4 ms·

iOS notes has changed my life. It's available on my work Mac, home Mac, and iPhone, and is always synced. It has everything I need and nothing more.

withinboredom 4y ago
I stopped using it when I needed to work in Windows. I use InkDrop these days which is cross-platform.
JohnBooty 4y ago
I like Bear.app (MacOS, iOS, iPadOS) even better. Specifically, I love that it's Markdown-based and has support for code blocks with syntax highlighting. Only problem is that it uses iCloud Drive for syncing and my employer has blocked that. :-/ I agree with you, though: Notes is really quite good. I'm not sure how Notes syncs, exactly, but for whatever reason it's not blocked by my employer.
- and0 4y ago
  I think I've just decided to drop Bear for Obsidian on Mac. I need that plugin support (hard to leave VSCode line shifting hotkeys), and the code blocks work so much better.
  - JohnBooty 4y ago
    Hmmmm, thanks for giving me something to check out.
spyke112 4y ago
Worth mentioning that it's also available on web at icloud.com. I don't have a mac, but have an iPhone and iPad, and i love the Notes app for quick things and lists that I want to remember - and it's accessible from anywhere.
i2shar 4y ago
Yes, same experience, but I wish there was code formatting in Notes. A lot of my notes are code snippets and Notes fails there. I've recently switched to Obsidian with the iCloud drive backup and trying to get used to it.
pantulis 4y ago
Beware: there is not an easy migration path out of Apple Notes. Also sync is not that great for massive datasets: I tried to sync my 22k-ish Evernote notes to Apple Notes and it took days and I never got the same number of notes on all the different devices. If you are currently building your notes you will probably not encounter this issue, though.
- pqs 4y ago
  I also almost have 20k Evernote notes. I was considering obsidian, but the devs say that obsidian is designed for a maximum of 20k notes. So, I'm already on the upper bound, as you are. Probably, obsidian would be slow if I import all my notes. Evernote, on a Windows 10 Desktop, now works fast, at least for me. I think we undervalue this fact, we undervalue the fact that it is hard to make good note taking apps that can sync and search fast with more than 20k notes. I guess there are users with 60k notes!
  - pantulis 4y ago
    Evernote, for all the flak it is getting, is still a remarkable product and I feel like the pricing is fair for what it gives. It ingests everything from everywhere, it indexes and scans everything for a flat fee. They are currently still catching up to reach feature parity with the old native clients, but at least they are releasing more frequently --which means betting the house on Electron technology is paying off--. I do not use Evernote any more (finally ended up with plain files in iCloud Drive and EagleFiler to top it off) but I am still following their releases as a paying customer.
    - pqs 4y ago
      Evernote is indeed a great piece of software. They have gone through very difficult times, but now the Desktop app is working very well (not the Android client, which is very slow, but improving), it is fast and despite it lacks some old features, it has great new features, like Tasks. I would not be able to work without it. Each time I thought about moving out, I realized I could not, because of some nice feature. So, Evernote is great and it is here to stay. My feeling is that those who are happy with Evernote do not write blog posts or tweets about it, it is mostly the haters and the frustrated who are writing out there.
nicbou 4y ago
Notability will pop your block off

withinboredom 4y ago

I stopped using it when I needed to work in Windows. I use InkDrop these days which is cross-platform.

JohnBooty 4y ago

I like Bear.app (MacOS, iOS, iPadOS) even better. Specifically, I love that it's Markdown-based and has support for code blocks with syntax highlighting. Only problem is that it uses iCloud Drive for syncing and my employer has blocked that. :-/ I agree with you, though: Notes is really quite good. I'm not sure how Notes syncs, exactly, but for whatever reason it's not blocked by my employer.

and0 4y ago
I think I've just decided to drop Bear for Obsidian on Mac. I need that plugin support (hard to leave VSCode line shifting hotkeys), and the code blocks work so much better.
- JohnBooty 4y ago
  Hmmmm, thanks for giving me something to check out.

spyke112 4y ago

Worth mentioning that it's also available on web at icloud.com. I don't have a mac, but have an iPhone and iPad, and i love the Notes app for quick things and lists that I want to remember - and it's accessible from anywhere.

i2shar 4y ago

Yes, same experience, but I wish there was code formatting in Notes. A lot of my notes are code snippets and Notes fails there. I've recently switched to Obsidian with the iCloud drive backup and trying to get used to it.

pantulis 4y ago

Beware: there is not an easy migration path out of Apple Notes. Also sync is not that great for massive datasets: I tried to sync my 22k-ish Evernote notes to Apple Notes and it took days and I never got the same number of notes on all the different devices. If you are currently building your notes you will probably not encounter this issue, though.

pqs 4y ago
I also almost have 20k Evernote notes. I was considering obsidian, but the devs say that obsidian is designed for a maximum of 20k notes. So, I'm already on the upper bound, as you are. Probably, obsidian would be slow if I import all my notes. Evernote, on a Windows 10 Desktop, now works fast, at least for me. I think we undervalue this fact, we undervalue the fact that it is hard to make good note taking apps that can sync and search fast with more than 20k notes. I guess there are users with 60k notes!
- pantulis 4y ago
  Evernote, for all the flak it is getting, is still a remarkable product and I feel like the pricing is fair for what it gives. It ingests everything from everywhere, it indexes and scans everything for a flat fee. They are currently still catching up to reach feature parity with the old native clients, but at least they are releasing more frequently --which means betting the house on Electron technology is paying off--. I do not use Evernote any more (finally ended up with plain files in iCloud Drive and EagleFiler to top it off) but I am still following their releases as a paying customer.
  - pqs 4y ago
    Evernote is indeed a great piece of software. They have gone through very difficult times, but now the Desktop app is working very well (not the Android client, which is very slow, but improving), it is fast and despite it lacks some old features, it has great new features, like Tasks. I would not be able to work without it. Each time I thought about moving out, I realized I could not, because of some nice feature. So, Evernote is great and it is here to stay. My feeling is that those who are happy with Evernote do not write blog posts or tweets about it, it is mostly the haters and the frustrated who are writing out there.

nicbou 4y ago

Notability will pop your block off