Wait, I missed it and see it now. Bear still does a better job on the iPad. The Evernote web clipper on Mac and PC is better than the one on iPad.
I really like Apple Notes. Exporting is a pain though, there’s multiple exporters and they all miss different things, and the notes need editing afterwards. I had the best results using Bear’s exporter to migrate everything to Obsidian.
I wish Apple Notes supported Markdown, and linking to other notes would be nice, as that’s been helpful for me.
The iOS app is great for quickly jotting down things on the go though, along with quick todo lists and scanning documents.
I don’t use Aeon Timeline as a case/project management tool. I use it for building case chronologies. As I learn facts about a case (from documents, our investigation, etc.), my team puts those facts into the Aeon Timeline database, then we can add all sorts of metadata that enables us to drill down and build arguments. Can that be done in OmniPlan? If so, I should check it out.
Coincidentally, the Aeon Timeline developers asked me to do a case study for them about how I use it. The case study demonstrates what I was explaining above. I’ll add the link once it gets published. … which reminds me that I owe them some edits.
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Ahhh, okay, this makes more sense. I thought you were using it for project planning, etc. I’ve heard of folks using it for project planning like OmniPlan but have never actually seen an example from real-life professionals, so that was why I asked.
Thanks for clarifying!
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So happy I don’t do litigation anymore.
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You probably already know this but you can drag an email into Apple Notes (at using Mail, I don’t know about other email clients) and a link to the email is automatically created in Notes.
Yes, that is a nice feature. You can also drag an email (from Mail) to Evernote and get the same link. Most often, I prefer to save the actual email vice just the link.
On macOS:
Saving an email from Mail to Notes requires copy/paste or Print to .pdf/Notes. If the email is anything other than simple text (E.g. HTML) the copy/paste often (in my experience) loses formatting.
You can forward an email from Mail to Evernote and the resulting notes look great. This is my normal workflow for saving email to Evernote.
Print to pdf/Notes and Print to pdf/Evernote produces the same pdf in each. In Evernote the pdf email is searchable and text is selectable. Notes will find a search phrase in a pdf, but to search within the pdf or to select text I think you need to open it in Preview.
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I agree, the process of saving email to Apple Notes is less than ideal. Years ago I used EN extensively but abandoned it when they seemed to have lost their way. The bigger problem for me was the difficulty getting stuff out of EN (what David refers to as the “roach motel). I’ll quickly acknowledge that AN is not stellar in this regard either. The problem with getting information out of systems like EN and AN is what still causes me friction in feeling settled on my note taking app. I’ve defaulted to AN but still feel the pull of other apps like Obsidian and Craft. If I could seamlessly connect a todo in Craft to Reminders (my task manager of choice) I’d use Craft but thus far (unless I’m missing it) Craft doesn’t have a Reminders extension, only a Things one. I like Obsidian but I don’t like how one has to embed PDFs in a note and creating tables, while doable, is far from elegant. What I want is AN with more export options (Textbundle) and note linking. If AN had that, I’d be one happy camper. 
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It’s funny how different people have altering views on the ease of export from some systems. David and Stephen have talked about how awful it is to get things out of Evernote, but my experience has been quite the opposite. I right-click on a notebook, export to .enex and then import into another app (e.g. Apple Notes). Some notes might lose a little formatting, and some editing may have to occur, but overall – it’s pretty good.
Apple Notes offers no such export function unless each note is exported to PDF individually, or you resort to third party options which may or may not function as expected.
I also hear a lot of people say Obsidian is future proof, and I’m not sure how much I agree with this. Yes, it stores your data in plain text files on your device, but without the Obsidian app on your device and depending on what plugins were used, it may be a heap of unreadable kanban boards and task notes. I’m also not sure it’s even possible to link notes without Obsidian installed, though I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the case.
To some extent, I think no matter how “future proof” an app is, there are still ingredients in that company’s “special sauce” that can cause unforeseen issues the day you try to leave.
I swing between Apple Notes and Obsidian.
Apple notes because I’m full Apple, Obsidian because is Markdown and has backlinks.
I swing mostly because I’m still evaluating if backlinks give value to my workflow and my notes: they are useful but also time consuming, and I realize many of them may be easily replaced by simply searching for the terms.
I really like Apple Notes because it’s frictionless.
As for exporting the notes it’s not a problem until now: if you are on Mac you can install the Export App for AppStore, that exports all your notes into markdown, along with pictures and PDFs.
With some limitations:
- it’s an all or nothing exporting: you can’t choose a set of notes
- it doesn’t export handwritten notes (at least until now)
Not any more, at least for the markdown editor.
They’ve done done a fair amount of work on it over the last couple of years, and now it’s more than good enough for simple (and some not so simple) note taking.
It does:
- syntax highlighting of markdown and various languages within code blocks (using prism), and including CriticMarkup
- automatic continuation of lists, including checkboxes
- style sheets
- tables
- mermaid for diagrams
- transclusion of files
- MathJax for Latex style equations
- verification of links (Wiki and x-devonthink)
- easy linking (forward and back) of multiple links
- automatic handling of image location
- side by side preview etc
There are successful commercial markdown editors which can’t do some of that…
These days I tend to use DT3 for most short notes. You wouldn’t use it for text of any length, but for the short stuff, I only use external editors for:
-
BBEdit for manipulating text. E.g. Complicated searches (both in the one document and acroos many), turning CSV into tables, and plain text coding (CSS etc)
-
iA Writer if the note is has a lot of lists which need reordering.
It’s not perfect, of course – I’ve been asking them for typewriter scrolling for the last ten years – and you wouldn’t use it as a standalone editor, but given its integration into DT3’s features, it definitely has advantages.
For the markdown editor, at least, I suspect it’s often based on impressions from a couple of years ago, when it was very basic. They’ve improved it a lot since then.
I don’t use RTF anymore, but I agree that the rich text editor hasn’t moved on in the same way.
This is certainly fair and a legitimate concern. I will say, however, that the Exporter app works very well with Apple Notes. It exports both the note and attachments and thus far has been flawless. 
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I’m sure you know this but for the benefit of those in this forum who may not, while you can’t select specific notes, you can select specific folders, which may export more than I need but in this case, that is a friction point that I’m happy to live with.
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Don’t say this, more ammo to switch to Apple Notes 
Well, to add to your temptation, I just learned how to uncheck an entire list of checked todo items in AN, see here. Thanks @Tony!
Also, the ability to easily APPEND a document, picture, etc, to an existing AN is fantastic and fast.
So ……
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This is an easy trap to fall into with Obsidian, but it is possible to keep your formatting compatible with other Markdown editors.
For the most part, is a phrase with four words. None of my plugins have their own custom formatting, because I’m trying to keep things compatible. However, if I use something like Dataview (for example), its syntax lives on a dedicated page, I wouldn’t mix it in with other notes.
That said, I don’t think it would be a big deal. If you moved to something else you might have a few lines of junk to clear out of your notes, but words are still words and Obsidian’s Markdown flavor is loosely based on the CommonMark spec. If you had task lists or kanbans, you’d have to recreate them anyway when you leave Obsidian.
I was afraid of this too when I switched, so I made a list of alternatives. Obsidian uses [[wikilinks]], which are supported by pretty much anything that uses Markdown and claims to link pages together, it’s the autocomplete while typing that I was worried about losing. Zettlr, Logseq, iA Writer, etc. have support for this, and there’s Foam and Dendron for VS Code. Also, wiki software, where it originated.
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It also won’t export link attachments (like when you use the share menu from Safari). I’m glad I hadn’t deleted the old notes yet when I discovered this issue a couple weeks later.
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Do you know if this is the same format used by DEVONthink?
Yes, DT3 can use [[links]].
It has three settings for wikilinks: MashedWords, [[square brackets]] and Names and Aliases, and you can choose any or all of them.
It also has tools to deal with the links: you can verify them, you can update the links if the source note’s name changes, and you can convert them to x-devonthink links.
One of the quick ways to create links from within a document is to have the ‘automatic’ option on, then type the name of the note you want to create in brackets: [[New Note]].
When you click inside the bracket, this creates a new note with the template you see in the screenshot, complete with links back to the source note and any other details you want. It’s a very nice quick way to create with meaningful boiler plate.
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