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Apple Notes is underrated. There is no flashy features to distract you. Just you and your notes.

easeout 2y ago
You say that, but there are tons of features in Notes. They're just successfully kept out of your way until you go looking for them, so when you just want a note that's what you get. This is progressive disclosure, a longtime tenet of Apple GUI design. A relevant and somewhat meta example: This year they added disclosable sections, which were previously a differentiator for Notion. That's in addition to handwriting selection and editing, voice memos, collaborative editing… Not to mention it's still a regular app and you can have as many note windows as you want.
- DavidPiper 2y ago
  I'm in the process of moving all (~2000) of my Apple Notes to Logseq. I still think Apple Notes is excellent, and I'll still be using it for Inbox-style notes. But it just needs to be a bit more open and extendable. Give me good tables, proper linking between notes and a graph view (or at least an API so I can build that myself) and I'll be back forever.
jaynate 2y ago
Totally agree. Use it for everything. Even replaced my handwritten notebooks since I got new iPad Pro w pencil.
luckman212 2y ago
I strongly disagree for these reasons: - note data stored in a proprietary format - no way to access note data from other apps/api - no way to export in bulk, or in any other format than PDF (a terrible format for notes) - iCloud sync is a mildly terrifying thing to entrust important data to I use Apple Notes for the occasional quick grocery list but that's about it.
- pbh101 2y ago
  Agree on all the above except that iCloud sync seems to have been rock-solid for years now.
- apsurd 2y ago
  Great points i also agree with. That's Apple being Apple. I'd want an open format for sure. Thing about Apple Notes is in spite of the open ideals, if you're in the apple ecosystem, it's just easily there, on all devices, very unassuming and simply, and that's so so very valuable. It's the long view that gets me. Over the last 20 years, if i'm in the Apple ecosystem, notes are there, synced across everything, and it's just text. and it's simple.
- jen729w 2y ago
  #tag support across shared Notes is also abysmal. The new tag doesn’t appear as an actual tag in person 2’s system until they ‘initiate’ it. I tried really hard to love Notes. I wanted to. For the reasons you note, and this one, and many others, I couldn’t.
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  If you sync your notes to icloud you can bulk export to flat text files via https://privacy.apple.com/ https://privacy.apple.com/ > "request a copy of your data" I've never experienced data loss due to icloud sync YMMV
- 015a 2y ago
  I don't get the "note data is stored in a proprietary format" hate. There's a dozen different open source tools you can find which will one-shot export your Apple Notes to markdown, when you want to leave the ecosystem. Its not like Notion where the exports are messy, non-bulk, and destructive; they're proprietary, but parseable and sitting in a file on your MacOS filesystem. I've never had iCloud Sync display any weird behavior in Apple Notes, and I've got thousands in there. I have, absolutely, seen Obsidian Sync delete notes I did not delete, and fail to upload notes; both of these were generally remediable via their recycle bin, but still very concerning. All of these complaints are of the nature of "I don't actually have anything valuable to write down so I'd rather worry about the nature of the tool than what I'm writing". And, to be clear, I think this is why Notion is so popular, just for different reasons than your's; it looks great, and makes you feel productive because you've got amazing cross-referenced tables and hyperbacklinks and h1h2h3s and then wait where's the content?
two_cents 2y ago
Apple Notes is pretty close to perfect for me - it's just missing Markdown support and backlinks. I did just figure out how to link notes together with the '>>' shortcut, which is a game-changer. I've tried a bunch of other apps, but I always come back to Notes.
- apsurd 2y ago
  https://www.pronotes.app/ https://www.pronotes.app/ gives you markdown and back links on mac. I've been pretty happy with it since i use notes so often.
atombender 2y ago
I like Apple Notes, but collaborative editing is completely broken. I use it for sharing things like shopping lists with my wife. If I edit something while she's also editing, it gets mangled. Whatever Notes uses for collaborative syncing, it's not OT or CRDTs. Notes is also quite terrible at many things: * Embedded photos cannot be resized or placed next to text * Table support is incredibly limited, to the point of being unusable except as a rudimentary grid * No support for multiple columns * No table of contents view * No linking between notes (I think?) * No way to change the font or change out the dreary yellow background colour * No syntax highlighting of embedded code fragment * No support for equations * No support for shorthands (e.g. # to get a level 1 headline) Notion, for all its flaws, has all of the above. And its collaborative editing is solid, if maybe not as good as Google Docs.

You say that, but there are tons of features in Notes. They're just successfully kept out of your way until you go looking for them, so when you just want a note that's what you get. This is progressive disclosure, a longtime tenet of Apple GUI design. A relevant and somewhat meta example: This year they added disclosable sections, which were previously a differentiator for Notion. That's in addition to handwriting selection and editing, voice memos, collaborative editing… Not to mention it's still a regular app and you can have as many note windows as you want.

DavidPiper 2y ago
I'm in the process of moving all (~2000) of my Apple Notes to Logseq. I still think Apple Notes is excellent, and I'll still be using it for Inbox-style notes. But it just needs to be a bit more open and extendable. Give me good tables, proper linking between notes and a graph view (or at least an API so I can build that myself) and I'll be back forever.

jaynate 2y ago

Totally agree. Use it for everything. Even replaced my handwritten notebooks since I got new iPad Pro w pencil.

luckman212 2y ago

I strongly disagree for these reasons: - note data stored in a proprietary format - no way to access note data from other apps/api - no way to export in bulk, or in any other format than PDF (a terrible format for notes) - iCloud sync is a mildly terrifying thing to entrust important data to I use Apple Notes for the occasional quick grocery list but that's about it.

pbh101 2y ago
Agree on all the above except that iCloud sync seems to have been rock-solid for years now.
apsurd 2y ago
Great points i also agree with. That's Apple being Apple. I'd want an open format for sure. Thing about Apple Notes is in spite of the open ideals, if you're in the apple ecosystem, it's just easily there, on all devices, very unassuming and simply, and that's so so very valuable. It's the long view that gets me. Over the last 20 years, if i'm in the Apple ecosystem, notes are there, synced across everything, and it's just text. and it's simple.
jen729w 2y ago
#tag support across shared Notes is also abysmal. The new tag doesn’t appear as an actual tag in person 2’s system until they ‘initiate’ it. I tried really hard to love Notes. I wanted to. For the reasons you note, and this one, and many others, I couldn’t.
jazzyjackson 2y ago
If you sync your notes to icloud you can bulk export to flat text files via https://privacy.apple.com/ https://privacy.apple.com/ > "request a copy of your data" I've never experienced data loss due to icloud sync YMMV
015a 2y ago
I don't get the "note data is stored in a proprietary format" hate. There's a dozen different open source tools you can find which will one-shot export your Apple Notes to markdown, when you want to leave the ecosystem. Its not like Notion where the exports are messy, non-bulk, and destructive; they're proprietary, but parseable and sitting in a file on your MacOS filesystem. I've never had iCloud Sync display any weird behavior in Apple Notes, and I've got thousands in there. I have, absolutely, seen Obsidian Sync delete notes I did not delete, and fail to upload notes; both of these were generally remediable via their recycle bin, but still very concerning. All of these complaints are of the nature of "I don't actually have anything valuable to write down so I'd rather worry about the nature of the tool than what I'm writing". And, to be clear, I think this is why Notion is so popular, just for different reasons than your's; it looks great, and makes you feel productive because you've got amazing cross-referenced tables and hyperbacklinks and h1h2h3s and then wait where's the content?

two_cents 2y ago

Apple Notes is pretty close to perfect for me - it's just missing Markdown support and backlinks. I did just figure out how to link notes together with the '>>' shortcut, which is a game-changer. I've tried a bunch of other apps, but I always come back to Notes.

apsurd 2y ago
https://www.pronotes.app/ https://www.pronotes.app/ gives you markdown and back links on mac. I've been pretty happy with it since i use notes so often.

atombender 2y ago

I like Apple Notes, but collaborative editing is completely broken. I use it for sharing things like shopping lists with my wife. If I edit something while she's also editing, it gets mangled. Whatever Notes uses for collaborative syncing, it's not OT or CRDTs. Notes is also quite terrible at many things: * Embedded photos cannot be resized or placed next to text * Table support is incredibly limited, to the point of being unusable except as a rudimentary grid * No support for multiple columns * No table of contents view * No linking between notes (I think?) * No way to change the font or change out the dreary yellow background colour * No syntax highlighting of embedded code fragment * No support for equations * No support for shorthands (e.g. # to get a level 1 headline) Notion, for all its flaws, has all of the above. And its collaborative editing is solid, if maybe not as good as Google Docs.