As I wrote about twice in the preceding days, I use Apple Notes for everything, but I always keep an eye on, and test the new features of Bear. So I’d like to share a few thoughts on its recent updates and the celebration of its seventh anniversary. The past year has brought notable changes, including their 2.0 update, and the improvements coming look fascinating.

Bear 2 launched in July with significant updates including tables, nested styles, pinned tags, and quite a bit more. My biggest takeaway from testing the beta for a few months was the cleaner Markdown formatting. It tidied up all the issues I have with most other Markdown editors and allowed me to write my favoured way but not have too much markup in the way. It also brought in folding text sections, sketching tools on iOS, GIF support, and footnotes among other things.

An Anniversary With Basic Apple Guy

The new update for their anniversary brought in new customisation options, including a collaboration with Basic Apple Guy for a new icon is an interesting move, highlighting Bear’s engagement with the wider Apple community. It’s a neat addition for fans of both the app and Apple-themed designs.

In their recent email they also highlighted an upcoming Quick Open UI on Mac which looks really helpful. It’s good to see an app evolve based on user needs, and for such a niche note-taking app to be around for 7 years later makes me happy. It has some really engaged users, and their development over time, although slow, is very responsive to what its users want.

If you are looking for a more advanced note app that doesn’t overcomplicate things, I will always point to Bear Notes. They don’t pay me or anything, I just think it’s a really great, well-designed app and long may it continue.