Yes, I realize this. Thanks anyway!
I was referring to capture on the Watch, as use that regularly.
I’ve happily settled on Tot to capture on the watch; thanks to @SteveNY, I realized it has a watch complication and allows dictation into a note. I’ll be using a combination of Siri, Reminders most of the time, and Tot for longer text capture.
I second hiding sidebars and toolbars if Drafts feels complicated. It doesn’t get any simpler than opening it with a guarantee of having a blank temporary writing space, that’s going to be searchable if you ever need it again.
Tot, iA, and Bear are all solid suggestions. The only thing with Tot is it does encourage you to append too much onto one of the seven notes. (That’s nice for keeping a handful of permanent logs, but kind of the opposite of Drafts.)
You probably know this too 
but you can use your watch to dictate a note to Notes with Siri. I do this often.
Another bonus - Tot shortcuts work natively on the Watch. So you can simply set up a capture shortcut and have it added to a dot.
This post and the replies about iA Writer inspired me to post separately about something I’ve had in the back of my mind for a few months:
I did not realize I could capture to Notes on the Watch! I need to find a cheat sheet for Siri, as I haven’t been able to discover many cool functions. I’m going to Google one now.
I will be using it because I keep personal information in Notes. Thanks!
@Rob_Polding I’m wrong!! I create notes using Siri from the phone, iPad, and Mac, and thought I’d also done so using the watch. But, to make sure, I just tried it. Siri says “she” can’t do that on the watch. I do this a lot with Reminders from the watch, but apparently, I have not been doing so with Notes from the watch. My apologies for the mistake!
Thanks for testing it out, I tried on the phone to test it and presumed it would work on the Watch too.
Hopefully, this will be added with the new Siri in September.
As a long-time Drafts user, I’m experimenting with a new approach to capturing content. Most of my capture happens on my iPhone. Traditionally, I’ve used Drafts to gather everything, then send it to its final destination. I’m thinking of bypassing Drafts and capturing content directly into its final app.
Here’s the plan:
This method covers most of what I capture. To streamline the process, I created a shortcut called Quick Add on my iPhone for quick capture to Things, Notes, and iA Writer. The Quick Add shortcut, in my Dock, allows me to quickly add a new task to Things, a new note to Notes, or a new idea for a blog post to iA Writer. I’ll let you know on how this works out for me.
I have a Drafts Pro subscription because it all seemed like a great idea 8 months ago. I was committed to starting text in Drafts and punting it where it needs to go. I even put the complication on my watch face for easy dictation. That sounded great in theory.
In reality, in six months, I may have hit the dictation button 2 times.
In my head I’m this super creative, idea generation machine that needs Drafts nearby at all times to capture my ideas. But 95% of the time I just do what you described. When I think of an email I need to send I just write it in the email app. A task, I just write it in Todoist.
As I look at my list of drafts I have 10 notes since Christmas 2023. A couple random web links, a measurement I took (the day I decided I would commit to Drafts) and a draft email that I ultimately determined was easier to just write in the email app. I wasn’t left wondering how the push from Drafts to email would format the note etc
And like others have said, the perceived value of Drafts for me is in its simplicity. A blank sheet. I don’t want to use spaces or use it for anything remotely like “storing” notes. For that I will just use a notes app.
I feel like it’s an unnecessary middle man. I understand the appeal, but it’s not for me.
My primary use case for Drafts is to strip formatting from the text I copied elsewhere. I used to use Drafts to draft sensitive emails that I wanted to ensure I got right without the fear of accidentally hitting send prematurely. I now use Notes for that simple function.
I created an app called A Thousand Thoughts to capture quick, burst of short thoughts. The app always opens with the cursor ready to capture. I can categorize them as important thoughts, good ones and bad ones. Or, archive them. It even have Soulver Core API for quick calculations. I made it to look like a comic book for fun and to relax the mind.
It was meant for own consumption but there seems to be some interest on capturing notes so I hope you all don’t mind me doing some self-promotion here.
No subscription. And, it works in the Mac as a “Designed for iPad app”
It’s interesting that it looks like writing and sending text messages, but to yourself. I’d imagine that could reduce friction for a lot of people.
Hmm. You can’t do speech to text capture on the Apple Watch in Apple Notes, but you can in Agile Tortoise’s Drafts. 
Just checked my Apple Watch and it does not have an Apple Notes app. Not that I use macOS Notes that often anyway so the omission does not really matter to me.
Yeah, that was my point. Apple doesn’t have one for its own device but other notes apps (e.g., Drafts and iirc Bear) do.
Doesn’t bother me. I always have my phone with me so I just invoke Siri to “take a note.”
I was mostly remarking on the irony of Apple not supporting their own watch with their own Notes app. I have a cellular watch, so I do occasionally skip bringing my phone along.
Out of context or maybe not
Every time I read (or write) such a post, it somehow reminds me of 
pic. A bit funny 
Some of us never liked Apple Notes in the first place, and probably never will. 
