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Great sketching app! But unrelated to Muse, which is a thinking workspace focused on text, PDFs, links, and images. The ink annotations and ability to sketch ar

Great sketching app! But unrelated to Muse, which is a thinking workspace focused on text, PDFs, links, and images. The ink annotations and ability to sketch are a minor feature.

haswell 4y ago
I hear what you're saying, but really this is up to the end user to decide. For some, the best "tool for thought" is something that tries to replace paper as directly as it can, because writing/drawing on paper is how some people think best. So I don't think it's quite fair to say this is unrelated. Perhaps the feature sets are different, but the underlying goal of the end user might not be.
- adamwiggins 4y ago
  Fair enough. Pen and paper are the ultimate tool for thought, so something that tries to translate them fairly directly into a digital environment also is. Guess my point here is that Muse is not an attempt to translate paper into the computer, other than some superficial elements like using a stylus to ink. IMO software and computers can go so much further than that.
  - magicink81 4y ago
    For readers looking for ideas about exactly how software can go so much further than paper, I recommend this now classic essay by Bret Victor, Magic Ink: http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
    - adamwiggins 4y ago
      Indeed. Victor's work is the gateway drug to tools-for-thought; it certainly was for me. Read at your own peril, the rabbit hole goes very deep :-)
divan 4y ago
Be curious. It's not a sketching app. It's literally endless paper w/ endless zoom levels, which is pretty sick to use in practice. Basically instead of creating "nested" board, you just zoom into the area/letter/shape and start whole new spatial universe there. Plus it supports images, and drag-n-dropping them directly from other apps in a iPad split mode makes it a joy to use often.
- adamwiggins 4y ago
  Well said. I'm not arguing its utility--I've used it and I think it's a great app. But I do think of it as "fractal sketching" rather than spatial research.

Great sketching app! But unrelated to Muse, which is a thinking workspace focused on text, PDFs, links, and images. The ink annotations and ability to sketch are a minor feature.

haswell 4y ago

I hear what you're saying, but really this is up to the end user to decide. For some, the best "tool for thought" is something that tries to replace paper as directly as it can, because writing/drawing on paper is how some people think best. So I don't think it's quite fair to say this is unrelated. Perhaps the feature sets are different, but the underlying goal of the end user might not be.

adamwiggins 4y ago
Fair enough. Pen and paper are the ultimate tool for thought, so something that tries to translate them fairly directly into a digital environment also is. Guess my point here is that Muse is not an attempt to translate paper into the computer, other than some superficial elements like using a stylus to ink. IMO software and computers can go so much further than that.
- magicink81 4y ago
  For readers looking for ideas about exactly how software can go so much further than paper, I recommend this now classic essay by Bret Victor, Magic Ink: http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/ http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
  - adamwiggins 4y ago
    Indeed. Victor's work is the gateway drug to tools-for-thought; it certainly was for me. Read at your own peril, the rabbit hole goes very deep :-)

divan 4y ago

Be curious. It's not a sketching app. It's literally endless paper w/ endless zoom levels, which is pretty sick to use in practice. Basically instead of creating "nested" board, you just zoom into the area/letter/shape and start whole new spatial universe there. Plus it supports images, and drag-n-dropping them directly from other apps in a iPad split mode makes it a joy to use often.

adamwiggins 4y ago
Well said. I'm not arguing its utility--I've used it and I think it's a great app. But I do think of it as "fractal sketching" rather than spatial research.