[howinteresting]

A notes app that only works with one 2-trillion-dollar company's hardware and does not have builtin functionality to export notes (e.g. a menu option to do so) cannot reasonably be described as good. One's expectations have to be through the floor for that to be an honest appraisal.

Compare it to Obsidian, which just stores data in a bunch of markdown files on disk.

[Gigachad]

I don't actually care about getting some data dump out of Notes. I use it as a way to quickly store temporary information. Any note older than a month is most likely useless. The most important feature is that it effortlessly syncs between my phone, work laptop, and home laptop. And that it does. Unlike a bunch of markdown files on disk where you have to create some janky syncing setup yourself which has no conflict resolution system.

[howinteresting]

Obsidian Sync works great.

[veidr]

I agree, but at USD $120/year it is expensive.

(It's worth it to me, but I'd still prefer something equally easy-to-use, standards-based, but self-hosted with rounds-to-zero running costs.)

[Kerrick]

I can export to Text and/or PDF on my iPhone from the Notes app.

[eviks]

That doesn't count since text is destructive export is pdf is just as bad (also, batch export?)

[howinteresting]

We're commenting on the website for a project called "Apple Notes Liberator". Obsidian does not need a "liberator".

[macintux]

You're moving the goalposts.

Your first comment:

> and does not have builtin functionality to export notes (e.g. a menu option to do so)

That's incorrect: you can export to PDF. Certainly not as handy as Markdown, but it's there.

Additionally, Apple offers AppleScript as a way to do even more.

No, this isn't an open source piece of software. If that's your sole criteria for "good" then you're right, it's bad.

[eviks]

No goal posts move when the original issue is not resolved with the proposed solution Like, without any menu you can export your notes to a screenshot, but you wouldn't accept it as an export option, would you? Similarly, PDF is an awful format for notes, so the fact that it exists doesn't solve the issue that you can't export your notes (which at a minimum you need to be able to do in batches, not individual notes)

[gcr]

Most users interpret "Export" as an operation that lossily finalizes a project from its native representation to a common third-party format. "Export" is one-way, "Save As" is bidirectional.

- Audacity "Saves" audio projects to its native .aup, but can "Export" them to .mp3 or .wav

- Photoshop "Saves" .psd files, but "Exports" them to .jpeg

- Gimp "Saves" an .xcf, but "Exports" to .png

- Apple Notes "Saves" notes to its own sqlite database, but "Exports" to txt or pdf via a menu item

This technically satisfies your comment above, which is why we speak of moved goalposts.

It would be great if apple notes could convert your note library to ENEX or a .zip file of HTML items.

[eviks]

This is not a project, and your examples are just the same biased multimedia project example, which is very much not rich text

Export/import is about comm/direction, it does not (technically, just as you like it) imply loss. Also, technically we're discussing a comment from a specific person here, not from "most users".

(Joplin also uses sqlite database for storage, that's another very interesting internal detail)

So even technically you're wrong, but more importantly, you're missing the forest for the technicality tree

[howinteresting]

OK, pretend that I edited my comment to say "batch export notes with full fidelity". Happy?