Bear is definitive, for now

Lately, a question has been buzzing around in my head, and I decided to indulge it: what if I tried replacing Bear for managing, maintaining, and archiving my notes? So, I tried it.

I tried again with Obsidian because I have a feeling about this software that’s difficult to shake, and I tried with Apple Notes, with the idea of centralizing everything on Apple’s default apps. I won’t hide that the goal was also to see if I could avoid paying the annual subscription cost and use iCloud to sync all my notes. The goal failed miserably.

About Obsidian #

Obsidian is a prodigious tool. It allows you to do many things, but this capillarity does not allow it to always do them all well. By adding functions, you realize that you always want more, but each piece you add increases the complexity of the system. The more plugins you install, the less stable, less beautiful, less structured, and less useful it becomes.

It has a very steep learning curve, but I already knew it. In a short time, I reorganized myself with the plugins that could be useful to me, with the templates that would be necessary for what I wanted to do, and with the aesthetic customizations that I would prefer. But despite this, the spark didn’t ignite.

Furthermore, from time to time, the synchronization with iCloud would fall apart: some files would remain synchronized only on the Mac or only on iOS, preventing me from accessing them when I didn’t have the other device at hand. This thing gave me more than once an indescribable feeling of precariousness: I couldn’t lose my notes when I needed them. What frustration!

I could have overcome the problem with Obsidian Sync, Obsidian’s paid service to synchronize all notes directly with its cloud—which also offers other functions, such as file versioning. It would have been perfect if it weren’t for the objective of the premise. No, discarded.

About Apple Notes #

Apple Notes, on the other hand, has improved a lot. I almost didn’t expect it. I’ve moved several notes over to it and started using it with reasonable satisfaction.

Let’s be clear: it’s a wholly different product. It doesn’t have markdown, it has practically no customization, the keyboard shortcuts are ridiculous, and it doesn’t allow you to link notes or¹ better structure layout and formatting². It may be fine, but I consider myself too savvy a user to be able to approach such a simple solution, however complete it may be. OK, it’s free, but you can’t just evaluate the price.

About Bear #

Bear is practically the solution that best fits my needs. Besides the things that the other two pieces of software don’t allow, and that Bear obviously does, it has a feature that I haven’t been able to find in the other two: when I open the app, I feel like licking the screen.

It’s beautiful, well-thought-out, well  developed, and well-organized. It has flaws, but they are negligible. Its cost is ridiculous, despite everything, and there is absolutely no need to go to search elsewhere.

I use Bear for practically any type of note and as a “blank sheet” for writing anything, copying it, and pasting it elsewhere. It is my default application, and on my devices, it needs to be more accessible than the mail client. I can’t live without it.

No tests can hold it back. Kudos to Shiny Frog. Bear is definitive.

For now.