Given how frequently selecting a notes app is discussed on this forum, I thought many would find this article interesting.
For lots of people, the Notes app has become an extension of their brains. Its popularity has spurred Apple to introduce richer features like document scanning and checklists with check boxes. But users and tech-industry analysts alike say its simplicity is what has made Notes a cultural touchstone since its 2007 debut. Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and other celebrities use it to express their feelings in a relatable way—so do the keepers of world-famous pygmy hippos.
The examples given in the story focus on using Apple Notes for personal and often temporary notes. However, I use Apple Note extensively for my professional and personal projects.
I’ve started using it to draft emails and other short-form writing (like this post). I then use Apple Intelligence to proofread or help me improve the writing. Before AI, I was mostly using iA Writer for this type of writing. Although you can use AI in that app, it’s tucked away in the context menu and hard to use.
From around 2016 I started using Apple Notes to take some temporary notes for learning and reading but I copied them to Evernote when it was still my main place for note taking and storage. However it didn’t last long.
Apple Notes became my consideration again when the version 10 of Evernote was unusable, but I opted for Notion, Bear, Craft and tried to go back to Evernote for a while until 2022 I finally settled down on Apple Notes till now.
In my Apple Notes I have books I read, movies I watched, places to go in different countries, some of my thoughts, short journals, blog articles, something I may need to think of and plan, topics I love to research… now I have 1,329 notes and will keep growing.
I don’t know if these contents are temporary but for sure they can also be the materials for me to go further like writing, publishing… which can be done on other apps and in life.
I have divided things into different areas according to what I do when it comes to writing. I write in various genres such as prose/fiction and philosophy. I use Apple Notes for all but my philosophy stuff. My process is:
Start a shortcut that will create a new Apple Note based on a template. I write out the idea/prose/line in the plot etc. The shortcut will also add a reminder with a “Review” tag. So each Friday I go through this list. Some notes will be archived, some (prose/fiction) will be worked on until they are furthered to Ulysses, if they are good and/or belong to a project in Ulysses.
So for me, AN is stage 1 and Ulysses stage 2. After that is Pages/Docs/Word - whatever is more convenient for the place it will be sent. So this will be a final level.
My philosophy stuff is where, in my experience, notes and thoughts benefit from linking/back-linking/or having their own [[pages]]. I find great value in writing philosophy in Roam. I don’t mix that with the other more “creative" prose. I also write my thesis in Gdocs and use its built-in citation manager.
I don’t need, or even want to have an “all in one” solution. I am very happy with this flow and the separation of a certain type of notes to benefit the most from the available technology.
I like your workflow. It is similar to mine except that my outlines/thoughts begin in MindNode and tare hen exported to Ulysses or iA Writer. If more formatting is needed, I export the Ulysses or iA Wrtier document to Pages.
I’m giving Ulysses another short trial because of the recent addition of ToC and table features. I also just found out about a new app coming from Scrivener, which I look forward to testing once released.
