Michele’s Freeminding

Before the end of 2005 I released Noted 1.0 because I wanted to move on and start to develop the next release.

I’ve been receiving quite a few feature requests, most asking for some sort of categorization, a few asking for a way to store different kind of media.
So I was challenged as to how to develop these features.

Categorization could either be done with a pseudo-folder structure or with color coding.
The former especially good if I decided to add support for different kind of media, the latter better for a clutter-free app which handles plain notes.
Personally, I think I prefer color coding: a plain list of notes each with a different color. But users decided, through a survey on MacUpdate, they preferred the pseudo-folder categorization.

Unfortunately, going with the pseudo-folder option brought a few problems — like using a Cocoa class which is barely documented — which will probably slow development and increase my workload.

Free vs. Free/Paid

This is when I thought: “What about doing two versions? A Lite one which will be free and another one which will be modestly priced.”

I think it would be the best way to go. Why?
Because most people like Noted because it’s extremely simple and accomplishes just one simple task. So they would be happy with the current version to which I’ll add color-coded categories.

Those who would prefer a full-blown organizer which will handle PDFs, images, audio files, etc. could pay a very tiny fee — like 10$ — and go with the more advanced version.
I think it’d be a win-win situation: the user wins because it can choose what she/he prefers, I win because I get something from my work.

New Features

At the moment Noted is a very young application which allows for one simple task — taking notes — and nothing more.
So here’s a list of what’s planned for 2.0:

• Import from txt, rtf, doc
• Export to various formats including html, pdf, xml and mp3 — still not sure about MP3s
• Export to iPod
• Drag&Drop support
• Status bar with useful info about the note
• Keyboard navigation
• Categories — of course
• .Mac syncing — I’m not sure since I haven’t got a .Mac account anymore. If you’d like this one to be developed you can always donate a few bucks specifying you’re doing so to encourage me to develop this feature :)

Noted is ready

Intel is ready. Apple is ready. But you already knew it.
What you didn’t know is that Noted is ready, too!

Should you need universal binaries before I actually release a new version, just send me an email.

That’s it. If you are, but even if you aren’t, a user of the best note taking application in the World — researches conducted by independent researchers showed it ;) — please say what you think about where I’m heading.

This post was written 2 years, 7 months ago on January 12th, 2006 mid-afternoon.