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I just released the first version of a project I’ve been working on solves a very specific problem that perhaps only I have. I welcome any and all feedback, even if you just want to drop in to say that this is a hot piece of garbage!
Show HN: Apple Notes Liberator – Extract Notes.app Data and Save It as JSON
github.com
The UX of the Apple ecosystem is so nice but when it goes sideways you’re kind of out of luck, even if you have applecare.
I wish they had some sort of premium “fix my esoteric appleID account issues” service you could pay them for once a decade or so.
But instead of pulling the data out of Notes, I took it from SMTP mail.
I don't know if it still works this way, but when I did it, if you used a non-iCloud email address to sync Notes, it saved the data as pain text in email messages that could be easily parsed.
I use the same amazing library linked in the blog post.
I consistently struggle with Notes and iMessage sync issues, and I suspect it’s due to being a customer for so many years and making my way through many devices over those years. The UX of the Apple ecosystem is so nice but when it goes sideways you’re kind of out of luck, even if you have applecare. I wish they had some sort of premium “fix my esoteric appleID account issues” service you could pay them for once a de…
1) My iPhone has never properly synced screen time with my other devices (presently my other devices: 2x iPads, MBP) sync fine together. This has persisted across multiple iPhones and major releases of iOS.
2) Apple News has a permanently saved “story” of a specific magazine issue’s table of contents. No idea how it got saved, but since it isn’t actually a story (it’s a ToC instead) the UI option to “unsave” it is greyed out / unavailable. I reported it to a CSR about four years ago, he took down bug reports, I even sent a screen capture demonstrating the bug… it still persists and Apple provides no mechanism to manually clear all saved story data. I can remove it locally from the device from disabling iCloud sync for Apple News -> selecting yes when prompted to remove local data, but it will still persist in iCloud and there is no way to wipe it there… it’s back as soon as I reenable sync.
A particularly interesting thing that I don't see mentioned anywhere is that Apple Notes uses CRDTs (conflict free replicated data types) to enable both shared notes and multiple concurrent edits. With the CRDTs resolving the conflicts.
It looks like the info on the page may be a good place to start looking to how that works: https://www.ciofecaforensics.com/2020/10/20/apple-notes-clou...
Super interesting, particularly the link through to the blog with all the research into how Notes works. A particularly interesting thing that I don't see mentioned anywhere is that Apple Notes uses CRDTs (conflict free replicated data types) to enable both shared notes and multiple concurrent edits. With the CRDTs resolving the conflicts. It looks like the info on the page may be a good place to start looking to how…
What’s next?
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/exporter/id1099120373?mt=12
(I haven't had a need yet, so I haven't tried it)