Why Apple Notes is a Go-To Solution for Managing Digital Information?

Check out my other articles as a background:

• What is this 2nd World we are talking about?
• Framework for Digital Sanity
• How I Tamed the Information
• Apple Ecosystem for Managing Information

I have extensively worked with and factually adopted dozens of applications you can ever come across within the AppStore — Agenda, Evernote, Things 3, Craft, SimpleNote, OneNote, TickTick, NotePlan, Bear, Drafts, and so much more. But I gotta admit that I kept returning to Apple Notes despite its comparatively limited functionality and simplicity.

I started to analyze. What is so special about Apple Notes? What is there that other tools miss that keep me turning to Apple’s default app? I came up with the following list:

• It’s there for you from the very beginning. You just do things right away.
• Its initial configuration is perfect. It’s just a couple of checkboxes you may ever want to adjust, but none of them are mandatory.
• Simplicity in essentials. The application is so simple, it does not require any effort to configure (hi, Notion). Yet it covers all the basic blocks that you may use to build up more complex workflows if needed. Multiple folder layers, Smart Folders, Tags — all this allows you to take reasonable control over how exactly you would like to structure your content. Meanwhile, it does not overcomplicate everything with granular configuration abilities.
• Deep integration into the OS and overall device logic bundled with straightforward UI
• Spotlight integration — all of the information you will ever store in it will be available via just one single move (top-down swipe on the iPhone’s home screen, or CMD + Space on MacOS or iPad with Magic Keyboard)
• Quick Note functionality provides the ability to populate content easily — it is available with a simple single gesture and provides access to the most recent Note created. That is an important part of the workflow and it works equally well on all Apple devices.
• Share Menu resident — another feature very important for the content population. Apple Notes has a super easy way to get content from other applications.
• Seamless and secure synchronization of the content between the devices. Security here is probably an even more important part — because if you are going to operate with some business- or company-related information, you have to take into account where exactly a tool stores your data. How secure are those 3rd party servers you are relying on? In some cases, they are actually far from being secure. Apple Notes, in its turn, fully relies on iCloud which nowadays can have multiple layers of protection, including MFA and encryption. You are safe with Apple Notes.
• Content-agnostic. Apple Notes does not care what you throw at it. Weblinks, PDFs, Images, Music files, Youtube videos, Handwritten notes, Sketches, Docs — it just does not matter. Every type of file or content will feel at home and equally respected resident of your storage.
• It works offline perfectly.

So, at first sight on this list, nothing super-duper. But if you try to find the whole package of points in any other application, you will most probably not be able to.

It was a surprise to me how Apple Notes is far from just storing text-based notes. It’s one of the best all-around and versatile choices you may find to build a personal information management system.

Check out how I deal with the Daily Notes using Apple native note-taking tool in the scope of the broader framework of managing the Information.