Author vs OmniPlan 4
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Author
This app serves as a companion to its macOS counterpart, offering a minimalist and powerful writing experience on iOS devices. It allows users to create and manage their written content seamlessly across platforms.
- Minimalist writing interface
- Powerful writing tools
- iOS companion app
- Syncs with macOS version
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The iOS companion to Author macOS.
OmniPlan 4
This app offers robust project management capabilities, allowing users to view, edit, and organize complex projects. It provides tools for tracking progress, managing teams, and improving workflows with features like automatic scheduling and critical path highlighting.
- Automatic project scheduling
- Resource leveling
- Team collaboration
- Critical path highlighting
- Interactive Gantt timeline
- Network diagram view
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OmniPlan gives you the power to manage complexity by helping you view, edit, and organize projects. Easily track your progress, manage your team, and continuously improve your processes with powerful project management features including automatic project scheduling, resource leveling, collaboration, milestones, and critical path highlighting. View your project as an interactive Gantt timeline, a customizable project outline, or as a beautiful Network diagram. Manage simple or complex projects—all at a glance. Purchase OmniPlan once for full access to OmniPlan 4 on your Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Vision Pro.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Author at 73% against OmniPlan 4's 24%. OmniPlan 4's advantage is price (Free vs $19.99) and rating (3.9 vs 3.0). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
OmniPlan 4 is free to download; Author costs $19.99 up front. Author sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and OmniPlan 4 sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
OmniPlan 4 holds the better App Store score, 3.9 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 20 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 73% of Author's written reviews are positive against 24% of OmniPlan 4's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Author | OmniPlan 4 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $19.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 3.0 (5 ratings) | 3.9 (20 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 73.1% of reviews — better | 23.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 5 | 20 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 68 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | The Augmented Text Company LTD | The Omni Group |
Customer experience
Author
OmniPlan 4
Bugs and requests
Author
Reported bugs
20 issues- App crashes frequently, causing data loss
- iOS app shows blank screen and won't open documents
- iPad app completely non-functional
- Text disappears or becomes greyed out during iCloud saves
- Vision OS app lacks cursor for text input
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- Ask AI feature shows infinite loading spinner
- Unexpected Russian pricing text displayed to US users
- App doesn't launch or open on some systems
- Files not detected in Downloads folder
- Cannot open documents created in desktop version on iOS
- Automatic file conversion to Liquid format breaks iOS compatibility
- Text rendering issues (white text on white background)
- Table function broken - cannot write in cells
- App lags and deletes lines when typing quickly
- Highlight feature not working
- Citations not resolving automatically
- Markdown export only exports preamble
- Copy-paste functionality issues
- French localization not working despite being advertised
- App not compatible with iOS 18 and latest macOS versions
Requested features
20 requests- iPad and iOS app that actually works
- Typewriter scrolling mode
- Variable screen width for large displays
- Complete LaTeX export with full file support
- Markdown support
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- Better image handling and integration
- Find and replace functionality
- Dark mode for older macOS versions
- Inline predictive text support
- Nested list creation and editing
- Paragraph indentation options
- Photo support on macOS version
- Keyboard shortcut reference guide
- Table editing improvements
- Integration with reference management software (Zotero, EndNote)
- Local AI endpoints or BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) for privacy
- Better onboarding and UI guidance for new users
- Typeface options (Courier, American Typewriter, serif fonts)
- Line spacing options (1.5, double spacing)
- Color themes and dark mode options
OmniPlan 4
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Author
- Export & AIFree
- Eng$1.99
OmniPlan 4
- Legacy Subscription$19.991 Month
- Legacy Subscription$199.991 Year
- Free Upgrade to v4 ProFree
- Free Upgrade to v4 StandardFree
- Upgrade to v4 Standard$99.99
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- Upgrade from Standard to Pro$99.99
- Unlock Standard$199.99
- Upgrade to v4 Pro$199.99
- Upgrade from Standard to Pro$199.99
- Unlock Pro$399.99
