# Mindscope - Thought Organizer — user reviews > 181 indexed App Store user reviews of Mindscope by John Goering, rated 4.00/5 from 46 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mindscope-thought-organizer/id901513028/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mindscope-thought-organizer/id901513028.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 26 · 4★ 7 · 3★ 6 · 2★ 3 · 1★ 4 ## What do users think of Mindscope? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Intuitive and easy-to-learn interface - 💡 Unique hybrid of mind-mapping, outliner, and note-taking - 🎯 Excellent for organizing thoughts without clutter - ⚡ Fast and responsive performance - 💰 Affordable one-time purchase ($5) - 🔄 Flexible free-form spatial organization - 📤 Export functionality (OPML, text, email) - 🎨 Clean, minimalist design - 🧠 Great for ADHD and divergent thinkers - 🔗 Cross-linking and hierarchy system - 📚 Drill-down capability for organizing details - ⌨️ Keyboard shortcut support (in later versions) - 👨‍💻 Responsive and friendly developer **Cons** - 🐛 Frequent crashes and stability issues - 📱 Poor iPad optimization and crashes - ⚠️ Text overlapping in free version - 🔄 Sync issues across multiple devices - 📵 Limited iCloud functionality and hanging - 🖼️ No image or photo support - ✏️ No Apple Pencil support - 🔤 No text formatting (bold, colors, fonts) - 📄 Limited canvas size (not infinite) - 🗂️ Poor file management system - ❌ No multi-document support - 🔌 Lack of recent updates and maintenance - 📲 No iPhone version available - 🔗 Limited import/export compatibility - ⌨️ Keyboard support issues in earlier versions - 🎯 Overly sensitive grouping behavior - 💾 Data loss on iOS upgrades **Commonly reported bugs** - App crashes when adding entries - Text input box disappears before typing - Crashes on iPad with iOS 15 upgrade - iCloud access causes app to hang indefinitely - Crashes when exporting to plain text - Data loss during iOS version upgrades - Layout issues when rotating device orientation - Crashes when searching linked elements - Crashes when inserting text - Bluetooth keyboard input not working (earlier versions) - Audio playback interruption - Alignment and sync issues across devices - Copy-paste groups items on top of originals - Undo/redo sequence inconsistencies - Version 1.5 splash screen hang on startup **Most requested features** - Image and photo insertion capability - Apple Pencil handwriting support - Text formatting (bold, colors, font options) - Infinite or larger canvas with zoom - iPhone app version - Cloud sync (Dropbox, iCloud improvements) - Multiple independent maps/documents - Dark mode theme - Better file management system - Import from other mind-mapping apps - Color-coding individual entries - Calendar and reminders integration - Web version or Mac companion app - Notification features - Improved animation controls - Circular context menu for faster access - Plain text export without HTML markup - Randomize board item locations - Flowchart options ## Newest reviews (15 of 181) ### 2/5 — Overlapping Text *2025-04-08, version 1.60* I got the free version to try and it has a lot of overlapping text. I decided not to buy. ### 4/5 — Great App - one wish *2024-08-23* Was looking for something like scapple on the iPad and iPhone, found Mindscope, great. Here my wish: option to import/export from/to scapple 😃 ### 3/5 — Can’t add photos *2024-07-12* So far I’m loving this app but a big drawback is not being able to add photos which is important to my digital mind mapping experience as a writer and an artist. ### 4/5 — Novel Planning 4 stars *2023-06-04* I’m giving Mindscope 4 stars, because I needed a portable, fast way to fill in all aspects of novel planning, that could then be exported to other apps for desktop based planning and writing. I haven’t explored that aspect yet, so I can’t give it 5 just yet. That will be the icing on this cake. On my desktop I use Scapple from Literature and Latte who make Scrivener. Similar reason in the it’s a free placement system. However, I like Mindscope’s hierarchy system. This lets me have a short and snappy top level, and drill down for detail. Scrivener does something similar, but not free placement and the ipad version isn’t as good as the desktop anyway. For reference, I’m still using the free version. But fast approaching buying and unlocking other goodies. ### 4/5 — アップデートありがとうございます！ *2022-09-26* 開発継続してもらえて嬉しいです。 ただBluetoothキーボードでショートカットを入力するとアプリが落ちました。確認できましたら修正して頂きたいです。 **Developer response:** キーボードは今すぐ使える！してみてください！ ### 3/5 — Is Mindscope still being developed? *2022-07-24* Hadn’t opened the app in a while and found that all my data was lost on the upgrade to iOS 15. Looks like the last update was 4 years ago. Sad but can no longer trust it so… delete ### 4/5 — Great for organizing thoughts, needs Apple Pencil suppport *2020-10-29* This app is amazing for organizing chaotic thoughts. But I need the ability to create notes by writing with the Apple Pencil. Then it would be nearly perfect. It’s also needs a top level menu to separate multiple lists. ### 5/5 — Negative reviews for this app are bizarre to me. *2020-04-28* Seriously, I have tried many apps trying to find something simple and easy to connect and delete my thoughts. I actually could have just kept using the free version but I used it so much and really appreciate that there are no advertisements. I have spent way more money on apps I will never use again. Thank you developer. ### 5/5 — Like a mindmap, but better! *2020-04-19* I wish I had this program when I was in medical school. It allows me to put as little (or as much) info as needed onto the page. A lot of the times when I studied, I felt overwhelmed by the amount of material I had to learn. Mindmaps, with their silly lines, made things more complicated. A nice, simple program like this definitely would have helped me memorize things like the branches of the brachial plexus. I am using it right now for my todo lists, and when my kids are older, I’m sure they will find it helpful for schoolwork too. ### 5/5 — need to be optimized for ios 13 *2019-12-11* i love mindscope coz of its simple and easy control user interface. i usually use for my lecture note preperation. it is quite effective to organize facts and thoughts. But now i was faced with trouble to import my backup file to mindscope in iOS 12 (not in iOS 12). This is my second time trouble :D fisrt is more worse bcoz i loss all data of my notes after upgrading my iOS 13 >.< i give 5 star even it has errors :) i'm waiting hopefully your optimization or solution for my trouble. ### 5/5 — Fluid, clear, and effective *2019-10-08* I've had Mediascope for a few days now and I find it to be an excellent text based mindmap app. It has a clear design that makes it easy to start doing useful work. I'm sure its users will come up with many uses. I use it to create a mindmap of to-dos that I want to keep track of but am not yet ready to put them in my calendar with a date and a time. It's easy to create and move my items around the mindmap as I do my planning just by touching them and moving them to where I want. I like that I can export via OPML, a data standard recognized by many outliners and other mindmap apps. Mediascope is welcome addition to my life guidance system. In future updates I'd like to suggest two possibilities- the ability to assign individual colors to any word or letter in the mindmap. Second, to be able to export any individual mindmap element into iCal. I recommend Mediascope to anyone wanting to organize information in a visual manner. Excellent app. UPDATE I've now been using Mindscope for about ten months. And still find it to be a very useful part of my planning process. It is unbelievably fluid to revise, extend and, combine them. About a week ago I migrated all my mindmaps off of my old iPad and on to my new iPad Pro. I emailed each separate mindmap to myself, downloaded and imported all 22 mindmaps into the new installation. It was cumbersome but it worked. Perhaps the developer will provide a more elegant migration method in a future upgrade. At this point my biggest concern is that the developer hasn't updated the app in a year. I hope this isn't the first step on the road to obsolescence. However the big picture is that Mindscope is an excellent mindmapping program that I use almost every day. UPDATE 8 Oct 2019 I’m running Ver 1.5 and I can’t get into my mindmaps. I reply no to the question about using iCloud for backups. I get the confirmation reply. Then the app hangs up on a “Welcome to MindScope 1.5 splash screen. Crickets. Please advise asap. Thank you. ### 2/5 — Data is lost *2019-10-01* After updating to ios 13 looks like data is lost. Unfortunately I didn't backup on iCloud. Is there any solution? ### 2/5 — Frustrating *2019-09-28, version 1.55* The app repeatedly crashes when trying to insert text. ### 3/5 — Great but, too sensitive *2019-08-27* Sometimes i just want to make one entry larger than the rest but this app just groups all the other entries even though i gave no indication that this is what i wanted. Just make it so when i want to enlarge an entry it doesn't group the rest of the page along with it and ill give it 5 stars. Also some backend control of the sensitivity like long press and grouping would make it perfect so i can tweak what i want. ### 5/5 — Love this program *2019-07-02* I use it everyday to harness information. I hope that the developers will continue to expand this fantastic program. WELL DONE ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — simple & cool *2022-09-20* 2022/9 アップデートしてもらわないと、今はもう使えないです。 2015/11 使いこめそうです。 11/23 macとipadのmindnodeとMacのscappleを買ったけれど、今、つい使いたくなるのはこれ。まだ無料のまま使っている。いろんな事ができそう。MacやPCのmindscopeもあって、同期できればいいですね。多機能ではなく、シンプルなのに高機能！自分に能力があったら作りたいと思っていたようなアプリかもしれません。mindmapのような一覧性は無い。課金すればmindmapのようなものは描けるようです。 11/25 時々、きちんと整頓した文字列が、ページを変えているうちに戻ってみると崩れている事があった。文章が外側に半分隠れてしまい、引き出さなければならなかったり。 ### 1/5 — Foi abandonado *2022-07-23* 4 anos sem atualizar. Sinal de abandono. ### 1/5 — Steif und undurchsichtige Peisauszeichnung *2020-10-22* Wer damit etwas anfangen will sollte sich direkt die Vollversion kaufen. Ohne Vollversion ist die App als solche relativ sinnlos. Ordentliches Kaufmannsgebaren wäre es, die Preistafel an den Anfang zu setzen und mit einem guten Produkt ins Rennen zu gehen. Ich kaufe beim Auto auch nicht die Karosserie ohne den Motor... Der Preis ist in der Menüleiste versteckt. Macht den Eindruck „eben auch ein Mindmap“ - doch mittelmäßig gepflegt. Da gibt es eleganteres und besseres. Nachdem ich die App gelöscht hatte und nach Monaten nochmal installiert hatte - hupps, wie aus dem Nichts ist die Versuchsdatei wieder auf dem Bildschirm. - Scheint auch Dateimanagement nicht direkt sich zu erschliessen. Nach Freischaltung bekomme ich als Exportergebnis in Scrivener dieses Ergebnis (Auszug): „soon as I can!
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