I think the core product is good and I’ll keep my subscription. But the two updates I mentioned are not in themselves enough reason to buy TheBrain.
Hey just seeing this discussion thread on TheBrain.
For mind mapping I would also recommend SimpleMind. The interface is very intuitive and my replacement for MindJet on the Mac.
The integration between the Mac and iOS works well.
I’m interested to see how you are going with TheBrain, now some time has passed? Are you still using it? Has the subscription proved worthwhile?
I’m currently on the free tier, but not sure I can justify its expensive price.
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Update: The Brain is looking pretty good as I work my way through their videos.
Do folks here that use it find that it leads to new insights?
Yes, I do, and it takes persistence. I have a “brain” document I call “Mulling” that I’ve keep going for many years. A journal + research + topical index thing. The tagging, typecasting, timeline, calendar integration with Google, and inter-note linking features helped me build up a complex mesh of references among the documents, site links, and notes in that “brain”. I use the “brain box” Safari bookmarklet in version 10 to grab web sites. And capturing to The Brain on iOS (iPad and Phone) is very good. I don’t edit much on iOS, preferring to use the larger screen on my MacBook for that.
Working with The Brain doesn’t seem like work. It’s relaxing and quite a different experience than most software. In fact, I prefer not to use it for income-work just to keep TheBrain as an enjoyable space for time-off reading.
It’s pricey, no doubt, but difficult to match in capabilities.
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I never played with it because all previous versions were (ugh) Java apps. But I know someone who uses it on Windows and Mac and likes it a lot for emergent structure, though that’s something you could also get from a wiki or Tinderbox or Notion.so (which is mostly a real pretty wiki).
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FYI, since MindNode was discussed earlier in this thread, the developer just announced that v.6 will be out next month:
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David Allen on GTD and his use of The Brain.
From doing a hexdump/hexfiend of the executable, it looks like they’ve moved to Mono, the open source cross-platform .Net framework from Microsoft. I assume it is written in C# now too.
Interesting. With Mono/Xamarin they have an open source route today to making native cross-platform apps on macOS, iOS, tvOS, watchOS, Android, and Windows. If the environment gives them what they need (and gives us speed without reduced features) it’s probably a better option than waiting for an updated UIKit that keeps devs in the Apple ecosystem.
The last Java-based version of The Brain was v8. The major change in v9 was to move off Java to the current architecture. The v9 beta was very long – over a year if I recall correctly. Though v9 had some new features, it also saw the removal of key features so the beta received a lot of pushback from the beta users initially. The current v10 was faster to market – because of the re-architecting in v9 – and more stable than Java versions v5, v6, v7 and v8.
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Thank goodness. iMindMap is Java based and it is excruciatingly slow, unreliable and generally unusable.
I installed V10, but my previous demo of the software (V8 I think) means that V10 is running in free mode. 
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I see TheBrain have released v11. Its key feature is a new editor which supports Markdown (I don’t know which flavour).
I remain intrigued by TheBrain but have yet to be convinced that it will deliver me with enough value to justify the cost.
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So how does TheBrain differ form DEVONthink 3. Are there any overlap between the two?
They overlap in that both store information. Beyond that, I would recommend watching youtube videos to get an idea how they work. They are fundamentally different.
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TB 11 uses a home grown Markdown version, which unfortunately is having issues escaping email addresses in in-line code snippets.
Otherwise, it’s been a great improvement for note taking inside TB. Notes are fast to open as they are plain text now.
They are still working on fixing a few formatting issues, like the in-line code issue, overall it’s far superior to the older semi-HTML implementation that was given a half-hearted effort at best, IMO.
Still using it daily for all kinds of notes and bookmarking. It’s become my personal knowledge-base, due to the fact I am on Windows at work and DEVONthink isn’t.
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