Tag: apple notes

Job hunting with Apple Notes

February 9th, 2021
Job hunting with Apple Notes is something that kicked off last year so that I could keep a record of everything I had applied for (believe me, you need to keep track of it all). I looked at other solutions maybe using a third party app or using Apple Numbers but I ended up settling as I thought I would on Apple Notes.

First off I created a new FOLDER called ‘Job Hunting’, which would contain all of the relevant notes like interview notes etc…

I then created my NOTE called ‘Job Hunting Diary’ that contained a simple table containing the following columns
- Date Applied
- Company Name
- Role
- Any follow up? (links etc)
- Status (date and update e.g. 09/02/2021, been put through to the second stage process)
This note was then pinned, so that it appeared at the top of my notes on whatever device I was using.

This has been great at tracking the various roles I’ve applied for and I use it multiple times a day. There are some downsides around formatting flexibility and sorting (you can’t) but for I like the simplicity of it’s always in sync without me having to do anything.
Adding emoji to Apple Notes folders

December 15th, 2019

My apple Notes sync issue seems to have bedded down now and I’m using it again slowly.

One thing going back is how dull it looked so I added emoji to the folder names.

I think it looks a lot more inviting, what do you think?
Fixing Notes sync in iOS 13

November 20th, 2019

I wanted to post a follow up on my Notes sync issues as I’ve been testing it in the background whilst using other apps. So, first up Apple have never called me back. As I’ve already written about they seem ok with hardware issues but struggle with anything software related. Now I’m not sure if this is training related but even their senior advisors are heavily reliant on a backup software team. They need some more software people in the senior advisor role in my opinion. I still think Apple support is lacking right now.

So my Notes have stayed in sync over the last week and the speed of sync seems to have improved, yes there is a but here – only if you don’t have folders. I’ve found that in my testing if you have a flat structure then sync becomes a lot more reliable. If you’re have problems then on top of migrating out and deleting everything then start with a flat structure, don’t create any folders. I find that as soon as you introduce folders it goes awry. Sync becomes slow and unreliable, especially on macOS.

I’d tell Apple if they ever called me back but I think that ship has sailed and I’m not wasting anymore of my time being on hold for them.
IOS 13 Apple Notes sync issues – continued…

November 10th, 2019

And it’s back, I thought I was in the clear but now creating folders on my iPad Pro to get some organisation and they aren’t syncing anywhere else. In fact now Notes are moving around folders on their own, very confusing… I’ve deleted all of the Notes and Folders on the iPad and this time nothing is migrating across to my other devices.

I didn’t get the call from Apple last week as promised but if I do happen to get a call back I’ll have one simple response “Please close this bug report I’m not using Apple Notes going forward”.

Just a warning really, if you use Apple Notes please make sure you have them backed up somewhere else just in case.
Notability setup

October 15th, 2019

My problems with iOS 13 iCloud sync is well known now if you’re reading my blog but I haven’t really shared what I’m doing about it. I’ve used a few different third party Notes apps in my time with an iPhone but the one I’ve landed on is Notability.

I’m using it for everything.

This is a work in progress but at the moment I’m using dividers and subjects to spit out my content. You can see my dividers above.

You can then see above how I split the divider up into subjects based on context. So for example I have a watches subject that contains all of my notes about watches like a wish list and interesting articles I’ve saved.

For now I’m using the app to store everything I would in Notes such as important documents I need to reference, handwritten notes using Pencil and just those day to day ones I like to make.

I’ve got it using iCloud sync and it’s working flawlessly.

What third party notes app do you use?
How I’m using tags in Bear

May 15th, 2019

I’ve come to really enjoy Bear again after a brief hiatus. I tried my best to use Apple Notes but started to find it slowed me down when I tried organising my Notes. The most powerful feature of Bear for me is quickly being able to organise your notes.

I’ve found that being able to quickly add a ‘#’ to the end of a note to quickly organise my Notes into ‘folders’. I started with looking at it around my writing in ‘draft’ ‘blog’ and ‘published’.

As I started to build up my Notes and everything went in Bear more tags appeared. You can see above my total list so far, it’s constantly evolving and I’m enjoying this way of organising.
I failed creating a journal in Apple Notes

April 4th, 2019

If you’ll remember last week I wrote down how to move from DayOne into Apple Notes, well I’m back with DayOne. I have to say it’s nice too, Apple Notes just wasn’t built to hold massive notes full of images and text. I’m talking 800MB single notes here, the performance just isn’t workable.

If the large Journal note is the last thing open I found Notes would either crash out or hang on reload. If I left it long enough it would load but it’s just not a workable solution unfortunately. Basically if I did load I needed to move away from it as soon as possible so I could actually use the app.

Viewing images wasn’t ideal if you wanted to check on events and even though I thought Photos could give me this it also fell a bit short.

Anyone else tried and succeeded?
Using Apple notes as a Journal

March 29th, 2019

I’ve been slowly growing tired of trying third party apps on iOS. I’m not sure if it’s me getting older or trying to consolidate my data in one place but an area I needed to look at was journaling. This is something that I’ve been using DayOne for but not being a premium member It’s becoming a pain as I need to manually remember to backup and manage my entries.

That got me thinking about using Apple Notes as a journal. I use it for everything else so why not?

The first thing I needed to do was to figure out my folder structure. I had plans for an elaborate setup but in the end kept it simple.

I created a folder in Notes simply called Journal. Then within this folder I created a note called Journal 2019. I also pinned it and then added the notes widget to my today screen so that I can quickly get at it.

Every day I create a new entry with the date and just jot down my thoughts along with any images I want to add to the day. It’s pretty simple but will always be in the order of latest first. I can also add as many images as I want, something I can’t do in DayOne without paying and giving them my data.

There were two areas I wanted to address. The first was searching, well after testing I’m happy with what Notes gives me. Secondly images, I can add but if I want to look back I need to see all of the text too. DayOne is great for showing just images but I’ve decided I can just use the photos app for this.

That’s how I’ve initially setup but now I am looking at shortcuts to let me quickly jot down my thoughts rather than fire up Notes every time. I’m happy I don’t have to remember to manually export and backup but now I need to figure out how to get my DayOne into Notes.
Posting to WordPress from Apple Notes

March 27th, 2019

Believe it or not this post was written in Apple Notes and posted to me blog via the share sheet. It’s pretty simple to do and I’ll be writing up a how to, this is my ‘hello world’ moment for Apple Notes and WordPress publishing.