What is better OneNote app, Microsoft office notes app, Evernote's or Apple notes?

[Porkchop Sandwich]

It looked great until I saw that it too was also a subscription service based application.

Agreed, subscription based apps suck.

I use the free version of Bear, and have been for a good while now.

Bear is fantastic IMO.

 

[rhett7660]

Yeah this has made me hold off too - even though it is a TINY amount. lol. I wanna use my own cloud service and not have to spend extra $ on it!!!! 🙁 lol.

You and me both, Notebooks and Outline allow me to save and sync via Dropbox which is what I am looking for. Outline is good, but I have had issues with it dropping files and corrupting files. The developer has been good and it is direct competitor to OneNote, but it hasn't been stable enough for me.
[doublepost=1498770162][/doublepost]

Agreed, subscription based apps suck.

I use the free version of Bear, and have been for a good while now.

Bear is fantastic IMO.

I am assuming you mainly use it on your laptop/desktop versus both your mobile device and desktop/laptop?

 

[Porkchop Sandwich]

You and me both, Notebooks and Outline allow me to save and sync via Dropbox which is what I am looking for. Outline is good, but I have had issues with it dropping files and corrupting files. The developer has been good and it is direct competitor to OneNote, but it hasn't been stable enough for me.
[doublepost=1498770162][/doublepost]

I am assuming you mainly use it on your laptop/desktop versus both your mobile device and desktop/laptop?

Yes, good assumption - I use it on my Macs.

 

[rhett7660]

Yes, good assumption - I use it on my Macs.

Are you using it on more than one Mac? If so, are you syncing them to keep the notes together? The reason I ask, is because the app does look nice I just want to have to pay a subscription. I don't mind paying a one time fee, but not yearly.

 

[Porkchop Sandwich]

Are you using it on more than one Mac? If so, are you syncing them to keep the notes together? The reason I ask, is because the app does look nice I just want to have to pay a subscription. I don't mind paying a one time fee, but not yearly.

I have Bear installed on four Macs however, I only use it extensively on two that are my daily workhorses.

I am not cloud based because I have concerns relative to the nature of my work. I'm currently reviewing my options in order to take advantage of auto syncing and particularly, hand off - which would be wonderful for my workflow.

Anyhow, the free version will allow for imports & exports so a note that I’m working on (and need on another device) is only a quick e-mail or stick drive away. Sounds tedious, and it kind of is..but it works for me until I work out a syncing solution. I could care less about upgraded color schemes etc and since synchronization isn’t part of my reality at the present, the free version works for me. Knowing how stable and functional the free version is, I would be shocked to learn that syncing is not just as seamless.

In my view, Bear is what Apple notes should be and frankly, if I had to pay for it, even yearly (so long as it’s cheap) I would.

Try out the free version..it’s so amazingly simple but somehow it truly is gorgeous in a difficult to describe way.

 

[Osty]

It looked great until I saw that it too was also a subscription service based application.

That put me off too. I don't mind paying for software at all, but a subscription service bothers me especially for something mission critical.

Shame, because I really like Bear (have played with the free version extensively).

 

[smartjanitor]

They're all great apps and great services. I think OneNote is inarguably more feature-packed than any of them. Evernote is clearly the most ubiquitous of all of them. But for me it comes down to two things in Apple's favor:

Ease-of-use:
Apple's Notes app ships on every device. It syncs with every Apple device. It's scriptable (if you're into that sort of thing). It doesn't have any financially-driven limitations. EVERY other notes app does has at least one of these limitations.

Reliability:
It's made by Apple, so there is no danger of it going anywhere any time soon (if ever). It's always going to be updated and compatible with the latest version of macOS and iOS. They aren't trying to make money with it, so Apple is more inclined to keep it user-friendly.​

Bottom line:
Evernote is about one year away (two at most) from bankruptcy if it doesn't sell-out to a larger company. There are too many options out there to play their silly games and live with their restrictions... and most of their users have figured that out. Either way, Evernote as we know it now (which is also dramatically different than when it started) will be going away. And that's the problem with these small, third party apps & services—particularly free ones.

OneNote is quite nice, and MS doesn't need to make money off it for much the same reason as Apple. The problem here is that MS has shown that more often than not they are more than happy to kill an app or service if it isn't a money-maker.

Apple's Notes app is the least feature-packed, the least ubiquitous, the least "friendly" app of them all. But it's the only one that's guaranteed to be here tomorrow, the next day, the day after that...

[doublepost=1509546951][/doublepost]This was a very helpful, informative post. The comments about Evernote, in particular, validated my own reactions.