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Apple Notes is the Only Game in Town. And that’s a Bad Thing
At the time of writing, I have 2,417 notes in Apple’s Notes app. Some are little more than post-it notes or shopping lists, but the majority of them are lengthy and include web clippings and images. In total, that amounts to just over 4GB of notes. I've used the app for years. And I hate myself for it.
The app is tremendously convenient. If you are in the Apple ecosystem, the way your notes seamlessly sync between your devices is marvellous. Over the years, Apple has added more and more features, building the app into something far more sophisticated than the shopping list creator of old. Notes can be organised in an increasingly complex hierarchy of folders and subfolders, tagged, searched and shared. It has become a one-stop shop for data management.
Like many writers, Apple Notes is an integral part of my workflow. I moved to it several years ago after being an avid user of Evernote. I transcribe historical documents as plain text files and deposit snippets that I think might be useful for a certain project in the relevant folder in the Apple Notes app. In so doing, I create a sourcebase for whatever it is I am writing. I can find a relevant piece of information within the Notes app, rather than going back to the original (and sometimes lengthy) transcription. I see Notes as a timesaver. A butler who arranges my…
