses which I already used (though darn, not iOS) 4) Very affordable price for all these features 5) Read only access to files if subscription lapses 6) the “pay as you need it” model — while I get perpetual subscriptions help pay devs, sometimes you don’t need every new bell and whistle. This model allows me to keep using the software as I need it until it either ceases to work on the hardware I own or has a feature I just can’t live without.
This is incentive for both me and the devs — for me to keep using it because it has what I need and I don’t feel forced to pay, but also to the devs to keep a steady stream of features in the queue to incentivize me to pay again.
Bravo Aeon team. Keep up the good work.
This is incentive for both me and the devs — for me to keep using it because it has what I need and I don’t feel forced to pay, but also to the devs to keep a steady stream of features in the queue to incentivize me to pay again.
Bravo Aeon team. Keep up the good work.
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