1/ Preliminary results comparing features of 9 popular digital notes apps: @evernote @msonenote @NotabilityApp @BearNotesApp @NotionHQ @Dropbox Paper @simplenoteapp @zohonotebook @GoogleKeep 
2/ Based on this article I wrote identifying 15 "essential features" for an app to serve as your "second brain": praxis.fortelabs.co/the-essential-…
3/ Disclaimer: this was based purely on crowdsourced replies on Twitter, so I can't vouch for accuracy. Also, some of the features are subjective. Let me know what I missed and I'll update
4/ My initial takeaway is that these apps fall into 3 groups:
1) Full-featured notes apps (Evernote, OneNote, Notability, Bear)
2) Lightweight notes apps (Simplenote, Zoho Notebook, Google Keep, Dropbox Paper, Apple Notes)
3) Office productivity suites (Notion, Google Docs)
1) Full-featured notes apps (Evernote, OneNote, Notability, Bear)
2) Lightweight notes apps (Simplenote, Zoho Notebook, Google Keep, Dropbox Paper, Apple Notes)
3) Office productivity suites (Notion, Google Docs)
5/ Each group is defined not so much by the precise list of features, but by its foundational paradigm + strategic intent
6/ Group #1 (full-featured notes apps) make note-taking and retrieval the primary, immersive activity, providing lots of functionality under the hood, although sometimes at the expense of focus and simplicity. Strategic intent is to create a full-fledged operating environment
7/ Group #2 (lightweight notes apps) treat notes as short-term, temporary holding area. They minimize options/functionality in favor of quick, seamless interactions, sacrificing flexibility & structure. Strategic intent is to meet minimum needs with minimum friction
8/ Group #3 (office productivity suites) blur distinction betw notes & docs, treating notes as smaller docs. They are going after MS Office, which is far larger & more profitable market than notes. Strategic intent is to use note-taking use case to expand their addressable market
9/ Group #2 I can't recommend as the primary platform for a second brain – a long-term repository of ideas and insights to fuel creative output. They are easy to learn and use but TOO lightweight. I can't see them ever supporting thousands of notes across hundreds of subjects
10/ Group #3 is more subtle. It's not a question of capability. They clearly have the functionality. But it's the wrong paradigm. Notion for ex is too close to the long-form document paradigm, with a single sidebar and documents nested under headings
11/ Notion is trying to be the next Google Docs, both of which are quite a ways down the creative pipeline, closer to final delivery than creative raw material of notes. What makes them good at document production makes them bad at capturing snippets of ideas while on the go
12/ I can't get around the requirement that the app must be able to scale to thousands of notes, which you'll reach quickly if you're capturing one source per note. Otherwise you'll have to open a specific document to a specific place to capture an idea, which is way too hard
13/ Scaling to thousands of notes is not so much a technical challenge anymore, but an interface challenge: how to enable focus on one note at a time, while ALSO maintaining thousands just a click away. Requires a series of subtle tradeoffs across a fine gradient of visibility
14/ I also can clearly see the next paradigm change on the horizon, moving to tablet-centric modes of note-taking that are much more natural for humans & creative work. Will be much friendlier to drawing, gesture-based, easier to share/export
15/ But despite lots of marketing photos of hipster designers drawing cool sketches on tablets, we're still a couple dozen technological & software breakthroughs away from that becoming mainstream. Text input & output on a keyboard is still way too efficient to let go of
