It’s not end to end encrypted though. Essentially your notes can technically be access by UpNote people if they wanted to (not saying they would). But I’ll agree with you, it’s works nicely cross platform.
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Good point.
Quotes from the Upnote FAQs:
"Where is the UpNote server located? Is it secure?
UpNote stores data on the Firebase server (which is a service provided by Google). The Firebase platform is certified to major privacy and security standards and fully supports the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Firebase encrypts your data in transit using HTTPS and encrypts your data at rest. You can learn more at Privasi dan Keamanan di Firebase. We also take great care to ensure that your data is secure and only you can access it."
and
"Does UpNote support end-to-end encryption?
End-to-End Encryption (E2EE) is an advanced security method for encrypting and decrypting data and is designed to protect highly confidential information. Due to the complexity of implementation, UpNote currently has no plans to support E2EE. If you wish to store sensitive information such as passwords or credit card numbers, it is recommended that you use a password manager application specifically designed to encrypt sensitive information."
I have put the occasional isolated password in UpNote temporally while tweaking the password manager entry, but nothing top secret, so I’m comfortable continuing with UpNote.
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In defense of the author’s comment, I’ve heard the statement “Apple Notes is underrated” several times from podcast hosts. And they’re not just trying to put out click-bait.
I’ve used Apple Notes for a long time for personal information I want to recall from any device quickly. Things like shopping lists, license plate numbers, current prescriptions for my wife and me, recipes, Disney tickets, Flight itinerary, hotel reservations, etc (Can you tell I’m thinking about a Disneyland trip we have planned for December?)
For my PKM system, I primarily use DevonThink and Craft for specific purposes. I use DevonThink for this purpose because it includes many more useful (at least to me) tools than Apple Notes, such as OCR, file conversion, automatic linking, etc.
Despite the recent hubbub about how much better Apple Notes has become, I’m not tempted to jump ship with DevonThink and Craft, but I will continue to use Apple Notes the way I always have. It excels at that use.
I’m curious about something. I’ve read many threads about Apple Notes (I’ve started a few, too 
). One of the things I’ve noted, no pun intended, is that some users are using AN as a repository for saved articles, documents, and the like, similar to Evernote or DEVONthink. I may be dead wrong about this, but I don’t think AN is designed for that purpose. While the app can store many file types, it is, first and foremost, a “note-taking” app. DEVONthink, on the other hand, is a database specifically designed for document storage, management, conversation, search, etc. Consequently, Apple Notes can store documents but is better at taking notes. DT has an editor where one can take notes, but it is better for document management than for note-taking.
This is why I use Apple Notes for all personal and professional notes but DT for document (research and archives) storage and management.
Am I interpreting some of the comments correctly (I’m NOT referring specifically to yours).
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I have heard from several sources that putting too many documents into Apple Notes slows it to a crawl and becomes unusable. Perhaps that is evidence that it was never intended to be a heavy-weight repository for saved articles, documents, and the like.
From what I can find, the issue is not the number of notes but the number of attachments within a note. That said, each year, I export all of my notes to DT and then delete year-specific notes from AN so that AN never gets “too big.” With this process, I’ve never exceeded 2,000 notes in AN.
This may not be necessary but on the other hand, it makes finding notes and managing them easier.
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I’ve tried a few different note-taking apps. (Actually settled on DT)
But Apple Notes (plus Shortcuts) excels at this particular use-case: I’m out in the world with my Airpods in and I say “Hey Siri, take a note” I’m prompted to dicate and the result it appended to an Apple Note. (Okay, yeah, that was Shortcuts)
But Apple Notes syncs so very well! Better than anything else I tried. So I can count on the fact that if I made a note when I was out, when I get back to my Mac my updated note is open and there.
Well, that last part is Keyboard Maestro. But Apple Notes scripting and syncing supports the whole workflow.
Not in my experience. Notes created on one of my Macs (mini M1 and MacBookPro M1) have taken more than 24 hours to sync to my iPhone 14 and iPad Air (4th gen). Syncing back the other way is slow. The work around of
killall bird
in a Terminal session on the Macs usually results in the notes being propogated around the device in a timely fashion.
The same iCloud-induced delay also affects Obsidian sync between the same four devices. Again the killall hack usually sorts it out.
Hmm…weird. l have had iCloud syncing issues in other scenarios, but it seemed (to me) that Notes was immune
I’ll keep and eye on this, and thanks for the hack!
I picked it up from someone’s posting here at MPU; they deserve the thanks but sadly I’ve forgottten who first mentioned it.
I would like to use Apple Notes, as it’s built in and easy to use (and free), but I’ve settled on UpNote as it has some key advantages.
- Backup automatically to Markdown files
- Lightning fast sync via Firebase - never not worked in the few months I’ve been using it
- Cross platform, should I need it
- Has the ability to share notes as web pages.
Apple note sharing appears to be restricted to people with an iCloud account, whereas with UpNote I can put together a note of meeting, or a proposal, or a draft of a document and share it to a group of people as a read-only web page. Occasionally a note is linked from our organisation’s website with the advantage I can update its contents in seconds. I use that several times a week, often with people I don’t work with regularly so I have no idea whether they’re in the Apple-universe.
My Mac is too old to get the latest MacOS and since Apple insist on rolling out Notes features with the OS rather than simply updating the app I can’t get the latest and greatest Notes features. With UpNote I can still get things like linking with all my devices.
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