I would say Tana and Capacities . They are the new-generation “typed” data note-taking apps. Both immediately clicked for me, and I’ve used both extensively for weeks. However, Tana’s export function is meh, and I don’t have enough confidence in the service to put all my PKM data there. Capacities, on the other hand, supports exporting data to Markdown files, but the app is a bit slow. I also think the pro/believer plan is on the pricer side.
I do think this “typed” data approach is very intuitive and greatly reduces the effort to maintain one’s PKM. I’ll continue to follow up on the development of both apps.
For touchbar laptops, BetterTouchTool is a ridiculously useful app (once configured properly), though battery drain and weird keyboard capture issues mean i rarely use it,
I quite enjoyed Raycast, too, and it was a smooth and pleasant launcher as they built out various functionalities. Alfred won me back with various updates.
I bought Things 3 for both Mac and iPhone based on the reviews. It’s beautifully designed, but I quickly abandoned it. Partly that’s because it’s built around GTD methodology, which doesn’t seem to work with my brain.
I still have fond memories of Bear, which I used for a few years and still recommend to people who want a nice native notes app for Apple devices, though I don’t see myself ever going back to it.
Does Things now have a review function. I’ve tried it in the past but I stepped away for this very reason. No review mode means a task management software won’t work for me. Hence why I’m wedded to OmniFocus.
iA Writer. Appreciate its writing experience and its consideration of readability when writing and editing (preview mode). But I don’t always need to write and I am a visual person doing some notetaking more than long form writing for helping me anlayzing and thinking.
My list of well-designed, powerful apps that I don’t use includes:
Things 3. As many have already noted, it is a beautifully designed app, but it cannot create the equivalent of OmniFocus’s perspectives or Reminder’s Smart List.
IA Writer. I would love to write with this app, but the markdown syntax’s prominence for links and footnotes ironically clutters the interface and detracts from writing.
Obsidian is a powerful and flexible application, but the sub-par mobile experience makes it a no-go for me.
Fantastical is a beautiful and powerful app but, in my estimation, too expensive for a calendar application.
It has an inbox where you’re supposed to toss things, which you’re the supposed to review regularly and schedule. But I hope someone who actually uses it regularly will reply and give you a more definitive answer.
Though reviewing the contents of the task management application’s inbox, in this instance, Things 3, is part of the review process, it is not a complete review. A complete review includes a review of every project on a periodic basis, multiple inboxes, calendar events, and more. One of the great features of OF is its review function (which includes the ability to set the review frequency for every project), which to my knowledge, no other task manager has.
I feel the same about iA Writer. I like almost everything about the app but I can’t use it for anything with much formatting. I’d be fine with it if it rendered markdown codes in light gray or even just left them the same as unformatted text, but the boldface double asterisks around boldface selections impair readability to the point that I find them unbearable to look at.
I still use Fantastical with the features that were grandfathered in for those of us who bought the last version before it went subscription. The subscription version is probably worth it for those who have to frequently schedule meetings with three or more other people, but I agree that it’s too expensive otherwise.
It’s funny, but aside from the slow load time, I love the Obsidian mobile app. But I seem to be more tolerant of non-native apps than most Apple enthusiasts, probably because I used Windows, desktop Linux, and Android for years before I switched to macOS and iOS. I like and in general prefer native/Mac-ass apps, but it’s often not my first priority.
Okay, here’s another. I used Mimestream for a while during the beta and really liked it. It’s beautifully and thoughtfully designed, and I see why people are enthusiastic about it.
I understand the lack of support for Gmail’s scheduled send feature, but that’s essential for me, and I didn’t otherwise find it compelling enough to pay the endless subscription price for it.
It’s funny, but aside from the slow load time, I love the Obsidian mobile app. But I seem to be more tolerant of non-native apps than most Apple enthusiasts
My problem with the Obsidian mobile app is more related to exporting documents in different formats on the mobile app. The lack of support for Pandoc was a major problem, as was the fact that some of the plug-ins don’t work on mobile. I need my apps to work with near parity across all of my devices because I go back-and-forth frequently between my Mac and my iPad.
Ah, I understand. Since Pandoc can’t be installed on iOS, the devs would have to build that functionality into the app itself. I rarely need it, and when I do I can open the note in 1Writer or iA Writer and export or print from there, but that may not be a good enough workaround for you.
One of the things that’s always impressed me is that nearly all the plugins work on mobile, but if the one you need doesn’t, I can see why that would be a dealbreaker.
I think those things would affect me more if I used an iPad as a primary, laptop-like productivity device.
Tinderbox strikes me as a unique and incredibly powerful piece of software.
That said - every time I consider using it I conclude that if I invested the time needed to really master Tinderbox, I could use the same time and achieve decent proficiency in Python or Javascript or Swift, which would be more generalizable skills.
Still I think Tinderbox is an underapprciated gem - maybe sometime I will really put the time in to master it.
Tana is in a similar category as Tinderbox. It is mind-blowingly powerful software with lots of youtubes from staff who clearly are brilliant people extremely enthused by the product. It just takes a good bit of time to really think through their concepts and master the software.