Kosmik’s Next Chapter
Today is a big day for Kosmik with the release of the alpha version of our web application! If you already have an account you can log in here: play.kosmik.app. The web app isn’t fully featured yet, but you can already do some pretty cool stuff (check what here: https://twitter.com/kosmik_app/status/1547264340922884098).
We’ve been designing and building Kosmik for more than 3 years now (time flies when you’re having fun!). What was once just a vision and a prototype finally feels like a true product, with an active community of (awesome) people, who are already building great things.
Of course there are still some rough edges that need smoothing. We will spend the rest of the summer testing and improving Kosmik, delivering the web app and adding a few highly anticipated features, so that we can lift the waitlist by September. We can’t wait for all of you to try it!
Here are some things that we are working on:
Kosmik on the web alpha (web)
For all you Windows, Linux or ChromeOS users. We chose the iPad as the first platform to build Kosmik, because that’s where a spatial interface really comes alive. Since then we’ve added a Mac app and now a web application to finally make Kosmik available to anyone that uses a computer.
The web app is currently in alpha and we will gradually open it to more users during the summer.
Annotations (iPad only)
For you iPad designers out there! Annotations that stick to your items will be released in late August (Kosmik 1.6.1 — Late August)
Connectors (iPad/Mac/Web)
We improved our connectors, for even more powerful (and colourful) networked documents. From late July, you’ll be able yo set a line type, and change the width and the colour (Kosmik 1.6.0 — Late July)
Publish mode (iPad/Mac)
So that you can easily share and reuse your work. But there’s more:
The “published” form of a document could then be a network of interlinked chinks of text, graphics, etc. Ted Nelson, 1983.
This quote from Ted Nelson is what we hope to achieve. When you publish a Kosmik universe you can allow people to “live copy” elements from your document. When they do that, they are essentially creating a link those elements so that each time you modify them, they will get the new version.
Kosmik can change the way we collaborate by allowing you to create compound documents made of live items taken from several universes. (Kosmik 1.6.0 — Late July).
Multiplayer collaboration (iPad/Mac)
Collaborating on a canvas makes remote work more enjoyable, as it adds a feeling of place. We’d love you to use Kosmik to collaboratively build your moodboards, team wikis and documents. Multiplayer is really big step for us so we won’t give a version number and release date for it just now.
Why are we building all of this?
We think canvas-based interfaces can be far more useful than what is currently on the market. Combine a canvas with powerful features like a full text editor, a layout system, strong multimedia capabilities and a transclusion engine for better linking, and you can go far beyond what is possible today.
We also believe that hypertext and knowledge management cannot scale beyond a certain point in linear, text based interfaces.
We want Kosmik to become the place where you store your favourite images, text, and websites, but also where you build your documents and presentations and share them with your team, family or even the world.
In fact, designers have long understood that canvas platforms are great not only for complex vector work, but also for document creation (as in Figma) and sharing. Our publish mode together with transclusion, will allow you to share and re-use your work, and collaborate remotely with your team.
Here’s to another step in that direction. We hope you are as excited as we are! As usual, if you have any suggestions or requests, or if you want to say hi, write us at hey@kosmik.app or join our discord server:
The Kosmik team.
