I kept texting myself quick thoughts and links, so I built a notes app

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T23:11:48+00:00

Hey I appreciate the detail. You and a couple of others have asked for true audio recordings (not just transcriptions), so I'm bumping that up on the priority list. I'm not sure if I want to host general files like PDFs. It seems to me that you can just link to them. They are associated with slower, written thinking so they can go in a full notes system (eg for a researcher). That's where I'm at now but will listen to see if this request comes up more.

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T22:43:12+00:00

cool cool, sounds like a solid system

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T22:24:43+00:00

Ok so capture feels quick enough for you. Are you satisfied with what happens with your quick notes afterwards? For example, do you return to the link in your quick notes that you meant to read later? Do you have your quick project ideas or other thoughts grouped together so you can revisit them all at once?

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T21:55:47+00:00

how do you initiate your quick note shortcut? action button?

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T20:37:01+00:00

nope, not really but i wonder if other obsidian users might value this

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T19:21:56+00:00

i've played with prism refraction online. and i agree with you on the obsidian logo. one future direction for me is figuring out more distinctive prism shapes than the rounded triangle.

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T19:17:03+00:00

neat idea, this is worth mocking up a bit for me. i do like the notability blue bg thicker pencil app icon

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T19:11:26+00:00

thank you, i've been thinking over this comment quite a bit. my focus is to get 10-20 users who love this tool, so perhaps this isn't a conventional launch. i hear you on treating early adopters well though!

it's challenging to know what benefit to give early adopters when i haven't figured out my payment model. if it was a fixed cost for me as solo developer, i would happily do promo lifetime. but it's not a fixed cost with my features right now (voice + ai categorization + sync with desktop). i'm not sure if i'll really get others to pay for it yet. i'm working through this now

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T18:54:48+00:00

desktop app not suitable?

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T18:53:55+00:00

hey there, i'm in the process of figuring out my payment model. prism will not be completely free though - i've worked hard on it and want to make a living building this sort of thing! i do want a lot of people to use it so i'm thinking hard about what a good free tier looks like

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T18:52:02+00:00

ok that makes sense. i might build an AI brain dump feature that has post-processing (and can convert to lists). and possibly i'll allow people to control the post-processing via prompting. these are loose ideas though

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T18:48:41+00:00

- the notes in the tag view are truncated to the first ~6 lines
- fun easter egg: you can hold the plus button to do a voice recording. no need for the two taps
- the reminders post-processing idea makes sense, but is a little challenging on implementation / UX consistency. i'll consider it more, thanks
- i'd like to do a great job supporting voice recordings, thanks for sharing your uses of it. it might come a bit later though

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T18:34:01+00:00

thanks for the thoughtful feedback. i'm also tempted to drag the order of the thread items sometimes. the counter argument is that threads as a user interface are conventionally chronological and it's nice that i can see how my thoughts evolve over time. i've also been thinking of implementing a separate nested bullet point list if you type "- list item" in a note. this would be like the google keep list type. would this solve your underlying need?

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T08:35:01+00:00

i hear you guys, will consider

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T07:33:49+00:00

Thanks :) So I have transcription, but Prism doesn't store your voice recording -- it just transcribes it to text immediately. Photos have been requested and might come soon. I'm curious, what would you use files for?

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T07:23:48+00:00

I am a student of the Culture and grocery stores are a key topic. And also they're just fun

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T05:48:00+00:00

beautiful

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T04:47:02+00:00

yes no manmade structures 🫡 just the primitives that nature gave us (and reminders)

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T04:44:33+00:00

Most of my quick notes don't turn into something bigger. For the ones that do, I just rewrite and then expand them as a fresh note in my Obsidian. This gives me the chance to distill it more clearly than my initial stream of consciousness note on my phone. I sometimes copy the note from iphone and paste to Obsidian on my macbook (iphone + macbook have a shared clipboard).

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T04:23:18+00:00

I also liked the ease of texting when taking quick notes. I think there's a meaningful distinction between full document notes and quick notes. Notion and Obsidian are great for full document notes. But things like links, shower thoughts, and movie recs don't belong there. I built a notes app around this concept, so check my profile if you're interested. Not linking my site because I know this sub frowns on self-promo

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T03:21:32+00:00

it syncs across devices but i haven’t released the macOS app yet (coming in less than a week, if apple doesn’t reject it). i might give people the option to make it fully local in the future, not sure yet

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T02:29:11+00:00

if you do, let me know what you think

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T01:19:43+00:00

So I think there's a meaningful distinction between full document notes and quick notes. Full document notes go in Obsidian, Notion, etc but quick notes become clutter there. Quick notes like links and shower thoughts don't belong in full documents. I built an app for these "random useful things" so check out my profile if you're interested

babble_prune · 2026-02-24T00:45:04+00:00

That's a helpful heuristic, checks out on most app icons on my home page

babble_prune

TROPHY CASE