I’ve never understood why people might dislike or refuse to use an app because they don’t like its icon. On the other hand, an app’s icon might make me want to use it. See the Bear beta’s googly-eyed app icon. Irresistible!

@jack You're right — that's got me contemplating trying the app again!

@jack I’m still waiting for the new app 🤔

@Munish Bear 2 is available as a beta for testing, but I'm hearing that they're out of Testflight seats. They've added a ton of improvements and it's quite nice. beta.bear.app/t/the-bea...

@jack I’m with you! Even with options to turn-off the googley eyed beta version I’m leaving it on

@jack @munish I was using the Bear 2.0 private Beta but missed getting the TestFlight version 😒

@jack I just installed the beta. Only for the googly-eyes.

@dominikhoecht Totally worth it 😄

@jack the worry is, the team in small and updates on the existing app have not come through for a year. Not sure why the new one is still in Beta. Ideally, I want an app than can take handwriting via the pencil too. If on iPad

@dominikhoecht I thought the beta was closed ?

@Munish yeah. I entered Testflight 2 weeks ago I think.

@Munish I've never been a full-time user of Bear. I've admired it, but it fell short for me. v2 is much closer to something I could use, but I can't say if I actually will. There are notes about Pencil/canvas support on iOS in v2 but I've not tried it yet.

@jack thanks for sharing. I have also not been a major user. Let’s see what they release as a version 1.0

@dominikhoecht 👍🏽

@jack @Munish If Bear gets publishing options and beefed up long form support, it could easily supplant Ulysses for me.

@jack I like icons but is there some information about the iOS app update? I usually stop using the application in the case of absence updates...

@maymeow I've not really done much with it on iOS yet. All I've seen is the "what's new" list posted here: beta.bear.app/t/the-bea...

@pimoore Maybe, but Ulysses is pretty great, too. Too many good choices!

@jack @pimoore I used Bear for a while but found myself just throwing stuff into Apple Notes instead. It's very nice but I just find it a bit over-designed for my liking. Using a combination of Notes and Obsidian now.

@jack @samhawken You’re both right of course, Ulysses is a very big (and comfortable) set of shoes to fill.

@stefp I think the only way I’d switch to Bear from Notes (which I use myself, too) is if it’s more capable in the publishing and long form space. Otherwise adopting it — ignoring having to port over content — would simply be a lateral move with no appreciable difference except for maybe Markdown.

@pimoore There are so many apps in this area now that it must be tremendously difficult to carve out a big enough share of users to make it worthwhile. I use Ulysses as well but that has been around a long time now.

@pimoore it could indeed. However, not going to hold my breath. Ulysses has better support and clear development model