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Comment by iagooar | Hacker News Reader

I'm so happy to see Notes getting attention and new features. Since the update to support attachments and basic text formatting, it has become my digital notebook of choice. I basically use it for everything, from todo and shopping list, to collecting images about a topic, planning trips, work notes, and many more.

Notes has many features that I considered well implemented: a simple interface, native integration with the OS including sharing from and to the app, seamless iOS & OSX syncing over iCloud, decent search, PDF export.

I hope Apple keeps investing in it adding relevant, useful features, but without allowing it to become too big, like it happened to Evernote.

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I'm a huge fan of Google Keep. It's by far my favorite tool outside of Gmail that Google has released.

For me it's the best todo list, shopping list, notes of all sorts, url bookmarking, collaboration tool, etc.

Good to see competition from Apple in this regard.

Wish Keep had a desktop app.

Closest you can get is keep.google.com, not a desktop app, but something you can use on the desktop...

It's not quite a desktop app, but the web version of Keep stays in sync with notes you makes while mobile: https://keep.google.com/.

There's also a Chrome app that wraps the site, which almost makes it feel like a real desktop app: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-keep-notes-....

Personally I still much prefer OneNote, but not everyone (especially iOS users) want to tie themselves down to Office/OneDrive - so it's always nice to see built in apps get more functionality.

I'm much happier to tie myself down to the one that runs on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. It's nice to see Notes getting more features, but if people start keeping a lot more stuff in there it's one more bit of nasty platform lock-in.

It's not ideal, but aren't notes accessible via the iCloud website? I agree with everything you said, especially as someone who uses Windows, Windows Phone and iOS side-by-side.

I have been wanting to switch to OneNote over EverNote recently but have had really weird problems on OS X.

Every single time I open the app it requires me to sign in again. Spent several hours Googling and trying different "Fixes" but can't narrow down why it wont stay signed in.

Hoping this is some edge case bug and they will release an update so I can use it. From what I hear it's actually a really great app.

Notes with iCloud backup has been incredibly handy to me. I have notes going back to 2007. iCloud seems to have difficulty backing up a database with so many notes, but it's been way better than nothing. (Gmail doesn't work on my iPhone, maybe because it's such an old account? But logging in never worked on my primary Gmail account.)

Do you have IMAP enabled in your Gmail settings?

No. Totally vanilla configuration.

I think you need to enable either IMAP (preferably) or POP within Gmail in order for it to work with any external programs.

Improved stability would be appreciated. Almost every time I try to sync my collection of 5k+ notes, the mac app crashes (even the icloud.com version!). The iOS version isn't too much better, as it frequently hangs when I edit notes.

Previously this has not been a problem.

I agree it's quite nice, the only thing I would like is an easy way to mark up images. You have a bunch of tools for doodling, it just would be nice to use them on top of an image instead of having the doodles be strictly their own image.

That would be fantabulous. Because Notes has been so reliable I've been afraid to ask for more features, but you're right, the tools are already there. Would love to be able to add arrows and caption photos.

Just downloaded the beta. Looks like PDFs aren't supported to be password protected yet. Just text, images, etc

Can Notes sync with a 3rd-party server like WebDAV or CalDAV/owncloud?

Would a) love to know the answer to this and b) if not, would love to see this happen.

Cross-platform apps that sync with open-standard 3rd-party servers: http://2doapp.com (CalDav), http://www.notebooksapp.com (WebDAV), https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus (WebDAV).

Apple's Pages/Keynote/Numbers support WebDAV sync and 3rd-party file-share apps, e.g. https://panic.com/transmit-ios/, so there is precedent.

Notes syncs via IMAP, so yes.

Good to know, thanks. Will encrypted notes sync betweeen devices?

I doubt it. All the newer features (those introduced in iOS 9 like formatting) only work for notes stored in iCloud. The IMAP stuff seems to be deprecated/in transition.

Not anymore, in the last release thry switched to iCloud syncing.

IMAP is still supported.

But not for notes with the newer iOS 9 features like attachments.

I think it depends on the application. FastMail's Notes, for instance, depends on which version of Notes you use. https://www.fastmail.com/help/notes/usage.html

iOS Notes syncs with Exchange and IMAP at a minimum. I'm not sure if the updated features work outside the native Notes storage though.

and finally the Notes app can be locked.

Same here, it's actually become super awesome, but it needs tagging and filtering. I haven't updated to the new Notes though.

i can't be the only one that loves evernote...

I still use it. I don't find sync to work with iOS and OSX for Notes.

Once I had Evernote delete a months worth of notes randomly. I wish Google Keep was more refined.

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