Pear Note 1.1.3 has now been released. It is primarily a bugfix release, and includes fixes to a number of things including exporting audio/video and recording. Also, with Pear Note 1.1.3 anyone can now subscribe to beta updates if they wish by selecting them under Preferences. I do ask that you let me know if you’re using beta releases so I can add you to the list and notify you of anything if necessary.
Anyway, update and enjoy.
For those who haven’t seen it, Dan Frakes of Macworld magazine wrote about Pear Note in his Mac Gems column a couple days ago. It was a great article, and he probably explains Pear Note better than much of the documentation on this site. He also had some very good critical points, many of which I’ve heard before from all of you. Rest assured that Pear Note is in very active development, and I hope to have most of the issues Dan raised addressed by the release of 1.3 later this year.
Up until now, beta testing of Pear Note has consisted of occasionally throwing a build at friends or fellow Mac developers and asking them to play with it or wandering down to the local Apple store to test builds on differing hardware. Thanks to a couple of you alerting me to license validation problems (and if anyone else has this problem, I’d love to know if the latest beta build solves it for you), I’ve realized that there are now way too many users of Pear Note for this process to be sufficient. So I’m now seeking beta testers from all of you users. If you’re interested, please drop me an email (as always, chad@usefulfruit.com). You’ll get access to features early, with the slight risk of getting access to bugs early as well.
Anyone willing to submit a bug report for any problems they find is welcome to become a beta tester. I’d especially like people that have webcams around, as I hope to increase the number of webcams supported by Pear Note in an upcoming release. That said, don’t let not having a webcam hold you back if you’re interested.
The word notes has been terribly overused. As I try to tell people about Pear Note, particularly those that are more technically inclined, I find that I continually have to differentiate it from other “notes” apps that have nothing to do with the traditional act of taking notes. The most prevalent of these are what I call shoebox apps. These are apps that you can throw things into (text, media, websites, etc.), possibly categorize them in some way, and find them later when you need them. These range from simple apps that are a repository to drop things in to more complex apps that automatically categorize and map items out for the user.
Additioally, there are sticky notes programs, which are designed for short little blurbs, rather than taking notes on a lecture or meeting. There are journaling programs and even audio recording apps that all use the notes name. And of course there are apps like Pear Note (though few) that are designed to be used to take notes in classes, meetings, conferences, and the like.
Unfortunately, I don’t see this changing at any point. Users will keep searching for notes apps and have to sift through all of these different kinds of programs before finding what they’re looking for. Of course, if you’re reading this then you’ve likely already gone through this and found Pear Note, or maybe you just happened upon it at some point. Either way, spread the word about Pear Note to your friends so they don’t end up with the wrong sort of notes app.
I was very happy to check out Apple’s downloads site this morning, and find that Pear Note 1.1 has been awarded a staff pick. I have no idea how this is awarded, but I’m very glad to see that the folks at Apple enjoy Pear Note as much as you guys do. Thanks, Apple!
Staff pick on Apple downloads
Pear Note 1.1 is now released. It includes lots of feature improvements that are visible to the user and lots that are not. Notably, you can now import audio/video into Pear Note documents. You can also export text files (plain text and RTF) as well as audio/video files. There are also several new features relating to text editing, including Lists, Links, Tables, and Spacing.
There has also been a major overhaul to saving documents. This should mean that Pear Note does the best it possibly can at saving as much of the current recording as possible if you hit save while in the middle of recording. Unfortunately, this means that the file format has changed slightly, which means documents saved in Pear Note 1.1 cannot be read by earlier versions of Pear Note. You’ll probably never run into this problem, but if you’re running Pear Note on multiple Macs, make sure you upgrade them all to 1.1.
Download, enjoy, and let me know if you run into any problems. If you’re still looking for a last minute Christmas gift for the Mac-lover in your life, Pear Note can make a wonderful gift… Merry Christmas!
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. I just want to express my gratitude to Bryan Bell for doing much of the icon work for Pear Note. Bryan created the application icon, as well as the toolbar icons for Pear Note, and I think they’re outstanding. Unfortunately, I don’t believe he’s taking on new clients right now, but if and when he is, you should definitely consider him for you graphic design needs.
One of the most common suggestions given to me when I showed people early versions of Pear Note was to add a library. Lots of similar apps have a library, which allows you to organize your documents, perhaps file them into groups or folders, and feel organized. This works somewhat well in some apps, but I’m really not a fan of it. I find I have 2 problems with libraries or similar organizational mechanisms. The first is that I never take the time to organize my documents well. Perhaps you’re more disciplined than me, but I end up with a catch-all folder that really does catch all. The second problem is that even when I do take the time to organize my documents, I still can’t find them 6 months later when I need them.
Fortunately, organizing your data is not the only way. Search technologies have gotten so good that it’s not even outrageous to throw all your files in a single folder and rely solely on search to find them. While many of us have not quite gone that far yet, desktop search technologies like Spotlight, Quicksilver, or Google Desktop have completely changed the workflow of most Mac users. I use Spotlight constantly because it’s always faster than hunting through my Documents folder. I believe app developers should start to recognize this and create workflows to support it.
So, with Pear Note I rejected having a library, and instead gave you very easy access to search. The search is actually powered by Spotlight, so I’m relying on minds much greater than my own to make Pear Note’s search great. I hope to make it even better in coming versions, but I already find it much more useful than manual organization in a library full of folders. I hope you do too.
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Pear Note search window
I was interviewed in this week’s Inside Mac Radio podcast and got a chance to tell all their listeners about how great Pear Note is. If you’re interested in listening to me, my interview starts around 48 minutes in. Thanks very much to the folks at Inside Mac Radio for having me on.
Over on MacUpdate Promo, Pear Note is the deal of the day. So if you’ve been waiting on a great deal to purchase, check it out.