Bear (I tried but I am not using it) could have been the perfect note taking app had it not been for the not-text-files on the disk approach. It is still arguably the best note taking app for anyone who is not bothered by that.
UpNote, since you mention it, is not just another Electron app but still an Electron app and it screams “I am an Electron app” if one uses it for even 10 mins and that person has mostly used native apps and that is what they want.
So these are two excellent apps literally handicapped by one or two issues, but glaring issues.
PS. UpNote has another problem - it’s a huge problem considering it’s a notes app and the data can be very personal - it doesn’t use any known trusted sync destination like iCloud or some other proven E2EE (even their own) way to sync. Instead it has its own proprietary “sync” offering and that is highly questionable! I would never be able to wrap my head around it.
Due to the complexity of implementation, UpNote currently has no plans to support E2EE.
So while I know Bear is never going to be text-files-on-the-disk (again, yes they were that once and moved to a db file - but it’s local) - I can trust it with my data at least and it is almost as good as it gets when it comes to a native app. However, I, personally, am never touching UpNote with a pole.
I don’t believe I’ve read any mention in these forums of Evernote’s AI-powered search feature and would like to hear what others’ experiences with it have been. Something like a Perplexity for an Evernote database could be very useful and hopefully that’s the direction they are heading,
I’m a long-term Obsidian user (nearly 4 years!) but I keep tabs on the other apps, and wowzers, the current development velocity on Evernote is remarkable (both in terms of new features and performance improvements)
Card note view (Apple Notes may have similar view but it’s thumbnails)
Comprehensive search including results of notebooks and tags
In a note you can see where the note is located, whether it has backlinks, and you can choose to have a table of contents, with all the words of subheadings shown not being cropped
Home (no apps have this)
Integrated task management and calendar (although NotePlan has the similar)
Table with formats and image insertion in it (I need these functions to help thinking and analysing)
Templates (I have tables or forms needed to be self-accessed regularly)
Experience of folding subheadings is better than Bear
That said, I still use Apple Notes with Pages. Evernote is still too slow and bloated, no matter what people said they have made millions of improvements.
I think only Evernote and Upnote. Otherwise if you don’t want to pay Apple Pages with Screen View is an option.
Table is good for thinking because it is convenient on mobile phones. Handwriting or drawing can only take place for larger screens and even pen, or zoom in as big as possible but it will be less handy as on table.
With table and images and highlights and colors and bullet points: powerful and relieved!
Psychological wellbeing practitioners will also encourage using tables — especially when setting up plans and scheduling.
As opposed to some of the comments; I have found UpNote to be the perfect replacement for my Evernote archive. It runs off of Google’s Firebase that has almost instantaneous sync capability. #e23 no, but flawless #yes!!! The creator of UpNote consistently publishes updates to refine the app.
I have found no difference in responsiveness between an electron and Apple standard app. Is it flawless, no, but what app is? Are there security concerns, possibly, depending on the content you include.
For me #ymmv, it has been a stellar app capable throwing whatever I need to at it.
I wish Bear hadn’t changed from keeping plain text files on the disk (out in the open) instead of bundling them in a db file. I would have still been a customer. But then I guess they figured it doesn’t matter to most customers who probably are moving from Apple Notes which is not exactly known for letting direct access to anything in a open and easy manner so that worked. Great app anyway. Because now I am looking for a Bear app that allows it
This is the most important thing for me. I will not submit my files to a proprietary database whether it’s in the cloud or even in my local computer.
Most app builders will reasonably argue that in order to build sophisticated features like full featured tag categories, note linking and whatnot a certain database capability is necessary. But it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing approach, like the database can be a companion to the full repository of files in a well known location in your filesystem. That’s the beauty of Obsidian and, to a certain extent, DEVONthink if you do indexing, i’m not sure of other apps but perhaps Agenda is similar. If your database is damaged, lost, or your switch apps or whatever you lose the metadata that was in the database, but you don’t lose your files and can potentially rebuild everything again.
And, as it happens, at least Obsidian is extremely quick reindexing everything as the metadata can be put in a markdown front-matter in the files themselves.
Strongly suggest looking at the Notebooks app. I’ve been in using this for a number of years and found it excellent.
Apart from including the usual notes in various formats, it’ll also store Microsoft Office and iWork documents plus PDFs it’s a one off purchase and has an Apple Watch app.
Also uses folders.
