Over the last year or so, if not longer, I’ve been dissatisfied with my writing and note taking environment. I’ve been using Obsidian on and off for most of that time, but consistently leaves me frustrated the setup, especially on my iPad which is where I do the majority of my personal writing.

In that time when I’ve not been using Obsidian it’s because I’ve been trying another app out. Most of the time those have not stuck and I’ve ended up back in Obsidian. Last week though, I came across a blog post which made me have another look at an app I’ve previously dismissed.

Bear is an app that I’ve been aware of but never really properly invested any time in looking at. I tried the early versions but at the time I was using Ulysses and the feature set of Bear didn’t warrant a change. Consequently Bear disappeared off my radar, but after reading the blog post by Robert Breen I realised that Bear might actually be the app I’ve been looking for. So I’ve downloaded it, moved all my notes across from Obsidian, spent a little time tidying up the app and recreating my file structure with Bear’s tags. It’s going well.

This all begs the question, what’s wrong with Obsidian. It’s popular and the people who use it love it, why have I moved on?

On the Mac Obsidian is fine, its theme makes it feel like it belongs despite some of the janky behaviour but on the iPad and iPhone it’s a completely different story. Opening the app on those devices usually met me with a screen telling me that Obsidian was downloading and indexing my files. It would often crash and when it didn’t it would freeze and be unresponsive for a long period before I could open or create a note. Bear on the other hand syncs quickly, so fast that it’s not noticeable, and I can open or create a note without losing my train of thought.

Bear’s shortcut support is excellent and seems to be on a par with the level of shortcuts support in my task manager of choice, Things. In contrast Obsidian requires a third party app, some configuration, and once working a constant question mark over whether the shortcut will work or fail. This opens Bear up to better automation and integration with other apps I use on a daily basis, it helps the app to feel like it belongs and that it’s a good citizen of the platforms in which it lives.

I’m still in the early days of making this move and we all know that the grass is always greener on the other side. We’ll have to see how I’m feeling in a few weeks time and whether the shine has faded, but first impressions are good and Bear looks like it could be a keeper.