NeO Outliner for Android

WARNING: Sadly, it appears that Takahasi Hamada has disappeared and stopped supporting/developing this awesome app. After several Data Corruption/Loss bugs, Takahasi stopped responding to emails (in the past he was wonderfully responsive). I hope he is OK. Fingers crossed he’ll return, for his outliner is the only one that supports CLONING - a key feature that OmniOutliner does not appear to ever include (despite many people’s requests for many years).

Finally, a couple of months ago this app started working on Android Sierra. That is the reason why I am changing my review. The new version, however, has many programming flaws. One example is that all my favorite colors are gone and I only have “color 32” available (and I have 50 of the same thing). It won’t rename it, it won't change the color, and it won’t even restore to default! I have sent a report on this with a screenshot to developers to no avail.

If you ever used the unfortunately long unavailable Thinktank MORE outliner, you understand what an unimpressive and overpriced morass the current breed of Android outliners has become. NeO is in many ways a direct MORE clone; you’ll figure it out easily if you have that experience in your toolbag. If not, give it a shot anyway. The clone feature is invaluable and available in no other outline I have been able to find. You may struggle a bit getting going, but it is worth the effort. And think of the money you’ll save! Imports and exports OPML faithfully, so you can give it a shot and not be stuck in it if it doesn’t suit your fancy. Now if there were only an IOS app to sync to. Sigh.

I am a longstanding user of Ecco Pro, and in playing with Neo one gets glimmers of the great power of that program. But Neo is easily the most opaque program I’ve encountered for the Android. Reminds me a little of Quicksilver, only much harder to use even in the most rudimentary way. While the price is low, the lack of documentation, examples, instruction, user forums etc is unforgivable. This isn’t so much a piece of productivity software as it is a cryptic quest game, and it’s not much fun. Unless you are a person who enjoys figuring out this sort of thing with no guidance whatsoever, save yourself the frustration. If you run Parallels or some such, Ecco is a free download and still works magnificently. It has a learning curve, but it’s vastly easier than Neo.

You cannot go wrong with Neo but there is a bit of learning curve since its methodology is somewhat obscure, however in terms of functionality the program just wins.