I understand your point. For me, though, existing apps like Slack or iMessage were insufficient because, at the end of the day, they aren’t “note-taking apps.” By creating a dedicated note app combined with a chat-style timeline-focused UI, I feel that the speed and quality of note-taking have improved.
However, I understand that it might not be for everyone, and I appreciate your feedback!
It is really interesting how different people are in their preferred solutions. The thing that I've learned makes an application good for note-taking is a lack of features. Simplicity is key for this use case for me. Even on the desktop, my "note-taking" app is just notepad on Windows, kwrite in KDE, and a very bare-bones text editor on my phone.
None of this is even remotely a criticism of your effort. I was just pondering how different people can be in their needs.
> The thing that I've learned makes an application good for note-taking is a lack of features.
The best featureless app I've ever used for taking notes is the pen and paper sitting next to me for the specific purpose. Admittedly, it's not convenient at any time other than sitting at the desk and focused. There are plenty of studies about the process of writing notes vs typing notes when it comes to long term retention. There are times where I'm wrestling with a problem that is just a bit more data than my L1 cache (my head) can remember and need to offload some of the data to RAM (scratch pad), but I can just jot down the data without actually looking at it. Even being able to try to sketch data has helped. I have yet to ever find an app even remotely as effective to the point, I'm stopped trying anything else. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
> The best featureless app I've ever used for taking notes is the pen and paper sitting next to me for the specific purpose.
True! At work, I carry a pencil and small notepad for this reason. But outside of work, I don't always have one at hand and so other methods come into play.
Thank you. I can relate to the importance of simplicity. When there are too many features, I find it distracting and difficult to focus on the content I’m writing.
There really are so many different needs when it comes to note-taking apps, including my own. This discussion has highlighted that for me once again.
> Even on the desktop, my "note-taking" app is just notepad on Windows, kwrite in KDE, and a very bare-bones text editor on my phone.
I've done this years ago in my .bashrc and use it almost daily:
alias todo='vim ~/.todo'
I suppose I should change `~/.todo` to `/.todo.md` for syntax highlighting, but the list is already quite large and I'm not adding in anything that isn't absolutely required.
I take notes in emacs with org-mode. It is not simple at all, in a way, but there is nothing that gets in my way either. No distractions since all features are hidden behind keyboard combos (I disabled the menu). Never felt like I had to switch to a simpler editor for certain tasks. And it runs on my phone in Termux (syncs with git) so I just use org-mode as my note-taking app.
> I feel that the speed and quality of note-taking have improved
In your case you’ve gotten over any learning curve and you’re accomplishing three things at once - taking notes, testing your app, and giving yourself satisfaction that you’ve built something you can use, so of course it’s going to feel better! But it’s more important what potential users think because they’re less biased and there’s more of them. However you seem to be at least slightly dismissive here.
Honestly I love the direction and I do this all the time.
If you could 1) integrate directly with iMessage so I'm literally just texting and 2) have your interface provide me some sort of LLM summary tool/weekly digest/remind me of things smartly (I dunno it's up to you to figure out), I'd probably do this.
Thank you!
2) is an interesting idea. I plan to add functionalities that can smartly suggest and categorize notes in the future. Thanks for the suggestion!
Something like that would keep me from relearning the same stuff over and over would be very helpful. I suffer from a TBI and do my recall/remember well. Whenever I do technical work, I have to constantly relearn steps. Would be nice to have those steps easily accessible, without effort from the user.
My app tetr https://tetr.app has a couple of the things you mention, although not LLM based yet it does support alternative views and summaries (as well as special UI for tasks).
However, I understand that it might not be for everyone, and I appreciate your feedback!