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Comment by dewey | Hacker News Reader

This somehow seems to be a solution in search of a problem. The reason people use self texting is that they _don't_ want to use another app. Not because the existing apps are somehow missing features.

> I often defaulted to dumping notes into chat apps like Slack or iMessage

What makes you think people think differently about this app?

If people wanted all these features they would already all be covered by Apple Notes (Including the quick note feature, included in the OS when you mouse into the bottom right corner of your screen) but for free, encrypted and synced to all devices.

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I text myself notes, and it’s not because I don’t want to use another app, but because I like the streaming append-only log style of notes. I don’t like how hard it is to search through them stores in iMessage. I’ve thought about building an app like this, just since I haven’t been able to find one. So the problem does exist, though it’s not for you.

And it’s plainly not the case that if people wanted these features they would be built into Apple apps. There is a massive ecosystem of iOS apps for exactly the reason that the Apple apps don’t cover everything. Same for any case where there’s a startup vs. an incumbent.

Sure, but I just use a personal Telegram channel for this. It's quite well-searchable too, and it serves me 95% perfectly.

This is my flow too. I know it’s silly, but 90% of why I pay for premium is just for the tags in my saved notes messages.

What about using a discord server?

Discord is much much slower than the telegram client IMO

Discord is generally snappy but nothing beats Telegram. It just feels like the only remaining desktop client that actually makes use of native OS facilities.

Plus there are scripts to back up the said channels. With Discord I haven't checked (but maybe there are as well).

So mostly (1) Telegram is still snappier and (2) Telegram was there first, more or less, at least on my own timeline of checking chat clients.

You can backup discord channels with discord bots, like [1].

[1] https://xenon.bot/

Cool, thanks. I don't doubt the community and the good software, it's just that for me Telegram was there first.

I just use a 1-person Slack message for this. Split categories into channels.

I can also write my own plugin bots to respond to specific queries.

I considered Discord but I hate its UI, especially every time I go to the website it wants to do a phone verification. F that, I'm out. If you are a nonessential "fun" app you need to be as low friction as possible.

I use Slack for this too, mostly because its reminders work great for me. If messages are anywhere else I keep losing/forgetting them. I wrote a Raycast plugin that takes a screenshot and sends it straight to my Slack, then I add whatever reminder I want from there.

I admit Slack's reminders are a pretty neat addition. Wish Telegram had that.

I use Signal's Note to Self. It's often easier than dealing with a notes app or file syncing for one offs or interesting links I want to read on another device.

I email myself notes and reminders as a way to time-shift them. I send to my work account so that I see them the next day, as I don't have a position that requires me to be available or respond during off-hours. It's a way to reduce how many reminders I have blasting notifications on my devices, a sort of mental cheat / hack by spreading them out.

The only time I text myself is to get data from a personal device and a work device. All my "real" notes still go in a plain-text Simplenote document that syncs between my devices. I've started using Apple Notes just in the last few months even though I've had access to the app since its inception (call me old-fashioned and a curmudgeon about plain-text, I guess).

try resophnotes as a good clean windows client for simplenote if you haven't already

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!

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!

What did I do last year?

Last month?

Last week?

How does that correlate with what’s ahead?

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).

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.

It's also a form of journaling throughout the day whether it's a note, thought, reflection.

> 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.

As a counter: I love the concept, I often message myself not because I don't want to use another app, but because I like the workflow and the UI. Most notes app work with a concept similar to files organized in a structure (be tags or folder) instead chat app are primarily chronological, also the UI is more oriented for quick addition than most note's app; I get that this don't make sense for everyone but an app like this is exactly what I want.

Thank you, your kind words are very encouraging. Your perspective closely aligns with the issues I was trying to address.

For a note taking app, launch speed is critical. Keep it super fast.

I write "notes" to myself all the time not because I don't want to use another app, but because I prefer the chronological, quick way that those kind of notes work. I'm too chaotic for regular note taking, I've tried a million times, so for me the flow of just dumping a stream of consciousness down for me to read through later on works much better than trying to organize dozens of files.

I'll definitely be checking this app out, personally!

Same here - I’ll typically leave my message to myself as unread as a visual reminder to go back to it.

What I'd love (and what has been on my to-do list of things to write) is an app that I can literally text, which takes my notes and collects them somewhere. Would love to get some real searchability, etc while still not needing to launch something seperate to send notes!

In obsidian I have a template to insert a timestamp. I have a "Work Log" file I refresh each month where I just jot down whatever with the timestamp. No further organization required.

Not always. I do text/slack myself to make a note at times because it is the fastest way to log something and come back to it later. If a tool creates a note out of it with all the other goodies, it may not be a bad thing. I however agree that I have to test something like this but having lost my mac notes recently, I am seriously considering a notes tool that is super easy to log.

I think the problem was OP wanted to build an app, and the solution was building the app. Totally fine!

This is fair, and I've done a fair share of that myself!

Not always.

There's an app called Voiceliner that is quite decent for a different use case but capturing notes nonetheless.

Audio notes are usually much quicker than typing on a phone.

Helping people capture their thoughts happens in many ways, and it's valid.

I have been using apps like this for a very long time, and it's an unfair advantage because it can seem like I don't forget much, when really I reinforce remembering it by recording it somehow and working through actioning it (or sharing it to get help)

I actually want an app like this, but I want something cross platform and web based so I can use it on mac/linux/phone.

Another benefit is that self texting means you have access to your notes wherever you have access to your messages. Using another app makes that more tedious.

To me it doesn't need to be a solution-to-a-problem so much as a different paradigm for using a familiar tool that is more pleasant to use.

I've also tried out a few solutions for this problem, but I inevitably went back to use slack or signal. The reason is that these messenger apps are just always open and it's far easier to paste stuff into it than opening an app dedicated to this purpose.

Yeah - another place to have to check for messages seems to be cluttering mindspace rather than helping.

What might be useful, if done well, would be adding tags to messaging similar to GMail's use of tags in lieu of folders, as a way of grouping related messages (e.g. notes to self). OTOH, maybe with message search, perhaps "AI" assisted, it might not be needed.

One use case for this sort of occasional "notes to self" and later search/gathering that I've been thinking of recently is for a shopping list, but it would have to involve basically zero effort to be useful. The idea would to allow you to say things like "shopping list: milk, bread", then next day "shopping list: cat food", then next day "show shopping list", or something similar.

Yeah, Slacking one-self is reassuring because you Lonnie it won’t be lost or forgotten.

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