I’ve been using a few apps for writing lately: Day One, Obsidian, Apple Notes, and Journal.
Each one has slight differences that make me use them for different cases:
- Day One for a personal diary. Easy to integrate with mobile photos, activities, and a friendly user experience.
- Obsidian for work-related things. Saving code, documentation, links, and weeklies in MD format is a must.
- Apple Notes for quick notes I need to be shared between the phone and the laptop.
- Journal as an experiment; this one I’ve discarded.
What if I wanted to have all the systems integrated into only one app?
The response is easy; migrations are a nightmare. Each system has its own default file system data, and there are no reliable or easy-to-use migration tools for each.
Now I have 40 entry logs in Day One that, if I want to move them, I would have to write a script to parse a JSON and write as an Obsidian markdown file.
I don’t even know how Apple Notes exports its own notes.
I guess I will have to stick to all of them.
The Data Liberation Project
WordPress is working on a data liberation project; this means that in any content-based website or app, the data should be easy to import and export. Powering the user’s right to own their data overall.
Although WordPress could be a good system for all note-taking requirements, I think that the app experience is still quite far from Apple Notes or Day One.
Let’s see what will come in the future!
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