I have to agree with Mindplay. I bought Inbox in the very early days of the whole GTD thing because it looked like a potentially very slick app and one with considerable ambition, but it has been a work in progress for longer than ... well frankly, forever, I think. The Midnight Beep website has been through several incarnations and promises and deadlines have slipped past with dismal regularity.
I'd like to like Inbox, but fear that it may well be a case of sound and fury signifying not a heck of a lot.
C'mon, guys, bring version 2 out soon and prove us doubters wrong!

@Petrus1960,
I think that your wording came out wrong. You could not have purchased Inbox "in the very early days of the whole GTD thing" since Inbox became available 4 or 5 years after David Allen wrote his book. Additionally, some of the concepts behind GTD are much older.
Inbox never was a solid GTD application. A basic premise behind GTD is to have a system that's reliable and trustworthy, and Inbox was neither. Inbox was visually stunning, but a very poor GTD application.

That being said, I don't know if 1.5 is better, so I'm going to try it. I think that the ½ star rating that Mindplay offered is unfair, though, since it's not at all based on the software itself. Could it deserve that rating? Maybe. As it is now, his rating has to do with the developers and does not address the software at all.

Thank you Espiridion for you comment. I understand it, however I don't agree with it. You misunderstood Petrus1960, who was talking about just being an early adopter of this application. Your historical digression may be right, but it does not apply in this context whatsoever. Inbox was indeed one of the first apps to be available to the mac community once the GTD word did spread to the masses. And by the way, even if not reliable, it was promising. The authors made subsequent promises like it was raining, but they did not keep them. It's been ridiculous to listen to their enthusiasm and their "soon available" statements...
My half a star is a weighting of the characteristics: three for features and easy to use, half a star for both value and stability. Remember that this is not a really free app. It's intended to be a trial. It's the "state of the art" of the developers work so far, and it's far from being stable or feature complete. The developers are not going to maintain it, since the next vaporware update is claimed to be a paid app. So, all in all, it deserves half a star, and the judgement is based upon a long usage of the software.
I'm a licensed user of Inbox since 2007: as I'm used to do, I pay for the software I use, and sometimes even for the software I don't use but I find promising, to encourage development. But Inbox developers lied a bit too much to still deserve some credibility. They have to work very hard to get it back.

@Mindplay,
It wasn't hard to be one of the first GTD applications, since there are not that many true GTD apps. ;)

Unfortunately the masses misunderstand GTD and it became more of a marketing term for many task managers. I do agree that Inbox was clearly focused on GTD, though. As a sidenote, I actually gave feedback to a few developers and pointed missing GTD features from their "GTD" applications.

From what I remember, before trying Inbox on the Mac I had tried KinklessGTD (which became OmniFocus), Thinking Rock (my all-time favorite GTD application), and probably GTD templates on Notebook and Tinderbox as well as Entourage scripts. This does not include other popular "GTD" applications such as Life Balance. I think that Actiontastic and Ghost Action also appeared prior to Midnight Inbox. And when Inbox did appear (1.0 preview on Dec 2006) it was pretty bad, but with a beautiful interface. I don't recall anyone knowledgeable about GTD switching to Inbox for their GTD needs. I do recall plenty of people loving the interface.

I don't know of many people who would use a GTD application (or other type of applications) just because they're promising. Maybe the exception is beta-testing.

Regarding your rating, I stand by my comments.

"My half a star is a weighting of the characteristics: three for features and easy to use, half a star for both value and stability."

How much time did you spend evaluating 1.5 before posting your review? Where do you get the idea that this is not a free application but a trial? What makes it unstable and incomplete?

Again, maybe it deserves half a star. If it does, hopefully people will provide the specifics for such low ratings based on the actual application. I've experienced no stability problems, haven't had to pay a single cent for it, it comes with a nice introduction plus a Help that seems to be adequate, etc.

I don't disagree with your view about the company or your previous experiences. Obviously it is a poor value for people who paid for it and received little in return. For me it was unusable when I first tried it, but will give this version a chance.

@Espiridion,

maybe it's time to close the thread ;) Your GTD historic erudition is impressive as Wikipedia is, but that's not the point: you are missing it and this does not help right here, right now.

I call it clutching at straws.

As I told you, I'm evaluating Inbox since it came out and I'm very experienced with it.

It's stated everywhere. It's also stated in this page, other than the developer's website. 2.0 is coming out in the AppStore, together with Duke Nukem Forever, and it will be a paid upgrade (truth be told, old users like me will receive a free upgrade [hurrah!]). 1.5 is not a fork, it won't be developed any further. So you can call it as you wish.

You should refer at the developers' forum for a better understanding of all the software's issues and unattended feature requests until now.

It deserves half a star. However, I'm eager to change my position, time will tell.

BTW, software is not a static cultural object. Its value cannot be understood without an idea of its progresses over time. No one will invest time or money on a software marketed as one hit and miss. There are better alternatives to such products out there.

You call it clutching at straws, and I call it being objective and providing factual information. My point is as simple as that.

Like you, I also evaluated Inbox since it came out. You can find my comments for 1.0 here, posted on 07 Dec 2006. I also indicate that I had tried previous versions (pre 1.0).

The point of having ratings for specific versions is precisely an indicator of how software evolves and being able to read/write about the most recent releases. I'm not going to rate version 1.5 based on my previous experiences. I'll rate it based on its own merits.

I've read your ½ star review and subsequent comments a few times, and can't find a single instance that objectively addresses the actual software.

Again, I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying. Why not write a comment about the developers incompetence without rating an application affected by your obvious (and justified) bias? Or if you really did test 1.5 when you posted your review, why not talk about the specifics that make 1.5 a ½ star application?

Just posting "it deserves half a star" helps no one. With all the typing we've done, why not say "it deserves half a star because..." and mention specific things that make the application so awful. And of course, adding information regarding the developer's failed promises and slow speed of development will give potential users a clearer perspective. Just a thought.

No offense here, but I don't want to be your therapist!

AS far as I can say version 1.5 is mostly stable. Also the owners of the old license are promised to get free promo codes for the AppStore for Inbox 2, Inbox Touch AND Inbox Mobile.

Good points. Two other things to consider:

1. The procrastination factor. Trying new apps scratches the procrastination itch.

2. Going a bit more anthropological: Cultish philosophies sometimes can be rather effective, although people who follow them eventually get stuck. If David Allen had written a book saying, in effect, "the are number of different factors to consider when trying to increase personal productivity, and I'll outline some of them here so that you can figure out what works for you"---his book wouldn't have sold many copies. Even if his system is flawed, it worked, at least for a while, for some people, because it came as a nice package: "Just do this---it will work".