Be careful as for Scrivener on iOS, as many (including myself) are reporting broken Dropbox sync on the newer devices.
Thanks for the warning. My current iPad is old enough to be unable to even run iOS 13. I do plan to get a new one next year (holding out for a new 11 inch iPad Pro and pencil system) but I won’t really need Scrivener on it until November. Hopefully it will be fixed by then.
Hasn’t been buggy for me over the last 2-3 years.
I do think it requires some concentrated attention to get the best from it, and it’s not cheap.
Thanks for the recommendation. Been playing around with it since yesterday and it has completely changed the way I approach my workflow.
It seems to be the closest mimic to a real second brain experience.
It’s early, but already has a distinct feature set. There is a lot of discussion on twitter under the #roamcult hashtag. In addition a gentleman who clearly knows more than I do shared a custom CSS strategy to tweak the visual experience. I am mainly adjusting tags for visual distinction. I could see this ramping up quite quickly to something far more powerful.
As people have mentioned fully featured usually means bloat, and anyway is a subjective term.
For me it’s Devonthink as it hold almost anything even though in my case 90% of what I add is markdown based. For cases where I want other formats I do not want to have things in different apps. I did for a while go down the siloed route Agenda for this, Drafts for that, Apple Notes for others etc, it just got too complicated.
Drafts on iOS with a send to DT action solves nearly all my iOS usage needs when it comes to Notes, plus I have Hazel watching a cloud folder on my always on MacMini to import PDF’s (invoices etc) into DT where they are automatically filed.
I resisted DT for many years, clunky, not pretty, but V3 made me have another look and I have now gone all in with it, and I can not see that changing. DTTG is not the greatest although I am expecting an update soon given the new Mac V3, however I really only use it to view rather than create, although I do save web links with it.
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#en4life !!! I don’t care what they charge and will pay it happily.
I’ve been all in on DT for a long time. To me D3 is a step backward. It’s taken a bit to try to get it back close to the interface I use and I still miss 3 pane view. I still use DT2 some of the time just because of that. The interface to me is not nearly as easy to navigate as DT2 was. For me pretty is irrelevant. I care about function and ease of use and DT3 fails in some ways.
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I use DEVONthink a lot less since v3 came out, mainly because the interface is now dependent on using the mouse for most navigation. I don’t understand what the designers were thinking of. I see in their forum that staff is defensive and dismissive when customers air their frustrations.
Katie
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I found that to be true for years; their unwillingness to address a bug I’d reported literally for years was part of the reason I migrated from the app in 2016, after using it (from DevonNote to DevonThink to DTP) for a decade. (A few months into 2017 they finally fixed the bug. 
)
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This is very frustrating. It seems to be their primary support person (BlueFrog, or something like that). When another person (programmer, I think) chimes in, he is usually more reasonable. I directed him to comments on this forum about their support, but it seems to have been ineffective.
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I actually like that about DT3, one of the few things I do really like. I mouse much faster than I type. Also faster syncing.
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Bluefrog is the handle, yes. For myself, I wouldn’t describe him as defensive, but he can certainly be pretty spiky.
I think they’ve been quite taken aback by the negative response to some of the big changes in DT3, and haven’t reacted very well. It’s not very professional, but it is human, I think. You put a lot of yourself into something and it’s a big shock when the reaction isn’t what you expected. It’s happened to me a few times
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Not defending the defensive, but I agree and see it a lot on there forums. I just try to ignore it. The software is good And I will roll with it. But then again I have never really been invested in being a part of a software community and looking for support from the company itself. I guess I just don’t expect much from them. But damn, there are those companies that are so gracious and responsive to customers it’s a beautiful sight to see.
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I don’t see bluefrog/Devon Technologies as spikey, abrupt, defensive, etc.
However, DevonThink is an opinionated product. Like Apple itself, when you sign on to DevonThink you are signing on to do things the DevonThink way. And if you ask for something that’s not their way, they’re just going to say nope. Bluefrog is the voice of that. Which can make him appear defensive.
For example, DevonThink’s built-in markdown editor does not support syntax highlighting. It seems to me that’s a ridiculous decision – how can you call yourself a markdown editor without syntax highlighting? But that’s how DevonThink does it, and they don’t seem interested in changing, and that’s that.
I’m re-acquainting myself with DevonThink and rediscovering that it is NOT a product to be started with casually. With something like Bear, say, you can start fooling around with it, see if you like it, and then go searching for the – brief – documentation to see what else it can do. With DevonThink you have to read the manual to even get STARTED using it. It’s just plain confusing, particularly if you just open it up and try to do something with it. And fooling around with it without knowing what you’re doing is dangerous; you might lose data.
Still, it’s a powerful, useful tool for peopel who really need to keep track of a LOT of documents.
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I personally see TB as functionally superior to Roam, but lacking the ease of use of embedding images.
I think the bugginess might be FUD, I strongly recommend trying out the free version of Tinderbox, especially if your last encounter was a while ago, since there have been a lot of nifty features.
Obviously the “right” app is relative to an individual’s needs and preferences. The site confirmed my choice of Craft as my primary note taking app. I hope that is not a reflection of confirmation bias on my part! 
Careful with these lists. They are illustrative, but I think it’s important to build your own, so to speak.
They typically feature two kinds of gaps:
- They’re missing apps; and
- They’re missing features.
For an example of (1), the list you linked, @vgrovpro, doesn’t even include DEVONthink. Steve Yang’s list is much more exhaustive and it still is missing some apps: Artificial Brain Networked with linear notebook app
For an example of (2), none of these lists can really get at the depth of certain features effectively. For instance, Obsidian’s plugin ecosystem will likely surpass any other because of some key fundamentals in the app’s design. Saying both Obsidian and e.g., Roam “have an API” doesn’t quite qualify what Obsidian’s API really means.
TL;DR: There is no “best” app, but there’s definitely a best app for you. Make your own lists of key features and then find the apps that fit them and compare those.
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If there was a best app for me then I wouldn’t read forums like this and buy new apps that do what other apps I already bought can do. Gotta keep hunting that Snark. 
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