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Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

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Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#121

Post by kwhitefoot »

rsanek wrote: post #113
entropyie wrote: post #51

My number one problem with notes apps is that they all take too long to open a new note, and try to sync themselves when opened, often slowing everything down. Especially if you have a slow / choppy connection (fully offline is usually ok, but barely online is the worst). I have a literal supercomputer in my pocket, yet not one app let's me open and start writing a critical note in less than 500ms. To this day I stil…

try Google keep. there's a shortcut you can make that with a single tap from the homescreen creates a new note and brings up your keyboard for typing. after you're done you don't have to even click save to persist it. it also auto syncs in the background. I've been using it on iOS for years

And you can invite others to share a note and edit it together in real time. My family uses this feature for shopping lists. Any of us can add things to the list and when one of us does some shopping they just trick the items off.

And it works offline and in the web browser.

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#123

Post by [deleted] »

dewey wrote: post #11

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 Not…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#124

Post by suriya-ganesh »

IOT_Apprentice wrote: post #119
pdimitar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What about using a discord server?

Discord is much much slower than the telegram client IMO

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#125

Post by dheera »

pdimitar wrote: post #66
golly_ned wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

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.

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#126

Post by ocular-rockular »

kekub wrote: post #118
ocular-rockular wrote: post #116

> Not FOSS > Only Apple ecosystem > Paid tier for local service :| Seriously?

As a developer of local applications, I take issue with the notion that apps should be free simply because they don't incur server costs. This argument overlooks several crucial aspects of software development: Development costs: The bulk of an app's expense lies in its continuous development, not in hosting. Even if backend services can be run for a nominal fee, the time and expertise required for ongoing maintenanc…

It's a notetaking app pal, it's not that serious. And certainly not worthy of a subscription model. Kind of ridiculous that they're using this platform as free advertising for what is effectively one of those cashgrab apps.

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#127

Post by benatkin »

eguchi1904 wrote: post #35
dewey wrote: post #11

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 Not…

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!

> 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.

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#128

Post by hagbard_c »

Or just send those notes to your own XMPP account where they'll show up as "Note to myself" (in Gajim) or something similar in other clients. You get all the facilities your clients offer on whatever platform you happen to be using at that time - web, mobile, desktop, etc. Your data is as safe as your XMPP account is, you can (but are not required to) run your own XMPP server - prosody or ejabberd or something else - on your own hardware on your own connection at home. Cross-platform, free, there are many different clients, standards-based. End to end encryption through OMEMO which works across an ever widening spectrum of clients.

Yes, this is similar to the Telegram "Saved Messages" feature which is another way of doing this. The advantage of using XMPP is that you can run your own service using free software. Also, should the EU "Chat Control" abomination become reality this is one of the ways to avoid having the EU spy on all your traffic.

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#129

Post by eguchi1904 »

pshirshov wrote: post #107

E2EE?

Yes, Strflow supports end-to-end encryption (E2EE) if you enable iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection[^1]. For more details, please check our privacy policy[^2].

[^1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651#advanced

[^2] https://strflow.app/privacy-policy

Re: Show HN: I made a Note-Taking app for people who keep texting themselves

#130

Post by vladxyz »

entropyie wrote: post #51

My number one problem with notes apps is that they all take too long to open a new note, and try to sync themselves when opened, often slowing everything down. Especially if you have a slow / choppy connection (fully offline is usually ok, but barely online is the worst). I have a literal supercomputer in my pocket, yet not one app let's me open and start writing a critical note in less than 500ms. To this day I stil…

Just as a counter-example, my workflow works very quickly for me:

On mobile, my launcher has four pinned favorites on the homepage - one of which is a shortcut to go straight to the new note activity in my notes app. From typing up this comment I can swipe up to home and touch that button in (probably?) under 500ms and type in a new note.

(launcher = KISS Launcher, notes app = Joplin. though I'm sure similar things work with other launchers and note apps.)

It is unfortunately an electron app on desktop, but I'm invested enough that I never close it, and can start a new note just as quickly (super + 1 to launch it from my task bar, ctrl+n to start a new nearly plaintext note). This is the same on my windows and Linux computers. MacOS (as it is with most things) is somewhat more annoying: I keep a Space dedicated to Joplin and never collapse to the icon, which allows me to similarly go two chords - ctrl+9, cmd+n - to a new note.

Joplin doesn't need sync to complete before opening a new note.

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