#8

I think on a small device, the most important feature needs to be quick capture. I use an iPhone so I’m speaking specifically from the iOS side but I’m sure most things have an equivalent on Android.

Two things are key for a PKM on mobile I think namely,

  1. Siri support: Summoning Siri to quickly dictate notes is a godsend. Enough said.
  2. Shortcuts support: The app must expose its funcionalities through shortcuts so that we can combine capturing text, audio, images, etc. with other apps that are part of our workflow already. Plus this also integrates with Siri so allows a lot of voice commands eventually.

I also think that the performance of running the app from background to quickly capture is crucial when not using Siri as above. I can think of two ways to solve that issue since most apps are usually too slow to open and be ready to type something.

  1. Have a separate companion app which is extremely lightweight and does only one thing, quick capture. On the phone, it can be set up in the dock for quick access and on tablets, it can be used in quick pull over when using other apps replicating an almost Mac like experience that some task management apps like Omnifocus or Things do for quick capture. Basically, an app like Drafts but just integrated with the obsidian vault.
  2. There could be a way perhaps to make the single app more performant if by default it launches only a quick capture screen whenever launched and that’s all that’s loaded into memory. When the user would like to view the notes, they’d need to tap an extra button to open the vault which then could load everything. Basically, optimising the app for write mode as opposed to read mode by default. There can be a setting perhaps for the user to select which mode to keep default.
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#9
  1. Capture

On mobile particularly it’s very easy for the brain to spit out ideas faster than our dinosaur thumbs can type/write. The only way to bottle such idea storm is by having audio recording functionality immediately available - 2 touches MAX i.e. step 1: quicklaunch app, step 2: action to start recording - even better is just a single step, as can be put together with siri shortcuts.

But then if you don’t revise your recordings often enough, you easily end up staring at a wall of hundreds of audio files you need to relisten to… I been there couple of times over the years and sometimes just end up declaring bankruptcy deleting it all.

Speech-to-text might look like the obvious solution but I found it isn’t when put to the test, because you’re trying to capture a superfast succession of thoughts where as you’re capturing the first thought but your brain is already pushing out severel branches of related follow-up thoughts so you need zero-fail superfast capturing precision, and speech-to-text although extremely good in the majority of cases, isn’t able to deliver on that - at least not for me (might be due to me being non-native english while capturing in english).

The holy grail does exist already though, but I found it properly implemented in only a single app:


On the surface this looks nothing special and similar to what many other apps or even a custom build siri shortcut can do, but what asana got right here is that 1. they do not only transcribe the text for you, but they ALSO keep the original audio recording next to it. Sounds obvious, but other apps and even siri shortcuts don’t do that, which means they’re not a viable solution.

Sidenote: the transcription piece is handled by Apple, so it’s a readily available service any app can hook into.

Now instead of a wall of audio messages, or a wall of sometimes total nonsense text, you end up with a wall of text which makes enough sense in a lot of cases to immediately understand what the thought was about, while if it doesn’t then the idea isn’t lost because you can still relisten to the original audio recording.

I don’t use asana at all except for this one single functionality which they really nailed.
Which brings me to my second gripe with mobile apps:

  1. Swipe

It’s a wasted opportunity every time an app requires multistep touches to perform repetitive tasks while at the same time completely neglecting swipe functionality.

No need to go deeper into this as I think it’s obvious enough. I’ll leave an example of an email app which does this well https://apps.apple.com/app/unibox/id933879046 and similar to the Obsidian philosophy allows users to configure the behaviour, in this case what they want their swipe action to do or not do.

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Long-term roadmap poll (for entertainment purposes only...)
#10

  1. Speed is really important. Evernote is quite slow in loading, while Apple Notes is very fast. It’s only a couple seconds, but it makes a big difference.

  2. If I can save notes to it using Siri, that’d be amazing.

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#11

For the time being i use Google Keep for the mobile quick capture. It is quite good. You can record your voice. You can speech to text. You can share links. It even has ocr so you can turn pics into text.

On Google chrome, Keep has this really cool extension that you don’t even have to copy and paste. you just highlight the text and then it is stored in keep with the url as well.

Oh yeah! i can actually watch youtube videos and take notes in the chrome extension while watching it. Pretty cool.

Another cool thing about mobile capture on Android , is the split screen. i can read a book on my tablet, or phone, and copy my notes straight into keep. If you are on Google Play Books, all your highlights and notes export automatically to a google doc… I think you have to set it up first?

But, you can do a lot on mobile. From catching instantaneous ideas with ONE CLICK on a widget, to taking video or book notes.

Of course…

I tag this #obsidian and then import them into Obsidan when i have time.

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#12

I think MarginNote 3 for iPad is a wonderful app, because it can use addons just like in Mac. I hope Obsidian can reference from it.

#13

I’d like to celebrate the QuickDynalist app that I use on Android. You can create items by voice, enter text from the notification screen and use widgets with filtered items. A dashboard is particularly important for finding your way between projects, though I admit it’s usefulness for knowledge management is less.

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#14

@death.au: thanks a lot for creating this thread, and thanks to everyone who participated. There’s so much good feedback that we’ll be sure to refer back to when planning out our mobile app.

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#15

I’d like to be able to organize, make connections, and generally play around in my notes while I’m waiting for a doctor or if I’m just killing a few minutes in between calls. I don’t have the time to do real writing. But I do have the time to dip into an app and do some high level bonsai maintenance.

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#16

I know I might be in the minority, but I’d like to be able to get notifications for things like due dates, etc. Maybe even if we get some kind of SRMS plugin, it could prompt me via notification.

#17

For myself there is a pretty big difference in needs between pad and phone. I need to be able to work on the ipad with full functionality. On the phone a simple quick capture would be fine.

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#18

Guy I really hope you will enable to use custom CSS… if I have 2 different looks in computer and in mobile it is not going to work. I have highly customized CSS and switching between different themes will just lead to confusion.

I also want to stress that customization of Obsidian is one of most important feature. You should build the mobile app with this in your mind. I will bet there isn’t one app in Apple store with this ability. Not saying about any note-taking apps…

You are doing great work! Thank you for all!

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#19

For the phone:

  • Speed is critical
  • Quick capture of anything into a dedicated space in the vault is core
  • Powerful search is a must for me
  • Sync with a custom (meaning private) vault
    For the pad:
    As much as possible from the desktop edition as I use my iPad as a substitute for my Mac quite often. On the other hand, this is something that can be built up gradually.
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#20

I may be missing something here, but…my sense of the feelings in this thread is that folks who want instant entry to Obsidian for urgent thoughts already have that in the Apple ecosphere on the iPhone with 1Writer or iAWriter to name just two apps that already interact well with Obsidian. On the other hand, there is no app for the iPad that can fully interact with the myriad other things (too numerous to list) Obsidian offers on the Mac. And yes, I’m aware of ‘helper’ apps (Jump, etc) that facilitate connections via WiFi between Mac and iPad. But for a purely business, growth and sustainable future, I selfishly hope the Devs focus on the iPad. If they do, my iPad Pro will be thankful.

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#21

Agree with this! 1Writer is actually a fairly good solution for capturing ideas — I sync to my vault with Dropbox — but it doesn’t do well for exploring ideas on my iPad. I’ve come to love the Local Graph view to see connections as I’m entering stuff, and miss that when I’m not at my laptop.

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#22
#23

My ideal mobile PKM would be Drafts, with a new face, previews, actions and workspaces branded for Obsidian. I think y’all might collaborate with agiletortoise, and wind up with a mature, high powered mobile app real fast. He has been dealing with issues like iPhone configuration for years. (I use Drafts on Mac and IPad, not iPhone.) And I can’t imagine Greg being uninterested. A markdown editor with enormous number of scripted actions, connecting with most anything, Drafts can be very complex. Limited to Obsidian use, it could be much simpler, but still offer easy extensibility.

Note that Drafts is now freemium: free for most, but 29/year for high end features. But given what promises to be land office business for a mobile Obsidian, I’m sure arrangements would be easy.

Of course, a similar option exists for lots of editors. My argument for Drafts is that it is very mature, v25 or so, and was designed as a markdown editor for capturing and doing things with text—sending text to other apps, previewing different flavors of markdown, and so on. So close already to what Obsidian needs, Obsidian/Drafts could be configured very quickly by agiletortoise. Adding and modifying existing actions and so on must be quicker than developing new.

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#24

This for me is the primary reason for a mobile version. Typing on a mobile has always been clunky, even with SwiftKey swipe.
But the idea of pruning and refining, really appeals to me, especially using otherwise unproductive time standing in lines and in waiting areas. Thank you.

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#25

I have moved from seated desktop work with a keyboard to ergonomic, reclined, comfortable, idyllic work. I have a Pixel Slate wrapped in a comfortable grippy silicone cover, resting on a narrow firm cushion on my abdomen. And I am hooked. For most of my work, I get by fine with voice recognition and don’t mind having to make the occasional correction.

It runs Chrome OS, in tablet mode which means touch screen, but I can create a Linux partition and have done so to install Obsidian. But that Linux partition doesn’t work in tablet mode. So to use obsidian I would have to plug in a keyboard. That means having to sit up instead of sit back. I think Obsidian and any software developer has to decide whether they want the sit back market. It’s going to become an increasingly dominant part of the market, especially with kids, people learning, and those who are never going to be command-line technology users.

I know zip about programming, but would it be possible to port Obsidian as an electron app? I think that is the solution that would let me use it in tablet mode. A pop-up window with markdown commands would be lovely as well. My needs would be simple. Not everybody wants to learn programming commands, even as simple as those in markdown.

*Edit: I was misinformed by something I read which suggested that electron apps worked better in Chrome OS under tablet mode. My mistake.

#26

From what I know, Obsidian is an Electron application, or at least that’s the core framework that it is built upon. Just my 2 cents.

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#27

I haven’t used ChromeOS in a while but…you can force desktop mode in ChromeOS and activate the keyboard. Or activate the on-screen Linux keyboard.

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