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Posted by satis
May 9, 2021 at 07:57 PM
As it’s cross-platform with Windows, what type of sync does it employ? Does it require maintaining copies locally on all platforms, or does it have some sort of cloud repository?
Posted by Cyganet
May 9, 2021 at 09:46 PM
satis wrote:
As it’s cross-platform with Windows, what type of sync does it employ?
>Does it require maintaining copies locally on all platforms, or does it
>have some sort of cloud repository?
I *think* it’s a cloud repository, but I’m not sure. There are no local files that I can access via the file explorer as far as I can tell. It syncs via its own server, so no OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive sync.
Posted by satis
May 9, 2021 at 11:05 PM
Cyganet wrote:
>
>I *think* it’s a cloud repository, but I’m not sure. There are no local
>files that I can access via the file explorer as far as I can tell. It
>syncs via its own server, so no OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive sync.
I searched the website a little more diligently and found this:
**UpNote is storing data on Firebase (which is part of
Google) server. Firebase platform has been certified
under major privacy and security standards, and fully
supports EU General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Firebase encrypts your data in transit using HTTPS
and encrypts your data at rest. You could find out
more in depth at
https://firebase.google.com/support/privacy.
We also take great care to make sure your data is
safe and only you can access it.**
Makes me wonder a bit about any future upload/download limits or additional charges. On Reddit the dev wrote, “There’s no data storage cap on the server” but frankly that’s unsustainable for a company, especially since some people are using it as an Evernote replacement and are discussing moving hundreds or notes at a time into UpNote.
Posted by satis
May 10, 2021 at 12:38 AM
Re-downloaded the app and played with it for a few hours. It seems interesting and certainly worth it for the price (one-time charge just $5 more than Bear’s annual charge?!), I’m not dazzled by it.
On the positive side, the dev recently stated, “Outlining abilities/section collapsing is in our roadmap. We hope to work on that later after web clipper and hashtags”
(Hashtags are an interesting semi-omission, as notebooks are *actually* hashtags, and you can have notes live in multiple notebooks.)
On Mac there’s no drag-and-drop of notes - you have to select each one, right-click and choose Add To Notebooks, then select/deselect the Notebooks you want to put it in.
And it’s a little odd that the app has a specific filter category/preset-tag for ‘uncategorized note’ instead of just having an Inbox.
The menubar dropdown access is very primitive compared to apps like SnipNotes (which lets you create notes from the menubar and put them into folders without accessing the app. Not to mention that SnipNotes has widgets and even Apple Watch app.)
There are a couple of design decisions I’d worry might bite me in the butt later on. For example, you can remove a notebook from the sidebar; not sure why I’d want to, but unless there was a way to rediscover notebooks removed from it, notebooks would have the potential to get lost after I’ve built up a large enough UpNote database. Also right now there’s no ability to search within a note - it only searches *all* notes.
The mobile apps are native but the Mac app is Electron, which I’m not fond of having on my hardware. Aside from it tending to bog down with large / large numbers of files (though the Mac app is speedy with my handful of test docs), it’s also to have had serious security problems. (Just a few months ago, Microsoft rush-patched an interaction-free bug in the Electron-based desktop version of its Teams app: any party in a Teams chat could abuse a relatively simple stored XSS bug to steal the access credentials of other participants simply by addressing them in a message, and using those credentials an attacker could take over a victim’s Office 365, OneNote, Teams and other Microsoft app accounts.)
https://github.com/oskarsve/ms-teams-rce
And security has been an issue with Electron apps for many years.
https://twitter.com/riskybusiness/status/1299689943711662080
And as of now in order to delete all your files from their server their FAQ says you need to email Support. There should be an easier, more elegant option.
Finally, I’ll reiterate that I strongly doubt the business case for being able to afford continued development and support of the app as a going concern with a cheap one-time license with unlimited data storage.
Posted by steveylang
May 11, 2021 at 08:08 PM
satis wrote:
Re-downloaded the app and played with it for a few hours. It seems
>interesting and certainly worth it for the price (one-time charge just
>$5 more than Bear’s annual charge?!), I’m not dazzled by it.
I think what ended up compelling me to move to it was that despite having more fully-featured apps, I always found myself using Apple Notes on my Mac and my iPhone for note-taking, information repository, writing up quick daily task lists, etc. But now I find UpNote as easy to use while adding some features that I appreciate (even if relatively basic.) Task management in particular is very light, although maybe with hashtags and perhaps more filter types (and nested filters) the app can become more versatile overall.
>On the positive side, the dev recently stated, “Outlining
>abilities/section collapsing is in our roadmap. We hope to work on that
>later after web clipper and hashtags”
>
>(Hashtags are an interesting semi-omission, as notebooks are *actually*
>hashtags, and you can have notes live in multiple notebooks.)
I doubt that outlining and hashtag management will be nearly as deep as some other apps, but similarly will probably be good enough for me to stop using Workflowy. Did I am not a power user? But for reference the main PIM/Outliner/task apps I have been currently using are Apple Notes, The Hit List, and Workflowy.
>On Mac there’s no drag-and-drop of notes - you have to select each one,
>right-click and choose Add To Notebooks, then select/deselect the
>Notebooks you want to put it in.
There are a couple of clunky aspects here and there in the app, hopefully those can be smoothed out over time. I think being on 4 different platforms makes these more improvements slower, but I appreciate having Mac, iOS, and Android/Chromebook platforms as I use all 3. I think if I was Mac/iOS only I’d have a lot more choices.
>And it’s a little odd that the app has a specific filter
>category/preset-tag for ‘uncategorized note’ instead of just having an
>Inbox.
You are right, although I guess it’s the same thing in the end regardless of the name?
>
>There are a couple of design decisions I’d worry might bite me in the
>butt later on. For example, you can remove a notebook from the sidebar;
>not sure why I’d want to, but unless there was a way to rediscover
>notebooks removed from it, notebooks would have the potential to get
>lost after I’ve built up a large enough UpNote database. Also right now
>there’s no ability to search within a note - it only searches *all*
>notes.
As long as you know you can click on ‘Notebooks’ to view them all, I ‘think’ its better to have the option to hide than not.
Currently you can search within a note on Mac, but don’t think on other platforms.
>
>And as of now in order to delete all your files from their server their
>FAQ says you need to email Support. There should be an easier, more
>elegant option.
I agree, an online form with a couple of ‘Are you extra extra sure?’ confirmations would be better. Or within the app, but requiring you to re-enter login info to prevent accidental wipes.
>
>Finally, I’ll reiterate that I strongly doubt the business case for
>being able to afford continued development and support of the app as a
>going concern with a cheap one-time license with unlimited data storage.
>
I wonder if a storage limit could be implemented down the road. I think a large repository of notes is not a big deal bandwidth-wise, but a lot of attachments could be. Although I don’t know why one would use an app like this for general file storage (as opposed to just attaching relevant files here and there within your notes database.)