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Bear 2 - Reactions?
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 16, 2023 at 12:25 PM
I see that the much vaunted version 2 of Bear is now available. Based on the hype leading up to this release, I find the new release somewhat underwhelming. There was a lot of talk early on about their new editor engine, which I think was called Panda. But all that seems to be delivered is just a catch up to other apps already out there, including:
- backlinks
- tables
- footnotes
- markdown hiding
And a lot more. Don’t get me wrong, for people using Bear, this is a significant upgrade. But it doesn’t seem to offer any incentive to switch to Bear from other apps. The $30 annual subscription is a bit less than other apps (such as Ulysses, which is also Apple-eco-system exclusive as well).
Does anyone have a counter point of view? I’m curious.
Steve
Posted by steve-rogers
Jul 16, 2023 at 01:48 PM
I agree these additions bring parity to other apps. However, I like Bear for many of the pre-existing features. Typography with hidden markdown is great. I also like the note organization scheme via nested tags, although you can also approximate this in Notes with smart folders. However, my favorite feature is a very nice web page markdown import feature that’s activated via browser extensions or the share sheet in iOS.
Posted by satis
Jul 16, 2023 at 03:24 PM
I think it’s a polished and great-looking follow-up, but as The Verge pointed out it took “forever” to come out. Bear done a very nice job at fixing a lot of deficiencies of the previous version, including fonts, theming, a hidden/WYSIWYG Markdown option, tables - as well as updating to meet features of current hot apps, like crosslinks.
In 2023 it seems like it’s playing catch-up to some apps (like only now offering in-note find/replace), and still having a hard time differentiating itself from free/cheaper ones. It’s slotted in as a supercharged notes app, but doesn’t compete well with longform writing apps or project-oriented apps.
The current version has some bugs. On Reddit people are complaining about various issues, including crashes when opening PDFs and crashes when backing up notes. And by now adopting the CommonMark standard in Bear 2, everyone’s bullet points made in Bear 1.x has discovered that they have all been irrevocably turned into asterisks in this version.
$30/year feels like a fairly reasonable price, even though it’s twice the old subscription rate. ($30/yr is my grandfathered Ulysses rate [normally $40/yr].) But I don’t think I could use Bear as well for the longform writing I do in Ulysses (eg word count and goals, ‘glueing’ chapters, proofreading functionality, fully-justified text option). For people who love tags a la Gmail, Bear might be the right app, but I still prefer the folder metaphor (which includes the ability to include keyword tags) in Ulysses.
And for mere notetaking $30/yr seems too pricey for the small number of additional features over the built-in Apple Notes. Indeed, although I have Bear on my Mac and one can make unlimited notes in the free version, I still resort to Apple Notes because there isn’t enough reason for me to switch.
Some people might prefer Notion, which is cross-platform, is built for sharing and work within teams, and is better for working on projects than just notes. And for individual use it’s free. But Bear has better, more advanced markup support, and rich previews/WYSIWYG, and uses Apple’s Data Detectors for smart recognition of dates, emails, addresses etc to be acted on. (Earlier versions of Notion didn’t, but it’s possible they do now.) And for writing Bear has a Focus Mode, which is something very useful I employ in Ulysses. (Also: I think Notion is a UI mess and I see so many people wasting countless hours tweaking and reworking their Notion pages.)
Bear Pro claims e2e encryption while Notion only offers it at rest and not e2e. I say claims because it’s apparently not utilizing Apple’s CloudKit e2e implementation for backward compatibility reasons.
On the pure notetaking side, Obsidian is probably Bear’s major competitor. The free version is powerful, and the plugin architecture extends functionality considerably. But as I read somewhere Obsidian is the Linux of notetaking apps; it’s a pretty geeky tool and not ideal unless you don’t mind periodically evaluating competing similar plugins and themes, and updating plugins regularly (and depending on devs to keep working on your favorite plugins).
Posted by satis
Jul 16, 2023 at 03:28 PM
steve-rogers wrote:
> my favorite feature is a very nice web page markdown import
> feature that’s activated via browser extensions
For amost a decade I’ve used a PopClip
https://pilotmoon.com/popclip/
extension
https://brettterpstra.com/2013/12/23/web-markdownifier-for-popclip/
for that; it enables use on any text anywhere.
Posted by Paul Korm
Jul 16, 2023 at 03:38 PM
I haven’t seen a head-to-head comparison, but it seems that Apple Notes under iOS/macOS 17 will be pretty much on par with Bear 2.
I love Bear. It is a beautiful app. But development is the most glacial of any competitor. Sometimes it seems that Bear is developed during an occasional coffee break by someone whose day job requires a lot of travel away from the office.
I’m luck to have legacy pricing on Bear Pro, and just for nostalgia I keep Bear in my Mac’s dock and on the first page of my iPhone, but I rarely use it. Time was, Bear was the best way to capture notes with images, but that time passed by Bear long long ago. Obsidian on the phone is a cluster and best avoided, but Notes is good, and Agenda is excellent and surpassed Bear’s feature set years ago.
But, I still love Bear, if only to look at it from time to time.