Cloud Outliner Review: Organizes Thoughts with Simplicity

Cloud Outliner is an outlining app for the iPad that helps users organize their thoughts with simple outlining tools.

The app lets users put together checklists, articles and speeches on the iPad, but is it too simple for the $4.99 price?

Cloud Outliner works on the iPad and the iPhone and takes advantage of the full size of the taller iPhone 5 screen. I tested Cloud Outliner primarily on the iPad since I used it for writing articles and preparing messages that I preach at my church.

The Cloud Outliner app helped me organize my thoughts well. I like the simplicity, but some users may find the app limiting for more complex documents and presentations.

Cloud Outliner Features

Cloud Outliner users iCloud to sync outlines and lists between iOS devices, and can also share documents by email, OPML (a web format for outlines and lists) and sync with Evernote.

Cloud Outliner excels with lists. It even provides check boxes that users can turn on and off depending on their needs. Make a shopping list or to do list and turn on the check boxes. Make an outline for a term paper at school or a presentation for work and turn them off while organizing. Then turn them back on to check off the sections when complete. Use the Settings button (see below) to do this.

The bottom toolbar helps organize the outline. Four buttons sit on the bottom left. Add a new item with the plus icon. Delete items with the X button. Undo and redo changes.

The four arrows at the bottom right move list items. Promote them up on the list or demote them down with the first two arrows. Change the horizontal position with the last two icons moving them to the left or right.

A search function helps find content in long outlines with results highlighted so to quickly see them in the list.

Cloud Outliner Value

At $4.99 in the app store, Cloud Outliner doesn’t offer enough to justify the price. Recently it went on sale for $.99 which seems like the right price. At a buck it’s a good deal at $5 it’s too costly.

I would like to see an Open In feature that lets me create outlines in Cloud Outliner and then open the outline as a text document in my favorite text or document editor, like Pages or iA Writer. I’d also love to open outlines in Pages with each item taking up one slide for presentations.