Apple Notes
Note-taking is such a pervasive task. Almost everyone, regardless of what they do, take notes of some sorts for some purpose. I take notes because of my antsy mind. I am someone whose mind wanders in a lot of directions. It’s not that I cant focus on one thing. If I want to, I can and I do. I can hone in on one task and get it done. But, often times, I let my mind wander in order to do my work better, help someone better, learn better, and generate new ideas. I consider myself to be decently good at someone at connecting different ideas and themes. I might be talking to someone and an idea in that discussion might spark another related thought in my mind that I think would be helpful to someone else. I might be reading an article and some ideas in it might remind me of another piece from weeks ago. I think constantly connecting ideas across topics, disciplines, people, and projects helps me get a better macro understanding of things.
So, in such random “light bulb” moments, I would pull up my notes app on my iPhone and jot down my thoughts right after the meeting or finishing that article.
Besides such random burst of ideas in my mind, I like jotting down ideas for my blog posts. This habit has formed because of my inability to recall the right idea at the right moment for a blog post. I try my best to remember most of my ideas, but I have noticed that I would often fail to recall one specific idea that’s very integral to a particular blog post. And, that really bugs me.
For the longest time, I have used Apple’s native notes app. It’s just so simple and intuitive. There is no customization. There are no unnecessary options. No fancy buttons or overflows. No surprises. No on-boarding needed. No fiddling around for understanding different features. You just pull it up, tap once, and you get a blank canvas to jot down your thoughts. Often times, you can skip the tap. You just pull it up and just start typing. It just works. For me, this works out really well because I usually spend just a few seconds within the app to jot an idea down quickly. When I get an idea, I want to be able to write it down in the least time possible. I don’t want to be in a position where I have to think for a bit or fiddle around or tap multiple times before getting to the actual task of typing. Apple’s notes app lets me do just that.
I have seen a lot of people around me using all sorts of third-party note-taking apps on iPhones. Evernote has probably been a poster child of this space. There are hundreds of note-taking apps out there. Ever since Evernote changed its pricing policy, I am seeing even more notes apps popping up on Product Hunt and my Twitter feed. Being a “product person”, I caved in to the temptation of checking out new products and tried out a few new note-taking apps. Once the honeymoon phase with the new shiny thing on my homescreen wore off, I started thinking about how ridiculously simple Apple’s app is. What’s most interesting to me is that even though I had this new bright and colorful app called notebook on my homescreen, I would take a few extra steps to search for Apple’s notes app every single time. Believe it or not, I wasn't very conscious of the fact that I was actually doing that. I think, in hindsight, its such a stupid thing to do. That’s how sticky the Apple’s native app has been for me.
This experience along with Daniel Burka’s thoughts on how Apple has designed its alarm app made me appreciate Apple’s brutal prioritization even more.
Burka wrote —
Compare the Android clock app and the iOS clock app for phones. On Android, there is an overflow menu that has “Settings” “Night mode” and “Send Feedback” under it. The Apple version simply doesn’t have settings or a night mode or a way to send feedback. That’s not a matter of having a less full-featured application… it’s a matter of ruthless prioritization
It’s not about how many features you have. It’s not about how many different things a product can do. It’s simply about getting the intended task done. It’s always so tempting to keep adding new things to the existing system. It is extremely difficult to keep it simple. Simplicity is hard to engineer. Simple design is such a complex concept.
“…perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Its Apple’s simplicity that keeps me from using any other third-party email app as well.
In other news, Apple recently sold its billionth iPhone. Yeah, Apple is “doomed”.
Matt Haughey captures the sentiment perfectly —
