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Craft – A fresh take on documents

262 points by blindm 6y ago

azangru 6y ago
Marketing materials for a writing app are probably not the best place to misplace an apostrophe in the word its. https://i.imgur.com/nLLFnSr.png https://i.imgur.com/nLLFnSr.png
- glitchc 6y ago
  Concur, someone was a tad overzealous with the Enter neighbour.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisstanchak 6y ago
  You just got someone fired. Happy holidays.
runlevel1 6y ago
It looks lovely, but charging a subscription for spell check, in-document search, and printing -- table stakes for a text editor -- is surely going to rub people the wrong way.[1] [1]: https://www.craft.do/pricing#Features https://www.craft.do/pricing#Features
- monkin 6y ago
  Don’t forget about limited Markdown support.
  - cratermoon 6y ago
    That's a bigger problem than not being able to send my file to printer. Looking at what Craft does, a paper version is going to be very "lossy", it's what Clay Shirky calls a "shearing" layer.
- mortenjorck 6y ago
  While much of the blame still falls on Apple for pushing developers toward subscriptions in the absence of a straightforward paid-upgrade mechanism, requiring a subscription for an app with no cloud dependencies remains an instant disqualification for me. It's buying into a promise that your monthly payments are going toward continuous improvement of the product – a promise that might be kept, or might not – and even if it is, for how long? If updates stall out after awhile, or if the new features don't solve anything for you, it's not like you can choose to skip an upgrade. And the more you use the product, the higher the barrier to switching away. I agree, Craft looks lovely, but there's no way I'm locking myself into its business model. I say this every time, but this is a solved problem. Developers of software like Sketch and Bitwig Studio have the right kind of subscription model, where you subscribe to updates, not access. If you don't care for the latest version, you can let your subscription lapse and keep using the last version you're licensed for. Apple has all the pieces necessary to simply gate App Store updates via subscription, but they apparently have no motivation to do so.
  - _jal 6y ago
    Related, but the push to subscriptions coupled with my reaction has devalued my phone substantially. I just do not subscribe to many things. I don't like assigning myself future financial tasks, and I don't like dealing with recurring payments[1]. As a result, I've stopped using a bunch of things that went sub-only. There are more I'll be dropping. And this has moved a lot of things I did on my phone elsewhere. This, combined with the fact that the Iphone X (I have no need to upgrade it) is a bit too big, and the Screentime thing tells me I use it an average of 17 minutes a day, which is going to mainly be 2FA and texting with family. I mean, I kinda welcome this - I don't like phone dependency. And I expect I'm not the median case. But Apple's strategy has backfired with me. [1] I realize this is not strictly rational, and I have paid more for one-time-purchase software that I used once than a sub would have been. It doesn't matter.
    - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
      Completely agree! Subscriptions cost future hassles and distraction, as well as the money. I'm busy. No subscription, no deal :D
- cratermoon 6y ago
  I don't believe printing is table stakes for an editor any more. Quality export to a printable format, yes. Directly sending an application document to the system print queue via some printing language (PostScript, PCL, DVI, PDF..), though, I don't see that as being a big thing anymore. I'm not saying the paperless office is here, but with everyone WFH and no access to the office color laser printer, who is generating much paper any more? You know what would be better? A feature to generate an epub or kindle document. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-multimarkdown-export-in-scrivener-3 https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-mult...
Torwald 6y ago
Reminds me of Scrivener.
- tti 6y ago
  Reminds me of Google Keep
  - Torwald 6y ago
    In which ways does Scrivener remind you of Google Keep?
    - JadeNB 6y ago
      > In which ways does Scrivener remind you of Google Keep? tti seemed to be saying that Craft reminds them of Google Keep, not that Scrivener reminds them of Google Keep.
  - Torwald 6y ago
    In which ways does Craft remind you of Google Keep?
monkin 6y ago
My biggest concern is that I still do not know what this app does. The feature page isn’t really convincing. Is it better than iA Writer? If so, why?
- Veen 6y ago
  I think they confuse things by calling it a “writing app”. It can be used for that, but it’s more of a note taking app. It competes with Notion and Roam, not iA Writer really.
tornato7 6y ago
Considering it's possible to generate a web link with this, I would love to see an 'export to HTML' feature so that I could use Craft to write a personal website/blog.
- inakarmacoma 6y ago
  Try obsidian.md ?
- ksec 6y ago
  My first thought as well. Increasingly I dont want a Web App, Blog, CMS, or whatever it is. I think all of that should just live on my computer as a simple App. Upload the HTML and we are good to go. Basically going back to Front Page.
micpalmia 6y ago
Doesn't this look very very similar to Notion? It doesn't seem to be from the same people though, feels like I'm missing something.
- phrz 6y ago
  I guess the block-based document editor field is heating up. With this tool's native iOS and macOS apps, I hope they either unseat Notion, or launch Notion into making native tools. Their web-based UI has extremely poor performance.
  - joegahona 6y ago
    I had the same thought. Bear is in this category too. The only differentiator vs. Notion right now seems to be a native app, however. I'm going to give it a try and see if I like it though.
- Veen 6y ago
  One significant difference is automatic back linking (bi-directional linking). Craft looks a bit like Notion but it has some of the functionality of Roam and Obsidian. Plus, decent native apps, which Notion and the others lack.
  - pps 6y ago
    Notion has had backlinks since Sep 2020.
    - alireza94 6y ago
      Craft also supports easy bi-directional linking to blocks, which I assume Notion doesn’t support at this point.
thescribbblr 6y ago
Amazing. When android application will be available?
alphachloride 6y ago
What format does it use to save documents?
- benatkin 6y ago
  > What format does it use to save documents? Proprietary. Edit: they do have export. No canonical format. Probably good enough though. https://www.craft.do/s/zw95bDIcSkoDsq/b/70E1E8BF-41C4-4099-AB72-01D68200B8E5/How_can_I_export_my_content_from https://www.craft.do/s/zw95bDIcSkoDsq/b/70E1E8BF-41C4-4099-A...
Nullabillity 6y ago
Apple-only, subscription-only, seems to require some cloud garbage, mobile-first. At least bullshit tends to come together, I guess.
minouye 6y ago
I've played with Craft a bit and it's been a joy to use so far. Conceptually it sits between Apple Notes and Notion. You get native apps that work offline, support fast capture, and are satisfying to use. You also get the wiki-style support and block-level editing of Notion, along with lots of other nice Notion visual flourishes (page-level icons, cover images, etc.) One area Craft really shines, is the way that it supports interactive, sharable documents. If I have text, images, files, and want to combine them all into a single page/starting point, Craft makes this super simple. Here are some examples (which you could design on your own): https://www.craft.do/s/VIAC9BTTJWdCxp https://www.craft.do/s/VIAC9BTTJWdCxp https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/F19F87F2-0F04-49F9-912E-6B7785CBD84B/We_didn%E2%80%99t_see_this_coming_-_Nine https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/F19F87F2-0F04-49F9-9... https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/9041969E-127C-4439-A8B6-5469F4F00F0A/1997_Letter_To_Shareholders https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/9041969E-127C-4439-A...
- ipsum2 6y ago
  Thanks, its strange that they didn't include this demo on their website.
- samat 6y ago
  Wow this shit is fast, even on mobile web!
  - bertmuthalaly 6y ago
    Wait wait wait notion but fast? OK I’m signing up
    - veidr 6y ago
      LOL I pay for a Notion personal plan and that was my exact thought. Speed matters!
- the_arun 6y ago
  Evernote also does similar stuff, right? What is new? Sorry I haven't tried Craft myself yet.
sam0x17 6y ago
Sad it's only in the Mac ecosystem. Would love to see this on Linux.
- rayrag 6y ago
  Try Obsidian or wait a bit for Zenkit to release Hypernotes - all their apps are available on Linux. https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md https://zenkit.com/en https://zenkit.com/en
Johnyma22 6y ago
Etherpad but pricey with vendor tie in? Why?
sneak 6y ago
Does this have end-to-end encryption, or can the company/Apple read all of your documents?
- nvr219 6y ago
  It does not. If it did, that feature would be listed on the website.
- rgovostes 6y ago
  "Note about Data Policy" https://www.craft.do/s/0L6qZ2ew0yQS1P https://www.craft.do/s/0L6qZ2ew0yQS1P > You data is stored in the cloud (AWS), it's encrypted during transfer (TLS) and also at rest (default RDS encryption for document content and personal data, and SSE-S3 encryption for uploaded binary content). However at this point we do not provide end-to-end encryption of your data. Though it is not syncing over iCloud, so Apple doesn't see the data unless it is also backed up to iCloud (for instance, in your phone backup).
  - sneak 6y ago
    Stored during transfer and stored at rest is not end-to-end encrypted. Amazon, as well as the app provider, can read all of your data stored in this app.
boraoztunc 6y ago
> We could not complete your purchase. > Craft can't be installed because macOS version 10.15 or later is required. :/ I'm still on High Sierra, 10.13.6. Next time Craft, I'll keep using Dropbox Paper, Obsidian, Notion, Evernote and Airtable.
- novok 6y ago
  Typically being 3 or 4 major versions behind the current version is under %0.5 of the market, it's really not worth it to maintain compatibility that low unless your already old app doesn't need to stop supporting old versions. I'm estimating because the app is newer, is the reason why they didnt' put special effort in support very old versions like that.
- terhechte 6y ago
  Craft seems to be build with Catalyst. Apple only introduced it in 10.15. It is technically impossible to support anything below 10.15. Now, it would be possible to write two Craft apps (one iOS and one macOS) instead of a shared one, but that’s much more work and only adds a minority of users (those still below 10.15), so it is understandable they chose not to support it.
- Starmina 6y ago
  Yes. Obsidian might not yet have an iOS app but it's certainly draw the line of the (real) futur of note taking.
beyondcompute 6y ago
Another of those subscription apps? That’s ridiculous when people build simple weather, calendar app or a text editor and expect users to pay dozens of euro every year for them.
jonmc12 6y ago
Also check out Craft's "Missing Guide for Mac Catalyst Apps" https://www.craft.do/maccatalyst-guide https://www.craft.do/maccatalyst-guide "Mac Catalyst is a technology that enables you to run iOS code on macOS.."
jiriro 6y ago
Open Craft "Let's get started!" "Please enter your email" :-o What? Uninstall
- thunderbong 6y ago
  Honestly, I find this kind of comment not useful at all. Considering how internet / tech / security savvy the HN crowd is, I'm sure we don't give our personal / work email addresses willy nilly. There are a huge number of anonymous email services available. I came across this list from a basic search [0]. In fact, recently, there was submission for https://33mail.com https://33mail.com on ShowHN also. So, my question is, why don't we do this and add comments about the application itself. I agree there are many ways to persist data even without a login. But that in turn means wasting a huge amount of resources for anonymous users with hardly any return at all. Why should developers do that? In my opinion, what I find worse, is this expectation of getting something for nothing. Facebook, Google and others have grown to this size because of this sense of enlightenment. And we complain about them all the time. So, in short, my suggestion is - if you don't find use of a service without submitting an anonymous email, don't use it. There's really no point in adding a comment which does nothing towards the understanding or increasing our knowledge. [0]: https://www.techuntold.com/mailinator-alternatives/ https://www.techuntold.com/mailinator-alternatives/ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25434753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25434753
  - bamboleo 6y ago
    I don’t get your comment. First you agree we don’t like to share our email and then you suggest going to a 4th party as a workaround. If requiring an email was ok, you wouldn’t having to use workarounds. A comment like OP has 2 purposes: saves me from ever trying the app; suggests to the author that they made an unpopular choice.
    - hashkb 6y ago
      I wish I had a weekly triple vote I could use on this comment.
shortformblog 6y ago
There is already a well-known commercial CMS named Craft. (I use it.) This is similar enough territory that you might want to rethink the name. https://craftcms.com/ https://craftcms.com/
- crooked-v 6y ago
  Also, searching for 'Craft' on the iOS app store just gets you endless pages of Minecraft-related apps.
StevePerkins 6y ago
So... basically the new WordPress text editor? Except Apple-only, and costing just $25/yr less than a full Office365 license? Good luck. It does look pretty, perhaps that's enough to reach the target audience.
dchuk 6y ago
Seems like a slick app. Give me an Apple Pencil block that lets me sketch up ideas and I’m completely sold. EDIT: They have this! This is wonderful
ClaireBookworm 6y ago
how is this different from notion except paid? :) i downloaded it a while back and added 3 cards before I was at the free limit :(
drunkpotato 6y ago
How does this compare to Scrivener?
hirundo 6y ago
"A fresh take on documents" that's limited to Apple devices seems like a problem. People usually make documents to share. I suppose there are embubbled Apple users who don't even know anyone who uses something else and who they'd want to share or collaborate with. But that must be an exception.
- georgebcrawford 6y ago
  I spent a few years on iOS and the number of notetaking apps that only use iCloud or Dropbox was infuriating. There was very rarely a WebDav or NextCloud option.
  - g_p 6y ago
    This is something I've seen an awful lot on iOS. Clearly having Apple give you an SDK is convenient as a developer, but for a huge segment of the market, storing randomly on "someone else's computer" just isn't an option - professionals and others that Apple tends to target. With the storage framework in recent iOS versions, maybe we'll see more apps support it? It surely can't be too much effort, but I guess the demand is limited.
    - skinnymuch 6y ago
      Do you have any insight into that segment being huge? I’d think it wouldn’t be a very big segment. Some subreddits and HN discuss things in a way almost no one else does. Like privacy and security.
      - g_p 6y ago
        "Huge" is a tough one to quantify, but in speaking to a lot of the regulated sectors like legal, this is a big area, and one that people are waking up to. One part of the issue is most aren't even aware they're breaking the law (or their regulatory obligations). You're right, there's certainly an online "bubble" around privacy/security, but equally, from the other perspective if you speak to people outside of the "startup tech" industry, they'd say the notion of randomly using third party services with unmanaged storage on personal accounts (a la iCloud) simply isn't an option for them. I guess when you add it up - regulated financial services, legal, anyone falling under GDPR who needs to show systematic measures in place, any serious business that needs to have processes that out-live any individual staff member, systems based around "convenient personal cloud" suddenly start to become the minority. Most serious companies won't allow company IP/data to be stored on "personal" systems (which would encompass iCloud and similar).
burlesona 6y ago
It’s fascinating to me how block-based editors have been gaining traction recently. It’s a great balance between modeling semantics the computer can understand and offering a WYSIWYG UI for users. I built an in-browser editor for a client project that worked this way back in 2014, and open-sourced the core[1]. It worked really well. However, at the time our users (professors) had difficulty understanding what was going on when it didn’t work identically to MS Word. Specifically, to them, Word was “correct” and anything that worked differently was “wrong.” I quit using that model in future projects as I just assumed that block-based editing would always be too “programmery” for users trained on and anchored to Word. I guess I was wrong :) 1: https://github.com/burlesona/nib https://github.com/burlesona/nib
murermader 6y ago
The app seems really amazing so far after trying it out on my iPhone. Everything that I have tried so far works like a charm, ez searching, indentation, nice styling, intuitive controls. But the one thing that is missing for me to use it, is a web app. It doesn't need to be as flashy as the native apps, or it does not need feature parity. But I don't like the idea that all my notes are trapped inside my Apple devices, and that I have no way to even look through them when I am on my pc.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
BlueTemplar 6y ago
You know what is ridiculous? That in 2020 we don't have an electronic document format which has modern animation support: - WTF happened to .mhtml/.eml ?!? - .odt : the least bad I guess, but is still a bit heavy, clunky, and uses discrete pages without reflow by default. Also, the underlying language isn't designed to be tinkered with, which is a critical shortcoming in many situations. - .pdf : inconsistent .mp4 reader support, discrete pages with fixed layout. - .epub : no .mp4 support I guess the patents associated with .mp4 might be to blame? I can't wait for AV1 then! (And bring mhtml back!!)
- OJFord 6y ago
  Uh, I think 'what're we supposed to do when paying video is impossible/makes no sense' is to blame. Also, what did happen to .eml? Isn't that just a well known extension for raw email format? So in a sense it's used.. billions of times a day?
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    > Uh, I think 'what're we supposed to do when paying video is impossible/makes no sense' is to blame. Similar to what you do when trying to display a color document on a monochrome display - do your best ? > Also, what did happen to .eml? Isn't that just a well known extension for raw email format? So in a sense it's used.. billions of times a day? It's actually identical to .mhtml, which makes browsers dropping the format even weirder…
crooked-v 6y ago
The native apps are nice, but the way this is set up to require a single email and name at a time for everything is extremely unfriendly to people who might want to use this in professional contexts.
gigel82 6y ago
Looks like Microsoft Sway, only locked into the mac ecosystem (no web version).
vitkalisz 6y ago
I don't have an Apple device, so I can not try Craft, but I suggest OrgPad (at https://orgpad.com https://orgpad.com) is more suited for note taking than Craft since there is also focus on the Big Picture? What do you think?
recovery-mode 6y ago
Looks great, I love the UI and the whole native approach. I wish there was an option to use iCloud for storage or even full offline mode. I would also prefer the one-time payment, even if it is high (like https://culturedcode.com/things/ https://culturedcode.com/things/ does). Also please copy "Daily Notes" from Roam :-)
PEOPLEgetoff 6y ago
I just discovered Craft and am very impressed. Keep up the great work.

262 points by blindm 6y ago

Marketing materials for a writing app are probably not the best place to misplace an apostrophe in the word its. https://i.imgur.com/nLLFnSr.png https://i.imgur.com/nLLFnSr.png

glitchc 6y ago
Concur, someone was a tad overzealous with the Enter neighbour.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
chrisstanchak 6y ago
You just got someone fired. Happy holidays.

runlevel1 6y ago

It looks lovely, but charging a subscription for spell check, in-document search, and printing -- table stakes for a text editor -- is surely going to rub people the wrong way.[1] [1]: https://www.craft.do/pricing#Features https://www.craft.do/pricing#Features

monkin 6y ago
Don’t forget about limited Markdown support.
- cratermoon 6y ago
  That's a bigger problem than not being able to send my file to printer. Looking at what Craft does, a paper version is going to be very "lossy", it's what Clay Shirky calls a "shearing" layer.
mortenjorck 6y ago
While much of the blame still falls on Apple for pushing developers toward subscriptions in the absence of a straightforward paid-upgrade mechanism, requiring a subscription for an app with no cloud dependencies remains an instant disqualification for me. It's buying into a promise that your monthly payments are going toward continuous improvement of the product – a promise that might be kept, or might not – and even if it is, for how long? If updates stall out after awhile, or if the new features don't solve anything for you, it's not like you can choose to skip an upgrade. And the more you use the product, the higher the barrier to switching away. I agree, Craft looks lovely, but there's no way I'm locking myself into its business model. I say this every time, but this is a solved problem. Developers of software like Sketch and Bitwig Studio have the right kind of subscription model, where you subscribe to updates, not access. If you don't care for the latest version, you can let your subscription lapse and keep using the last version you're licensed for. Apple has all the pieces necessary to simply gate App Store updates via subscription, but they apparently have no motivation to do so.
- _jal 6y ago
  Related, but the push to subscriptions coupled with my reaction has devalued my phone substantially. I just do not subscribe to many things. I don't like assigning myself future financial tasks, and I don't like dealing with recurring payments[1]. As a result, I've stopped using a bunch of things that went sub-only. There are more I'll be dropping. And this has moved a lot of things I did on my phone elsewhere. This, combined with the fact that the Iphone X (I have no need to upgrade it) is a bit too big, and the Screentime thing tells me I use it an average of 17 minutes a day, which is going to mainly be 2FA and texting with family. I mean, I kinda welcome this - I don't like phone dependency. And I expect I'm not the median case. But Apple's strategy has backfired with me. [1] I realize this is not strictly rational, and I have paid more for one-time-purchase software that I used once than a sub would have been. It doesn't matter.
  - hackerfromthefu 6y ago
    Completely agree! Subscriptions cost future hassles and distraction, as well as the money. I'm busy. No subscription, no deal :D
cratermoon 6y ago
I don't believe printing is table stakes for an editor any more. Quality export to a printable format, yes. Directly sending an application document to the system print queue via some printing language (PostScript, PCL, DVI, PDF..), though, I don't see that as being a big thing anymore. I'm not saying the paperless office is here, but with everyone WFH and no access to the office color laser printer, who is generating much paper any more? You know what would be better? A feature to generate an epub or kindle document. https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-multimarkdown-export-in-scrivener-3 https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/epub-kindle-and-mult...

Torwald 6y ago

Reminds me of Scrivener.

tti 6y ago
Reminds me of Google Keep
- Torwald 6y ago
  In which ways does Scrivener remind you of Google Keep?
  - JadeNB 6y ago
    > In which ways does Scrivener remind you of Google Keep? tti seemed to be saying that Craft reminds them of Google Keep, not that Scrivener reminds them of Google Keep.
- Torwald 6y ago
  In which ways does Craft remind you of Google Keep?

monkin 6y ago

My biggest concern is that I still do not know what this app does. The feature page isn’t really convincing. Is it better than iA Writer? If so, why?

Veen 6y ago
I think they confuse things by calling it a “writing app”. It can be used for that, but it’s more of a note taking app. It competes with Notion and Roam, not iA Writer really.

tornato7 6y ago

Considering it's possible to generate a web link with this, I would love to see an 'export to HTML' feature so that I could use Craft to write a personal website/blog.

inakarmacoma 6y ago
Try obsidian.md ?
ksec 6y ago
My first thought as well. Increasingly I dont want a Web App, Blog, CMS, or whatever it is. I think all of that should just live on my computer as a simple App. Upload the HTML and we are good to go. Basically going back to Front Page.

micpalmia 6y ago

Doesn't this look very very similar to Notion? It doesn't seem to be from the same people though, feels like I'm missing something.

phrz 6y ago
I guess the block-based document editor field is heating up. With this tool's native iOS and macOS apps, I hope they either unseat Notion, or launch Notion into making native tools. Their web-based UI has extremely poor performance.
- joegahona 6y ago
  I had the same thought. Bear is in this category too. The only differentiator vs. Notion right now seems to be a native app, however. I'm going to give it a try and see if I like it though.
Veen 6y ago
One significant difference is automatic back linking (bi-directional linking). Craft looks a bit like Notion but it has some of the functionality of Roam and Obsidian. Plus, decent native apps, which Notion and the others lack.
- pps 6y ago
  Notion has had backlinks since Sep 2020.
  - alireza94 6y ago
    Craft also supports easy bi-directional linking to blocks, which I assume Notion doesn’t support at this point.

thescribbblr 6y ago

Amazing. When android application will be available?

alphachloride 6y ago

What format does it use to save documents?

benatkin 6y ago
> What format does it use to save documents? Proprietary. Edit: they do have export. No canonical format. Probably good enough though. https://www.craft.do/s/zw95bDIcSkoDsq/b/70E1E8BF-41C4-4099-AB72-01D68200B8E5/How_can_I_export_my_content_from https://www.craft.do/s/zw95bDIcSkoDsq/b/70E1E8BF-41C4-4099-A...

Nullabillity 6y ago

Apple-only, subscription-only, seems to require some cloud garbage, mobile-first. At least bullshit tends to come together, I guess.

minouye 6y ago

I've played with Craft a bit and it's been a joy to use so far. Conceptually it sits between Apple Notes and Notion. You get native apps that work offline, support fast capture, and are satisfying to use. You also get the wiki-style support and block-level editing of Notion, along with lots of other nice Notion visual flourishes (page-level icons, cover images, etc.) One area Craft really shines, is the way that it supports interactive, sharable documents. If I have text, images, files, and want to combine them all into a single page/starting point, Craft makes this super simple. Here are some examples (which you could design on your own): https://www.craft.do/s/VIAC9BTTJWdCxp https://www.craft.do/s/VIAC9BTTJWdCxp https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/F19F87F2-0F04-49F9-912E-6B7785CBD84B/We_didn%E2%80%99t_see_this_coming_-_Nine https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/F19F87F2-0F04-49F9-9... https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/9041969E-127C-4439-A8B6-5469F4F00F0A/1997_Letter_To_Shareholders https://www.craft.do/s/09fqwC5rGqErmB/b/9041969E-127C-4439-A...

ipsum2 6y ago
Thanks, its strange that they didn't include this demo on their website.
samat 6y ago
Wow this shit is fast, even on mobile web!
- bertmuthalaly 6y ago
  Wait wait wait notion but fast? OK I’m signing up
  - veidr 6y ago
    LOL I pay for a Notion personal plan and that was my exact thought. Speed matters!
the_arun 6y ago
Evernote also does similar stuff, right? What is new? Sorry I haven't tried Craft myself yet.

sam0x17 6y ago

Sad it's only in the Mac ecosystem. Would love to see this on Linux.

rayrag 6y ago
Try Obsidian or wait a bit for Zenkit to release Hypernotes - all their apps are available on Linux. https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md https://zenkit.com/en https://zenkit.com/en

Johnyma22 6y ago

Etherpad but pricey with vendor tie in? Why?

sneak 6y ago

Does this have end-to-end encryption, or can the company/Apple read all of your documents?

nvr219 6y ago
It does not. If it did, that feature would be listed on the website.
rgovostes 6y ago
"Note about Data Policy" https://www.craft.do/s/0L6qZ2ew0yQS1P https://www.craft.do/s/0L6qZ2ew0yQS1P > You data is stored in the cloud (AWS), it's encrypted during transfer (TLS) and also at rest (default RDS encryption for document content and personal data, and SSE-S3 encryption for uploaded binary content). However at this point we do not provide end-to-end encryption of your data. Though it is not syncing over iCloud, so Apple doesn't see the data unless it is also backed up to iCloud (for instance, in your phone backup).
- sneak 6y ago
  Stored during transfer and stored at rest is not end-to-end encrypted. Amazon, as well as the app provider, can read all of your data stored in this app.

boraoztunc 6y ago

> We could not complete your purchase. > Craft can't be installed because macOS version 10.15 or later is required. :/ I'm still on High Sierra, 10.13.6. Next time Craft, I'll keep using Dropbox Paper, Obsidian, Notion, Evernote and Airtable.

novok 6y ago
Typically being 3 or 4 major versions behind the current version is under %0.5 of the market, it's really not worth it to maintain compatibility that low unless your already old app doesn't need to stop supporting old versions. I'm estimating because the app is newer, is the reason why they didnt' put special effort in support very old versions like that.
terhechte 6y ago
Craft seems to be build with Catalyst. Apple only introduced it in 10.15. It is technically impossible to support anything below 10.15. Now, it would be possible to write two Craft apps (one iOS and one macOS) instead of a shared one, but that’s much more work and only adds a minority of users (those still below 10.15), so it is understandable they chose not to support it.
Starmina 6y ago
Yes. Obsidian might not yet have an iOS app but it's certainly draw the line of the (real) futur of note taking.

beyondcompute 6y ago

Another of those subscription apps? That’s ridiculous when people build simple weather, calendar app or a text editor and expect users to pay dozens of euro every year for them.

jonmc12 6y ago

Also check out Craft's "Missing Guide for Mac Catalyst Apps" https://www.craft.do/maccatalyst-guide https://www.craft.do/maccatalyst-guide "Mac Catalyst is a technology that enables you to run iOS code on macOS.."

jiriro 6y ago

Open Craft "Let's get started!" "Please enter your email" :-o What? Uninstall

thunderbong 6y ago
Honestly, I find this kind of comment not useful at all. Considering how internet / tech / security savvy the HN crowd is, I'm sure we don't give our personal / work email addresses willy nilly. There are a huge number of anonymous email services available. I came across this list from a basic search [0]. In fact, recently, there was submission for https://33mail.com https://33mail.com on ShowHN also. So, my question is, why don't we do this and add comments about the application itself. I agree there are many ways to persist data even without a login. But that in turn means wasting a huge amount of resources for anonymous users with hardly any return at all. Why should developers do that? In my opinion, what I find worse, is this expectation of getting something for nothing. Facebook, Google and others have grown to this size because of this sense of enlightenment. And we complain about them all the time. So, in short, my suggestion is - if you don't find use of a service without submitting an anonymous email, don't use it. There's really no point in adding a comment which does nothing towards the understanding or increasing our knowledge. [0]: https://www.techuntold.com/mailinator-alternatives/ https://www.techuntold.com/mailinator-alternatives/ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25434753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25434753
- bamboleo 6y ago
  I don’t get your comment. First you agree we don’t like to share our email and then you suggest going to a 4th party as a workaround. If requiring an email was ok, you wouldn’t having to use workarounds. A comment like OP has 2 purposes: saves me from ever trying the app; suggests to the author that they made an unpopular choice.
  - hashkb 6y ago
    I wish I had a weekly triple vote I could use on this comment.

shortformblog 6y ago

There is already a well-known commercial CMS named Craft. (I use it.) This is similar enough territory that you might want to rethink the name. https://craftcms.com/ https://craftcms.com/

crooked-v 6y ago
Also, searching for 'Craft' on the iOS app store just gets you endless pages of Minecraft-related apps.

StevePerkins 6y ago

So... basically the new WordPress text editor? Except Apple-only, and costing just $25/yr less than a full Office365 license? Good luck. It does look pretty, perhaps that's enough to reach the target audience.

dchuk 6y ago

Seems like a slick app. Give me an Apple Pencil block that lets me sketch up ideas and I’m completely sold. EDIT: They have this! This is wonderful

ClaireBookworm 6y ago

how is this different from notion except paid? :) i downloaded it a while back and added 3 cards before I was at the free limit :(

drunkpotato 6y ago

How does this compare to Scrivener?

hirundo 6y ago

"A fresh take on documents" that's limited to Apple devices seems like a problem. People usually make documents to share. I suppose there are embubbled Apple users who don't even know anyone who uses something else and who they'd want to share or collaborate with. But that must be an exception.

georgebcrawford 6y ago
I spent a few years on iOS and the number of notetaking apps that only use iCloud or Dropbox was infuriating. There was very rarely a WebDav or NextCloud option.
- g_p 6y ago
  This is something I've seen an awful lot on iOS. Clearly having Apple give you an SDK is convenient as a developer, but for a huge segment of the market, storing randomly on "someone else's computer" just isn't an option - professionals and others that Apple tends to target. With the storage framework in recent iOS versions, maybe we'll see more apps support it? It surely can't be too much effort, but I guess the demand is limited.
  - skinnymuch 6y ago
    Do you have any insight into that segment being huge? I’d think it wouldn’t be a very big segment. Some subreddits and HN discuss things in a way almost no one else does. Like privacy and security.
    - g_p 6y ago
      "Huge" is a tough one to quantify, but in speaking to a lot of the regulated sectors like legal, this is a big area, and one that people are waking up to. One part of the issue is most aren't even aware they're breaking the law (or their regulatory obligations). You're right, there's certainly an online "bubble" around privacy/security, but equally, from the other perspective if you speak to people outside of the "startup tech" industry, they'd say the notion of randomly using third party services with unmanaged storage on personal accounts (a la iCloud) simply isn't an option for them. I guess when you add it up - regulated financial services, legal, anyone falling under GDPR who needs to show systematic measures in place, any serious business that needs to have processes that out-live any individual staff member, systems based around "convenient personal cloud" suddenly start to become the minority. Most serious companies won't allow company IP/data to be stored on "personal" systems (which would encompass iCloud and similar).

burlesona 6y ago

It’s fascinating to me how block-based editors have been gaining traction recently. It’s a great balance between modeling semantics the computer can understand and offering a WYSIWYG UI for users. I built an in-browser editor for a client project that worked this way back in 2014, and open-sourced the core[1]. It worked really well. However, at the time our users (professors) had difficulty understanding what was going on when it didn’t work identically to MS Word. Specifically, to them, Word was “correct” and anything that worked differently was “wrong.” I quit using that model in future projects as I just assumed that block-based editing would always be too “programmery” for users trained on and anchored to Word. I guess I was wrong :) 1: https://github.com/burlesona/nib https://github.com/burlesona/nib

murermader 6y ago

The app seems really amazing so far after trying it out on my iPhone. Everything that I have tried so far works like a charm, ez searching, indentation, nice styling, intuitive controls. But the one thing that is missing for me to use it, is a web app. It doesn't need to be as flashy as the native apps, or it does not need feature parity. But I don't like the idea that all my notes are trapped inside my Apple devices, and that I have no way to even look through them when I am on my pc.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

BlueTemplar 6y ago

You know what is ridiculous? That in 2020 we don't have an electronic document format which has modern animation support: - WTF happened to .mhtml/.eml ?!? - .odt : the least bad I guess, but is still a bit heavy, clunky, and uses discrete pages without reflow by default. Also, the underlying language isn't designed to be tinkered with, which is a critical shortcoming in many situations. - .pdf : inconsistent .mp4 reader support, discrete pages with fixed layout. - .epub : no .mp4 support I guess the patents associated with .mp4 might be to blame? I can't wait for AV1 then! (And bring mhtml back!!)

OJFord 6y ago
Uh, I think 'what're we supposed to do when paying video is impossible/makes no sense' is to blame. Also, what did happen to .eml? Isn't that just a well known extension for raw email format? So in a sense it's used.. billions of times a day?
- BlueTemplar 6y ago
  > Uh, I think 'what're we supposed to do when paying video is impossible/makes no sense' is to blame. Similar to what you do when trying to display a color document on a monochrome display - do your best ? > Also, what did happen to .eml? Isn't that just a well known extension for raw email format? So in a sense it's used.. billions of times a day? It's actually identical to .mhtml, which makes browsers dropping the format even weirder…

crooked-v 6y ago

The native apps are nice, but the way this is set up to require a single email and name at a time for everything is extremely unfriendly to people who might want to use this in professional contexts.

gigel82 6y ago

Looks like Microsoft Sway, only locked into the mac ecosystem (no web version).

vitkalisz 6y ago

I don't have an Apple device, so I can not try Craft, but I suggest OrgPad (at https://orgpad.com https://orgpad.com) is more suited for note taking than Craft since there is also focus on the Big Picture? What do you think?

recovery-mode 6y ago

Looks great, I love the UI and the whole native approach. I wish there was an option to use iCloud for storage or even full offline mode. I would also prefer the one-time payment, even if it is high (like https://culturedcode.com/things/ https://culturedcode.com/things/ does). Also please copy "Daily Notes" from Roam :-)

PEOPLEgetoff 6y ago

I just discovered Craft and am very impressed. Keep up the great work.