I consider Curio to be the most expansive brainstorming application on the market. With mind maps, lists, file links, notes, full project organization tools, and much more, it’s a complete productivity app. Version 10 just came out, along with a menu bar app for quick entry, and it continues to extend the capabilities of this powerhouse application.
I wrote a longer piece about Curio years ago for TUAW (now archived at Engadget), so if you’d like a foundation explanation of Curio, check that out. I also covered the release of version 9 on this blog, so I’ll go ahead and jump to the changes in version 10.
“Refinements” would be an understatement for many of the new features. While not adding complexity, Curio has added several features that better accommodate large collections of information. The most useful of these for me is the new “Stacks” feature.
Whereas previously you would be best off organizing your notes and information on a flat surface, stacks allow you to collect notes into piles and easily navigate, arrange, and sort the information.
Mind maps in Curio can now have automatically-sorted branches, as can list collections. Importing from iMindMap and MindNode is also improved. I’ve always found importing brainstorming sessions into Curio to be a delight—just drag and drop most file types or paste OPML, Markdown, text, and more, and have them converted to native formats in Curio—and these further enhancements only improve the seamless integration with my other tools.
The Library in Curio has always been an integral piece of its functionality, allowing shared and reusable resources, integration with Evernote, and additional project management capabilities. The new “Local” library shelf—with custom watch folders, fast searches and integration with Curiota (see below)—harnesses Spotlight to make working with information stored anywhere on your system an easy task.
The menu bar companion, Curiota, is a very handy addition. It lets you add notes on the fly from any app, but also lets you drag files and integrates with System Services, the OS X share button, and PDF services. It’s an omnipresent way to gather resources and notes for use within Curio.
I’m planning to write a bit more about the release for MacStories, but in the meantime you can check out the descriptions of all the new features on the Zengobi website.
Curio 10 is available for $129.99 (educational discounts available), and existing users can upgrade for $49.99. A two-week free trial of the full application is available on the Zengobi site.
