Clover: An all-in-one notebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#71

Post by jermeh » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

limomium wrote: post #10

sfuller808 wrote: post #4

Looks well thought out. Look forward to trying it out.

"Well thought out"? There are TWO features listed, some kind of non-straight line writing thing, and the ability to change color. No mention of literally anything else - like, if your notes are stored in accessible format offline or if they are lost when the business goes belly up. Never, ever take notes into a proprietary cloud silo!

I'm not sure how you concluded that there are only two features listed. Going back through the page I see:

* calendar-based navigation (Agenda) * gantt/timeline display * image collages * non-linear organization * command line * dedicated tasks tab * global search * customizable colors, fonts, icons

I'm not saying that Clover is incredible or that your "proprietary cloud silo" paradigm is incorrect, but saying the app mentions literally nothing else is a bit of a stretch.

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#72

Post by robenkleene » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 2:21 PM UTC

zmix wrote: post #61

deergomoo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the worst things mobile did was completely destroy reasonable expectations for software pricing. Don't get me wrong, it's good that more software is more accessible to more people than ever before, but for a long time we've been at the point where it's very difficult for an app that costs anything up front to succeed on mobile.

> One of the worst things mobile did was completely destroy reasonable expectations for software pricing. But hasn't the market for app sales grown in sheer volume due to the AppStores reaching and channeling millions and millions of potential customers?

The most successful creative mobile app ever, Procreate (the #1 paid app in the iOS App Store) employs about 20 people. Adobe employs over 20,000.

You can say more individual developers are making money (at the expense of individual companies), but with the way things are going, we'll never see industry transforming apps like Illustrator, Ableton Live, After Effects emerge from this model.

The main impact the pricing race to the bottom has had on powerful software is that its shifted from a “one-time price charge to and individual” model, to a “subscription price charged to a company” model, e.g., Adobe CS, Figma, Notion, Office, etc...

I suppose there are people who think this is all well and dandy, but to me it’s the biggest step backwards for innovation in our industry since I started my career.

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#73

Post by pixelN » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

krono wrote: post #25

All I want is basically Notion with an API, and the ability to self-host our data to mitigate security and privacy concerns.

https://github.com/outline/outline

outline is pretty close, big drawback is that the only auth method is over slack

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#74

Post by dangoor » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

dhruvmittal wrote: post #46

Looks like a notion clone but only for ios?

At the bottom of the page, it says that it's coming for the web

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#75

Post by Bedon292 » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 2:42 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #3

For what it’s worth (and maybe I’m just dumb). It took me a lot of scrolling to realize they weren’t selling hardware.

I also got confused because Clover is a payment processing company, similar to Square. And also apparently a dating app.

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#76

Post by jrimbault » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:05 PM UTC

ChefboyOG wrote: post #62

alphagrep12345 wrote: post #57

Why is there an abundance of note taking apps? Why is it that this particular category of software/apps sees a new one every now and then?

TL;DR: I think this is down to the convergence of some perennial dynamics, and the recent success of apps like Notion, as another commenter alluded to. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. As someone for whom research + writing are a primary component of daily work, I'm probably a little too willing to play with new note taking apps :) I think the recent surge is actually a convergence of several different t…

re 1. In my experience, it's often the first vague idea for a school project a teacher will give their students.

Personnally, like many things, I've built a custom script atop git to manage my notes. And another to manage a journal. And another, and another. Just building off of git.

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#77

Post by biophysboy » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

alphagrep12345 wrote: post #57

Why is there an abundance of note taking apps? Why is it that this particular category of software/apps sees a new one every now and then?

My hypothesis is they are selling "transformation". I think that humans find a lot of meaning from starting fresh with a new method or point of view. This fact drives everything from baptism to Marie Kondo (not equating the two or saying either is stupid).

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#78

Post by thomasxiii » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:12 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #3

For what it’s worth (and maybe I’m just dumb). It took me a lot of scrolling to realize they weren’t selling hardware.

Not dumb at all. Apologies for that! We'll work on honing our messaging to avoid this confusion.

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#79

Post by hairofadog » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

system2 wrote: post #44

jwr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recurring monthly: NEVER. [...] Unless this is $9.99 or lower, I would never consider. And yet, you likely expect regular updates when the OS is updated, a constant stream of bug fixes, and (probably) some improvements. In other words, you expect regular development for a one-time fee of $9.99 or lower. $9.99 is the cost of about 5 minutes of a skilled programmer's time. This is not realistic and definitely not sus…

How much should a note taking app cost? $5 a month? No. Barely $1 a month maybe. I am willing to pay 1 year subscription fee up front. We have free note apps, asana, microsoft onenote, google keep, evernote, heck I am using the default apps that comes with my phone, or even on windows notepad itself. How much is a niche note taking app worth to you? To me, one time if super premium and bugfree, I can sacrifice $9 whi…

That strikes me as a perfectly valid point of view. To me, a niche note-taking app is worth a lot, and I'm happy to pay a lot for it. In fact, I try to avoid apps that don't seem to have a sustainable business plan, as my assumption is they'll either go out of business or get themselves acquired and shelved. Luckily, it seems like there are plenty of options for both of us.

Re: Clover: An all-in-one notebook

#80

Post by TheMatten » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

triyambakam wrote: post #26

I used to be obsessed with trying new note taking apps, but I've been the happiest and most productive using Vim and Markdown on my laptop synced via Syncthing to my phone and editing with Markor. I've used Vim for as long as I could program, so I am embarrassed that it took me so long to set this up (a few months ago) but I finally don't care about note taking apps. Edit: sometimes I print my notes and for that I us…

Neuron (https://neuron.zettel.page/) can be useful for this approach - it's purpose is to basically turn folder of Markdown (or Org-mode) notes into static, interlinked page with pretty formatting, tree view and search support. Not only is it great for making reading more pleasant, it works great for building blogs and knowledge bases.