Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, iPhone
A quick rant about Notes
You got your iPhone. You got your computer. Your emails sync. Your contacts sync. Your calendars sync. Your music, your podcasts, your photos, all your stuff: it just syncs. This is good.Your notes? They don't sync.
This. Is. Bad.
Not just bad, but actually driving me nuts. It drives me nuts because I can't believe there's a technical challenge to be overcome here. On the iPhone, you have your Notes app in which you write text notes. How hard can it be to sync them up with something on the computer to which the iPhone is attached?
A friend says to me: "Sync them where? With Stickies?" He has a point - there's no obvious, existing place for text notes to go, but again, that doesn't sound to me like something that need be a problem. Let's have a simple desktop app called, um, Notes, with which the iPhone version syncs. OK, even Stickies if we have to. All I want to do is easily reach my iPhone-jotted notes when I'm working on the Mac.
Yes, I know about the work-arounds. I could use a Drafts folder in an IMAP account. I could add notes to a contact. I could just email stuff back and forth to myself. But none of these fits in with the way I work already, all of them are work-arounds. We're talking about text notes here: there shouldn't be any need for work-arounds. I look forward to a simple solution appearing in the App Store soon.
That said, despite the horrible Marker Felt font, I quite like the Notes app. I just wish it would sync. Is that too much to ask?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Joey said 5:08PM on 7-17-2008
I just started using Evernote to get this same sort of functionality. Evernote works on Mac, PC and the iPhone and they even offer a web-based sync service. The service/app is free provided you don't use too much space (eg. embedded photos and such) and overall seems to be exactly the solution I was looking for.
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punkassjim said 7:27PM on 7-17-2008
...which is all well and good, if you don't mind having two redundant applications on your iPhone, one of which is quite inaccessible AND you can't delete it. I mind.
Most of the discussion below mirrors what I'm thinking. The only thing I would add is that, while there's a clear solution for MobileMe/Leopard users, there would have to be at least two other ways of doing it: say we drop a new prefpane in Settings.app for Notes, in which you would pick between Local, MobileMe, Exchange, and maybe Sync-With-Outlook. The problem is, with a solution like this, you start muddying the system. I'm not surprised they haven't implemented an optimal solution yet.
But here's the thing: now that the AppStore has launched, not only has some of the pressure been let off of Apple (because of the existence of EverNote.app and ToDo.app, among others), but also at this point, they would be stepping on independent developers' toes if they were to release a better version of Notes.app. It's a catch-22 that's oddly reminiscent of this post on 37 signals:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1118-features-are-a-one-way-street
...only it's kinda the reverse: now that they've passed an enormous milestone without having update Notes.app like they should have, they actually have more barriers to entry on their own damn platform than they had before.
NutMac said 7:47PM on 7-17-2008
Except that Evernote for iPhone stinks real bad.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/2669703018/
Tom W Browning said 5:11PM on 7-17-2008
There is an obvious place for them to sync to, Mail.app has notes functionality, and To-Do functionality too. They even look the same as the iPhone ones.
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Hobbes said 5:22PM on 7-17-2008
I agree 100%. Mail's notes is the logical place I would expect my iPhone notes to sync with. Interesting that Apple hasn't thought of doing so. At least not yet. Hopefully the next firmware will add this missing functionality.
chrisfarms said 5:42PM on 7-17-2008
yip. Mail.app sync would be perfect.
I've also noticed that the MobileMe webapps can't understand notes. I guess they are either going to scrap Mail's notes features and separate them out into a standalone app (as they have with the iphone) or will eventually get syncing working once notes are a true MobileMe feature too.
G said 5:55PM on 7-17-2008
Agreed, Mail.app's Notes make perfect sense. I switched to them when I went Intel and decided to drop Ibrium's old Notepad Deluxe.
But two things really irk me about Mail.app Notes, and I hope they get addressed soon: They take forever to load when you click on "Notes" initially, even on an 8-core Xeon. Several seconds for a handful of text files doesn't make sense. And there aren't enough formatting options because they are just a side feature of Mail.app. No editable tab stops, no quick standard font setting for when you copy-paste in random stuff and it brings the formatting you didn't want.
At least there are shortcuts for indentation and some other nice bits. With a little more work from Apple, this could all be very cool. Oh, and Mail.app needs search/filtering on the Rules pref page, if anyone at Apple is reading.
Aron T said 5:58PM on 7-17-2008
Your attention please: http://tinyurl.com/5lzvx7
Thank you, good day.
Geoff said 6:01PM on 7-17-2008
Ditto. Not sure what Giles' "friend" means by "sync them where?" when there is a system-wide Notes store that's accessible to any app that wants it on Leopard.
It's visible in Mail, in third party apps like iSlayer's fantastic Organized widget, and it already syncs across MobileMe ... heck, it even has the same yellow legal pad look and Marker Felt text as the iPhone app.
... which makes it even MORE annoying that Apple hasn't deemed syncing the Notes on the iPhone as a worthy feature. This, along with no ToDo sync, has continued to bug me since buying an iPhone on launch day.
Philster said 6:29PM on 7-17-2008
Yes. Mail app... for Macs. But what about Windows? It's great that Windows users are using iTunes, but I think getting them to download a random Notes application in order to get full use out of their iPhone is a bit much to ask.
I agree with Joey that Evernote is the sh*t!
Tom W Browning said 6:34PM on 7-17-2008
@Philster: Outlook does notes:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HP012341381033.aspx?pid=CH100779941033
Outlook/Outlook Express are what iPhone uses to sync contacts and calendars from Windows currently.
Squid7085 said 7:26PM on 7-17-2008
Thats what I was thinking. I would like to see the Notes App become a Notes/ToDo, or create another app to handle ToDo's and have them sync up with the mail app. I don't see why this couldn't be done OTA with MobileMe either. Now I don't use Notes really, but I am sure I would if I had them available on places other than the iPhone.
quandmeme said 7:51PM on 7-17-2008
I have to hold them to the Newton standard. The data soup had problems, I hear, but someone at Apple must have spent some time thinking about this for the last 10 years! Is there a killer data management app (like omni outliner or onenote) that isn't finished yet, but is displacing the note-sync functionality!.
sebastienb said 5:12PM on 7-17-2008
Evernote is really cool i use it to with the browser and on my pc at work and macbook on the go, not the iphone!! its a fast way to have notes on the go.
I use it :
- to make grocery lists
- quickly take down a phone number
- keep and tag a screencapture form mac or pc
soo much more!
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heytpn said 5:13PM on 7-17-2008
The notes app is great, but another thing I wish is that you could like edit them more, with different font and size, sort of like Microsoft Word. That'd be awesome!
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Tardos said 5:14PM on 7-17-2008
There is a place for notes on a Mac. Right in Mail.app. Great job doing your research, TUAW.
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5cents said 6:11PM on 7-17-2008
Not everyone has Leopard
wOMo said 5:14PM on 7-17-2008
Have you used Leopard yet?
What are talking about Notes has "no obvious place to go"?
What about Notes in 10.5 Mail. As in the same "Notes" as on your iPhone. They are the same app aren't they?
I'm as upset as you, but there is an obvious place they should go. Right where they belong!
Come on Apple!!!
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Mat Lu said 5:15PM on 7-17-2008
And by the same token where are ToDos? To have both of them integrated into Leopard Mail.app and iCal and yet not to have them on the iPhone is beyond annoying; it's asinine!
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swellman said 5:45PM on 7-17-2008
here here. why to-do's are not integrated on a "smart" phone baffles the hell outta me.