[HN Gopher] Show HN: Muse 2.0 with local-first sync
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Show HN: Muse 2.0 with local-first sync
Hey HN, I want to share with you something I and my four colleagues
have been working on for the last several years. It's a
whiteboarding and notes tool called Muse[1]. We just released a 2.0
version which includes local-first sync. A little backstory: I'm
one of the authors of the 2019 essay Local-first software[2]. (Past
HN discussions[3][4].) The thesis is to reclaim some of the
ownership over our data that we've lost in the transition from
filesystems to cloud/SaaS. So I'm excited to bring CRDT technology
"out of the lab" and into a commercial product as a chance to prove
the value of local-first in real-world usage. As a developer and
computing enthusiast, I care about abstract ideas like data
ownership. But for most users I think the benefits of local-first
will surface in how it feels to use the software day-to-day. One
example is ability to work offline or in unstable network
conditions: any changes between devices will be automatically
merged when you reconnect to the network, no matter how long you've
been disconnected. Another area is performance. The sync backend
was written by my colleague Mark McGranaghan who has written
extensively about software performance[5][6] and why we think the
cloud will never be fast enough to make truly responsive software.
A few technical details: - Client-side CRDT written in Swift,
streaming sync server written in Go - Sync server is generic,
doesn't have any knowledge of the Muse app domain (cards, boards,
ink, etc). Just shuffles data between devices - Transactional,
blob, and ephemeral data are all managed by this one single state
system. For example ephemeral data (someone wiggling a card around)
for example, isn't even transmitted if there are no other clients
listening in realtime. More in this Metamuse podcast episode.[7]
We draw heavily on research from people like Martin Kleppmann,
Peter van Hardenberg[8], and many others. A huge thank you to this
wonderful research community. Even if you have no interest in the
Muse concept of a digital thinking workspace, I'd encourage you to
try the free version just to see how local-first sync feels in
practice. My opinion is that is fundamentally different from
web/cloud software is well as from classic file-based software--and
an improvement on both. Would love to hear what you think. [1]:
https://museapp.com/ [2]: https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-
first/ [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804478 [4]:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21581444 [5]:
https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/ [6]:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170 [7]:
https://museapp.com/podcast/56-sync/ [8]:
https://www.inkandswitch.com/pushpin/
Author : adamwiggins
Score : 80 points
Date : 2022-05-24 16:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (museapp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (museapp.com)
| treyfitty wrote:
| Do you intend on supporting Search in the future? My use case is
| to brainstorm, jot down a few things, and just dump my contents
| of my brain onto a canvas and search later.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| We do have a rudimentary search via OS integration already:
| https://museapp.com/handbook/ipad/#to-search
|
| But yes, this is due for improvement / upgrade and is on our
| roadmap.
| olivertaylor wrote:
| I love Muse so much. It's a very different way of organizing your
| thinking. I use it for everything. My todo list, my research,
| reading papers and PDFs, outlining bits of writing, shopping
| lists, presentations, trip planning, marking-up images/notes to
| send to people -- not to mention using it for THINKING, which is
| probably the best part.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words, Oliver. And yeah, funny how using
| computing devices for thinking is still such a novel idea, more
| than half a century after Engelbart wrote about computers
| augmenting human intellect!
| nikivi wrote:
| Any plans to open source some code for making the Go sync server
| work?
|
| I know there exist service like Replicache that I assume does
| something similar. But one written in Go would be awesome to see.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yes, agreed. That would be up to my colleague Mark[1], but I'll
| take the liberty of copy-pasting something he wrote earlier:
|
| > Unfortunately we're not going to be in a position to open
| source or license the syncing software in the short term. As
| you noted there's inevitably overhead with that and we can't
| take that on right now as such a small team. Also I still feel
| like we need to prove out our approach more in production,
| starting with rolling out the sync capabilities to the full
| Muse user base and scaling that userbase up a bit. I'm open to
| considering open-sourcing in the future but that'd probably be
| a ways off.
|
| > I was speaking with another developer at an early-stage
| company recently and he mentioned that he'd been having good
| results with Automerge, which has come a long ways in the last
| ~2 years since we looked at it deeply. Importantly the
| Automerge[2] team is now tackling the storage and network
| problems in earnest, making it a more viable production option.
| So you might look into that project if you haven't yet.
|
| [1]: https://markmcgranaghan.com/
|
| [2]: https://automerge.org/
| rchaud wrote:
| Very cool website, I can appreciate the effort that went into
| describing the features. I've been using Markdown-based tools for
| thought like Logseq and ObsidianMD, but have run into some
| limitations.
|
| Any hope for an Android app?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| I'm a big fan of text files--my "thinking workspace" for over a
| decade was a folder full of .txt and .md files and vim. But as
| more of my reference material and creative inputs are images,
| PDFs, websites, etc that became limiting.
|
| We evaluated all the major tablet platforms including Android
| and Chromebook a few years back[1], and found all of them
| lacking on hardware or OS capabilities in a way that would
| prevent build software like Muse.
|
| Hoping things have changed since then or will change in the
| future. I feel like touch as a platform is too important to be
| so dominated by one vendor.
|
| [1]: https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/
| cgjohn wrote:
| I truly mourn the loss of purchasable apps. I don't even bother
| with downloading the 'trial' versions anymore, because I already
| know I will never subscribe anyway.
|
| Are these types of pricing models aimed at professional users? I
| just can't fathom having to pay a monthly fee to be able to
| additionally invest my private time for some slightly increased
| utility in my life.
|
| The barrier to use these kind of apps these days is just too
| high. Its no longer possible to buy this on a whim and use it now
| or in five years or whenever. Simply using such an app now feels
| like a work project, because I feel like I have to carefully plan
| for how long I will need such an app and that I must truly commit
| in order to reach this time frame. I can no longer have a casual
| hobby in which I just decide to use this tool for a bit and
| finish the project in 3 weeks or 3 years, depending on how I
| feel.
|
| /Sorry for the rant. I'm just disappointed because this looks up
| my alley.
| [deleted]
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yes, Muse is a prosumer app. Our customers buy it for
| themselves but usually for use in their work. So if you're a
| freelancer or entrepreneur who spends a few grand a year on
| computer hardware, various online hosting services, storage
| (Dropbox etc), and professional apps, a few bucks a month can
| fit into that budget.
|
| But sorry to hear this means you get left out. We do have a
| free version that's extremely capable and a lot of people use
| for years, mainly by archiving older boards to a backup
| location.
| VGltZUNvbnN1 wrote:
| throwaway743 wrote:
| Anyone have a Windows, Linux, and/or Android alternative?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Best bet here is web apps like https://kinopio.club/
| kndjckt wrote:
| Yesss! I've been looking for something like this for the longest
| time. Nested thoughts / boards is the way to go!
|
| Will test.
|
| My current stack is something like -
|
| Noteshelf - ipad notes
|
| Clover - mac notes
|
| Bear - phone / personal notes
|
| You can do ipad notes with Clover but I found the UI a little
| clunky and pencil responsiveness not great.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Great list. Bear is an inspiration for us in particular.
|
| And yeah nested boards[1] and a zooming UI (ala Jef Raskin[2])
| is one of the big elements that makes Muse different.
|
| [1]: https://museapp.com/how/nestedboards/
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Humane_Interface
| whatever1 wrote:
| Do you plan to have markdown, latex parsing and code highlighting
| support?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Text formatting (possibly Markdown) for sure. Code highlighting
| is something I would personally like but depends on how many
| software engineers decide to become members. Latex is probably
| out for its complexity, but in the long run some kind of
| plugins system might make it possible.
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| Any free alternatives?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Muse is free for up to 100 cards, which in practice is quite a
| bit. We have users who have been using it for free for years.
| (You can always archive old boards to Dropbox etc with the
| bundle export format.)
|
| Some other apps in the "spatial canvas" realm I can recommend
| are Kinopio, Clover, and FigJam. But most are paid with some
| sort of freemium setup.
| MarquesMa wrote:
| I'm very intrigued for the CRDT approach. I always want to try
| CRDT but always end up giving up local-first for simpler
| approaches, because I can't convince myself fully since there's a
| risk of accumulating CRDTs data structures too large.
|
| Really looking forward to see your success, it might move the
| industry forward and bring better apps for the users.
|
| BTW the app is fantastic!
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Thanks! Yes, CRDTs are risky in the sense that they are
| computer science that is only just at the edge of what's
| possible in software today. A few folks have put them into
| practice in small ways (Figma comes to mind) but I wouldn't
| recommend it for most software projects.
|
| That said I hope we (meaning everyone working on CRDTs and
| local-first) can help make it suitable for production use and
| perhaps it will be a common, maybe even standard, way to build
| software five or ten years from now. That's my hope/dream, at
| least.
| jka wrote:
| Do you have any plans to handle schema changes for the
| content stored within the CRDTs as the clients evolve?
|
| (I've been puzzling over that question during some local-
| first dabbling; I have a feeling that lenses[1] -- or
| something like them -- may provide a route towards schema
| version upgrades without any peer synchronization guarantees)
|
| [1] - https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/papers/lenses-
| etapsslide...
| jka wrote:
| Eh.. probably because I learned of lenses from Ink & Switch
| in the first place: https://www.inkandswitch.com/cambria/
| mmcgrana wrote:
| Yep, we already have basic support for versioning.
|
| The foundation of our approach is to have a versioned,
| documented schema shared among clients. Every write down to
| the individual attribute level is persisted with a schema
| version. We're already several versions in, and indeed
| think it's healthy to get experience with version updates
| frequently so that it's not an unusual occurrence.
|
| Currently we use this schema to interpret / coerce values
| as needed at read-time. For example we see an attribute has
| schema version 1, and know that it should be interpreted in
| the sense that we meant as of version 1. In the future, we
| may also choose to write out updates for "migrations" where
| that'd be helpful. So that e.g. instead of having to re-
| interpret values for older version 1, we'd right out an
| update to he attribute that overwrites the old value and
| updates the version tag to e.g. 3.
|
| We do think lenses are interesting and the lab from which
| we spun out has done some good work with them:
| https://www.inkandswitch.com/cambria/. They're just a bit
| complex for our modest needs re: schema versioning at this
| time.
| jka wrote:
| Nice - perhaps there's some kind of equivalence (or at
| least similarity) between lenses and those migrations.
| Thanks for the response!
| hosh wrote:
| I use Evernote for a kind of thought workspace, journaling, and
| knowledge base. The time-to-type (the time between opening up the
| app to being able to type something on a new note) has been
| getting worse with each revision.
|
| Seeing this app with this kind of local-first sync makes me
| seriously consider moving off of Evernote.
|
| Does this have a sink I can install on one of my Linux boxes that
| I can use to backup everything?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Evernote is a good example of software that I think had a lot
| of promise but has decayed in quality and performance over
| time.
|
| No self-hosted sync service at the moment. At the moment we've
| got our hands full with making it work well in a production
| setting. But I'd like to see a world where generic sync
| services (either as hosted services or self-hosted) is
| commonplace.
| [deleted]
| alfredothefirst wrote:
| Can someone tell please if this works well with the cheaper ipad
| and pencil? I am thinking of buy the cheapest ipad and using for
| exactly something like this.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| It does, although it will slow down if you load in large data
| e.g. big PDFs or large boards with huge amounts of ink.
|
| I have an iPad I use for testing that cost me $250 on Amazon
| back in 2019! But watch out for Pencil versions, not all are
| compatible with every iPad model.
| caffed wrote:
| Not thrilled about the trend of services over products.
|
| I've been using GoodNotes 5 for a while now and am really
| satisfied.
|
| One time purchase with iCloud sync with all devices.
|
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/goodnotes-5/id1444383602
| coffeefirst wrote:
| Right. Particularly because I know exactly where it's going:
|
| 1. I sign up for niche but well-made service
|
| 2. I pay $50/year or whatever. I'm fine with that because I'm
| going to rely on this.
|
| 3. Not enough other people do. The service shuts down in 2
| years with 30 days notice and I have to find a way to get my
| data out and into a sustainable format
| pbowyer wrote:
| Or it goes:
|
| 1. I sign up for niche but well-made service
|
| 2. I pay $50/year or whatever. I'm fine with that because I'm
| going to rely on this.
|
| 3. Not enough other people do. The service wants to make more
| money and pivots to enterprise. They don't grandfather old
| users and the minimum price is now $9.99/mo for a limited
| feature set, and $14.99/mo (min 3 seats) for the features I
| used to have
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yep, the "incredible journey" with a dump of your data in
| JSON sucks.
|
| Muse is built local-first; all your data is kept locally on
| device, with the sync server merely a second-tier backup. If
| we go out of business, you keep all the data on your local
| device.
|
| That said, apps in the App Store tend to stop working if they
| don't get regular maintenance[1]. This problem and the one
| you name is a big one for our industry to improve on IMO.
| Mark and I talked about that in depth in our podcast on
| software longevity[2].
|
| [1]: https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/24/apple-now-removing-
| outdated-a...
|
| [2]: https://museapp.com/podcast/49-software-longevity/
| [deleted]
| adamwiggins wrote:
| GoodNotes is great! More of a digital sketchbook (and better
| than Muse if you're focused purely on the inking/sketching part
| of things).
|
| On paying for software, here's some rationale:
| https://adamwiggins.com/making-computers-better/pay
| qubex wrote:
| I utterly despise the current trend towards the subscription-
| based model. I want to pay upfront and rid myself of the
| recurring charges.
|
| Developers: you want recurring income? Welcome to the club.
| Your income is not my problem.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Well, I would hope that purchase of a product or service is a
| mutually beneficial business transaction. So in this sense
| how the product is priced is the problem/concern of both
| parties.
|
| Quoting from https://museapp.com/memos/2021-06-pricing/ :
|
| > You might be used to software from growth-at-all-costs
| startups: free at the start (funded by venture capital) but
| eventually your attention in monetized with ads, your
| personal data is monetized by selling to third parties, or
| the personal product takes a back seat to the "enterprise"
| product.
|
| > Muse is following a different path: personal software, made
| for you and your unique tastes and needs, and funded by
| direct payment from you and other members. Because our
| funding comes from you, the customer, rather than investors
| with their sights on mass-market adoption, our incentives are
| better aligned with yours.
|
| > By paying for Muse, you help us stay niche, opinionated,
| and focused on your needs over the long term.
|
| I think it's worth thinking about where the products and
| services we consume in our daily lives come from and how the
| incentive models work. And that definitely includes software.
| pvg wrote:
| These are perfectly good arguments, I think somewhat
| undermined by the usage rather than feature based price
| segmentation. It ends up feeling artificially nickel-and-
| dimey, in a local-sync tool.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yeah, pricing is really tough. I've experimented heavily
| with feature-based pricing, most notably in Heroku, and
| people absolutely hate it. When you put your best
| features behind a paid upgrade, you're preventing people
| from evaluating the most important part of the software.
|
| Free trials are another solution, but time also ends up
| being a bit arbitrary.
|
| In the end, storage is a good metric that doesn't require
| complex feature gates. We borrowed this model from
| Notion: they had 1000 blocks free in their original
| product, but once they started getting those sweet
| enterprise dollars they were able to give more away for
| free to individuals. Dropbox and GitHub are two other
| examples.
|
| Our service still does a lot of work proportionate to
| data size, so in that sense it's still SaaS and has the
| same cost dynamics at work. But in the end the real cost
| of software is engineering salaries, not infrastructure,
| so that whole discussion is sort of a red herring.
|
| Obviously it remains a problem to solve that our industry
| can't find a pricing model that is both (1) healthy and
| sustainable for the business and (2) people find
| amenable.
| pvg wrote:
| It's definitely tough and you're right, it's also easy to
| make feature-based segmentation infuriating. But (as you
| know and as this thread amply demonstrates) for pro-
| sumerish apps, it's as much (if not more) about vibes as
| it is about price. The 'we're simple software artisans
| asking an honest price for a quality product' vibe just
| clashes with the nickel-and-dime vibe of that pricing
| structure, that's all.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yeah, truly an unsolved problem. Obsidian seems to have
| found a good path--free for the core product, $10/mo
| (standard price for prosumer apps) for sync.
|
| But we felt like sync is a core feature and we really
| want to give it away for free so that people can
| experience it. Time will tell if that was a good call.
| ptato wrote:
| Do most people have multiple devices they're going to use
| this in? I only have one iPad, I don't need sync!
| adamwiggins wrote:
| A core concept is the idea that creative professionals
| live a multi-device life. Desktop computer for focused
| productivity, tablet for relaxed reading and thinking,
| phone for capture and lookup on the go.
|
| https://museapp.com/how/ipadmac/
| [deleted]
| mantas wrote:
| What if mine and Muse'a opinions diverge along the way?
| Then I can't keep the old version I like. But I either
| loose access to what I don't like anymore. Or pay what
| Forcwhat I don't like and hope in future I'll like it
| again.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yes, good point. I'd certainly like software where it's
| easy to run any version you like.
|
| In the Apple ecosystem that's tough because they roll out
| breaking API changes in the OS every few years. So if you
| buy a new computer, upgrade your OS, or otherwise try to
| keep up with a changing world your software will stop
| working.
|
| My thoughts on software longevity and why it's a problem
| for our industry:
| https://museapp.com/podcast/49-software-longevity/
| mantas wrote:
| I'm ex-iOS dev so maybe things changed in the last couple
| years. But Apple was pretty good at keeping old APIs
| around for a loooong time. Deprecated apis would stay
| around for quite a while.
|
| New architectures do break old apps once in a while. But
| even then apps do survive several years without touching.
| And if someone wants to keep using apps after that... IMO
| it's fair to put some burden on user - they have to stick
| to old OS too.
|
| But if app is subscription, then Even sticking to old OS
| won't help...
| Etheryte wrote:
| Well yes and no. It is your problem if the only options for
| the software you want are subscription based. To some extent,
| Photoshop and Lightroom might be examples of this. If I'm not
| mistaken, Adobe stopped selling one-off licenses for these
| products quite a while ago. While there are a number of
| alternatives both paid and free, Adobe's products still
| capture a considerable portion of the market. Not because
| people like recurring payments, but because there's whole
| industries full of people who know how to use those products
| to produce and deliver quality work. To put another way, I
| fully understand that you want one upfront payment, it makes
| sense and I feel the same way, but what if there's no one
| willing to sell it to you?
| foodstances wrote:
| Users: I'm not paying for a subscription!
|
| Those same users in a year: Where's the support for all these
| new features in the OS release just announced? Why haven't
| there been any free updates to this app I paid you 5 dollars
| for a year ago? This app sucks, I'm switching to something
| else. 1 star.
| sanjayts wrote:
| These need not be the only two options. App developers
| could charge money for updates made i.e. new versions while
| the old versions keep working as advertised.
|
| Instead of "cloud storage" which might incur ongoing
| charges, apps can very well hook onto my GDrive/OneDrive to
| persist data. Also, games have done this "free updates to
| this app I paid" for years now.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yes, "pay for a major new version" was the industry model
| for many years. Office, Photoshop, etc. In the end you're
| sort of forced to upgrade by file compatibility every two
| or three years, so it's a subscription with a slightly
| uneven payment schedule.
|
| There are still some apps that do this, Things is a good
| example. But that creates all kinds of other challenges
| when a big part of the product is a service (like ours)
| if you want to support all versions of the client in
| perpetuity.
| mantas wrote:
| Charge for update. If I like new features, I'll pay. If
| not, I'll stick to old version.
|
| Why would maker take away old version from me if I don't
| like the new version?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| It's a service, so there's a substantial maintenance cost
| to maintaining multiple versions. Curious if you also
| feel this way about Figma or Notion? Or for that matter,
| auto-updating software like Chrome or iOS?
| mantas wrote:
| Why not use iCloud and structure schema to let old
| versions survive? Solves both issues.
|
| I don't know what Figma or Notion is. But I dropped
| beloved Tower git client when they went subscription-
| only. I still sometimes use their last purchasable
| version though.
|
| Regarding iOS, It's possible to refuse updates. I also
| used iPhone 6 for a looong time and went several years
| without upgrading OS. I also still use old iPad 4 that
| receives no updates for years. What can I say... it was a
| good stable ride!
|
| I don't care about novelty for the sake of novelty. Once
| I find a tool I like, I'll use it as long as possible.
|
| And I'm happy to pay through the nose for quality tools.
| Be it kitchen utensils or gardening tools or electronics.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| You might want to read the original post--a core feature
| you're paying for is local-first sync, which is
| explicitly designed to solve a lot of the problems with
| iCloud.
|
| I do want to see a world where there is a generic syncing
| service (maybe AWS can run one, but open standards / open
| source) similar to Dropbox or iCloud. I can pay one lump
| sum for all my storage and all my apps will connect
| through it. But so far no such thing exists outside of
| the crude file-based syncing of Dropbox, and that's not
| suitable for building realtime apps on top of.
| mantas wrote:
| Okay, then maybe that local-first sync can easily support
| multiple schemes and let old versions run without
| overhead to devs?
|
| Personally I'm fed up with syncing both as a user and as
| a developer.
|
| As a developer, I don't want to deal with infrastructure
| for an app. It's a massive headache to have 24/7/365
| responsive system. I want to make apps, not be on-call
| sysadmin.
|
| As a user, I don't want to worry who is going to sell my
| data after going bankrupt. And I'd prefer small dev shops
| don't waste their time on keeping network infrastructure
| up and running with security patches.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| > local-first sync can easily support multiple schemes
| and let old versions run without overhead to devs
|
| I'd love that. Ink & Switch has done extensive research
| on how to enable this with p2p technology etc. Our
| industry isn't there yet... but lots of good folks are
| working on it. The Muse sync setup is a step in that
| direction.
|
| > As a developer, I don't want to deal with
| infrastructure for an app. It's a massive headache to
| have 24/7/365 responsive system. I want to make apps, not
| be on-call sysadmin.
|
| Oh yes. I spent many years carrying a pager for Heroku's
| infrastructure. Part of the appeal of local-first is the
| sync infrastructure is necessary to transmit data between
| devices, not for every single keystroke or gesture the
| user makes.
| allenu wrote:
| I also hate the subscription-based model. I see it as a race
| to the bottom that devs can't avoid, unfortunately. Your
| competition can go freemium and pick up casual users and then
| charge for subs, making your product less attractive
| initially (why pay a fee to try out an app when another one
| is free to try?). Most people don't want to pay $40 or $100
| for an app. Additionally, users expect features that require
| cloud services and you need to pay your own fees to keep
| those lights on, so naturally you want to charge users a
| subscription fee as well.
| factorialboy wrote:
| Looks good, but I would like a trial, perpetual license and a
| text based file format that is stored locally and can be
| version controlled.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| It's freemium rather than a trial, so you can use it for free
| for as long as you want. (Assuming I'm understanding your
| request there.)
|
| It does export a Muse bundle which is a ZIP archive
| containing a JSON with the position of the cards and, more
| usefully, flat files for all the media. PNG, TXT, PDF, SVG
| for the ink, etc. I regularly drop backups of this into
| Dropbox or iCloud.
|
| Version control would be tricky because one of the big
| features is realtime streaming sync. Could be an interesting
| research problem to find a way to combine Figma-style
| realtime documents with something that can be checked into
| Git.
| lukasb wrote:
| Is there (or will there be) a way to share boards to web, for
| non-Muse users to comment on?
|
| It's fine if those comments don't make their way back to Muse,
| but some way to share a static view of a Muse board would be
| helpful.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Yes, that's planned for somewhere in the 2.x series. Now that
| we have the foundational sync technology in place, we'll expand
| to other platforms include publishing to the web.
|
| In the meantime, one enterprising customer has already written
| a Muse bundle (zip/json) to HTML converter:
| https://twitter.com/jimmyhmiller/status/1449761294589087752
| lukasb wrote:
| Awesome. Hope there's at least a very basic commenting
| feature as well.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| This looks like a fantastic app but the subscription model and
| lock in together make this a non-starter. I'd rather pay you $60
| upfront than $4/mo.
|
| Obsidian has a great pricing strategy - license fee (not needed
| for most people), no lock in, and optional but valuable services
| on top that are subscription based.
| [deleted]
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Obsidian is great, and they are similarly priced to us ($10/mo
| for sync).
|
| We felt that local-first sync is a core feature of the product,
| and to exclude free users from that would be leaving out a huge
| amount of the value. So we opted to include it for everyone,
| but limit the amount you can store.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| With Obsidian, if I stop paying for sync, I still have my
| notes and a fully functional product.
|
| I can load my notes in vim and keep going should Obsidian
| disappear.
|
| I can also bring my own sync, via Dropbox or Syncthing or
| what have you.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| > if I stop paying for sync, I still have my notes and a
| fully functional product
|
| The same is true for Muse. When your membership expires (or
| you cancel it) the app reverts to free mode, which allows
| you to read, copy, and export all your data. But if you're
| over the free card limit then you can't create new content.
|
| That said I have total respect for the Obsidian model.
| They're really successful for very good reason.
| Fede_V wrote:
| I wish this was on the GoodNotes/SublimeText model: pay once for
| a premium version of the app, and then never worry about
| subscriptions. The moment something requires subscription my
| threshold for buying it goes up 1000 fold.
| goerz wrote:
| I'm usually not too fond of subscriptions either, but I have to
| say that Muse has the most ingenious subscription model I've
| ever come across: If you're using it casually, the free version
| is plenty (Remember that you can always archive stuff by
| exporting it, and 100 cards will go a long way. Plus, you can
| stop paying and still have read-access and even limited editing
| for your existing boards).
|
| If you use it heavily as a daily driver, then the $3.99 or
| $9.99 should be a drop in the bucket. It scales very naturally
| between casual use and the paid tiers. Personally, I could
| probably do with the $3.99, but I'm choosing to pay the $9.99
| since I want to support their ongoing research. Their podcast
| shows the enormous amount of thought they're putting into this,
| and it shows! Together with Blink (an SSH app with similar
| focus on UX design) this is by far the most productive iPad app
| I have.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Is that how most app subscriptions work? People usually call
| it "freemium".
| rchaud wrote:
| Agreed. Subscriptions make sense if it's a "business" app, i.e.
| something you are using to run your business, e.g. Adobe CC,
| Office 365.
|
| But this one looks like personal app, with little in the way of
| corporate functionality (Kanban boards, todos, etc). Why not
| charge a flat fee for 1 year of updates, and make updates
| optional after that?
|
| I have the same beef with the makers of MindNode, a mind-
| mapping app for MacOS. It's $2.99/mo which is not much, but I
| chose to go with SimpleMind Pro because it was a flat 25 EUR.
|
| Developers know the term "write once, deploy anywhere". How
| about "charge once, use forever"?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| I get your metaphor, but I think it falls down because "write
| once, deploy anywhere" was a slogan for Java and it never
| really fulfilled that promise.
|
| And yes, like anything in life there are top-quality options
| which tend to be more expensive and lower-quality options
| which fit a smaller budget. MindNode is a lovely app and
| worth paying for IMO.
| [deleted]
| tomtheelder wrote:
| > The moment something requires subscription my threshold for
| buying it goes up 1000 fold.
|
| I agree, but unfortunately it's the opposite for most folks.
| Subscriptions are here to stay.
| Arubis wrote:
| Especially true for any sort of note taking/reference tool. If
| I'm on the hook for a subscription to access part of my brain,
| that is a _problem_.
|
| Edit: granted, Muse looks gorgeous and I don't mind paying for
| things. Just echoing subscription fatigue.
| _jal wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| I have documents I wrote 30 years ago. Looks like this allows
| export as PDF, at least, but there is no planet on which I
| will voluntarily rent access to my own documents.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| You'll be happy to know that Muse is designed to only gate
| creation of new documents on the membership, not access to
| anything you've already created. Lapsed memberships go into
| alumni mode where you can navigate, move, copy, and export
| everything.
| _jal wrote:
| Ah, that's an excellent approach, much friendlier than
| some subscriptionware I could name.
|
| Thanks for the note.
| Arubis wrote:
| I'm happier yet to know you're involved! That at least
| gives me reason to believe Muse will be around for years.
|
| (^^ parent cofounded Heroku)
| aeone wrote:
| I love Muse, and 2.0 is a huge gain for me. I only wish that the
| inking/writing/drawing experience was a bit better.
|
| When I use a real pen to write notes on real paper, my
| handwriting is pretty! That generates positive feelings for me
| both when I create notes, and also when I review notes. In the
| same way, the apps in which my handwriting looks good create a
| feedback loop where seeing my own handwriting encourages me to
| continue to write more, and makes the app more "sticky" for me.
| At the moment, my handwriting in Muse looks displeasing, which
| discourages me from writing more. I'm currently getting around
| this by mostly using the new text note type instead of ink, but
| it is a more limited kind of expression and note taking than
| free-form inking, which is a shame.
|
| I understand this behaviour/reaction is unlikely to be universal,
| or might be a condemning expression of vanity on my part in some
| way, but still - I might not be alone!
| adamwiggins wrote:
| I'm a big believer in tools that make us feel good about our
| work. Pretty handwriting as an output is in that category.
|
| You'd be surprised how much engineering goes into point
| simplification, bezier smoothing, etc. One of our team members,
| Adam Wulf, has worked extensively in this space and even open-
| sourced a lot of the results: https://adamwulf.me/open-source/
|
| ...but point remains that we can make the inking experience
| better in Muse. It's on our list to work on.
| humblehacker wrote:
| You are not alone, and thank you for articulating this better
| than I could. The handwriting experience is the reason I return
| to Notability for any significant writing despite its
| performance problems. I've yet to find an app that reaches the
| same level of handwriting fidelity.
|
| I really hope the good people at Muse make this a priority.
| That, and search.
| hatware wrote:
| Exciting to see innovation in the note-taking and brainstorming
| space. Too bad I've decided that the subscription model has got
| to go, so I'm not interested in using the 'free' side of anything
| with that model. How else should I fight against it?
|
| Goodnotes knows how to keep users like me happy. Pay once for
| core functionality and unlimited "objects," and be smarter about
| monetization beyond that. I started with Notability, and after
| barely getting the hang it was already nagging me to pay monthly.
|
| As it sits, I think developers are missing out on some of their
| best users and best feedback, but they do it to themselves by
| adopting these models without understanding the risks, and
| scaring away their best customers.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Enlighten us! How are people that don't want to pay for
| software "their best customers"?
|
| GoodNotes is great, hope they can make the one-off payment
| model sustainable. But the reality is that cost needs to match
| with value over time, and the industry is moving to
| subscriptions because that's a sustainable model for
| productivity software.
| CGamesPlay wrote:
| Not wanting a subscription does not imply not wanting to pay
| for software.
|
| I bought Typora, and would buy a paid upgrade for it. Same
| for Things. When the software needs improvement I'll pay for
| that value. I will not pay monthly for the privilege of using
| the software that isn't changing.
|
| I absolutely will not even consider paying for a subscription
| to access my own research. When I don't pay Typora, I can
| still access every document I've written. It's unclear to me
| from the information presented if I will even be able to
| access my Muse boards if the company goes out of business.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Totally agree on the data lock-out problem. Quoting from
| https://museapp.com/memos/2021-06-pricing/
|
| > In an ideal world, a software subscription will let you
| pay just when you're getting value from a product, and stop
| paying when you aren't getting value any more. In practice,
| many subscriptions feel bad because they are hard to
| cancel; or worse yet, they require you to pay forever to
| keep accessing the content you've created in the app.
|
| > Muse is different. We never want to hold your data
| hostage. You should pay for it only when you're getting
| active use out of the app.
|
| > Once you cancel your membership (after a month, a year,
| or ten years) all your cards will still be fully
| accessible. You can still navigate around, doodle on your
| boards and PDFs, move cards, and export a subset or all of
| it as a Muse bundle or PDF. You can search by label, change
| labels, edit text.
|
| > The only thing you can't do? Add new content.
|
| > You never need to worry that your data is locked up. We
| want you to pay for the value you're getting from the tool,
| not for the data storage.
| piskov wrote:
| Hey guys
|
| You removed the app from Russian App store. Do you have any
| policy for existing accounts?
|
| For some context: I can still download the app from Purchased
| section of the App store and use in-app purcahse (apple payments
| via cellular providers work in Russia).
| adamwulf wrote:
| Muse team member here :) Existing accounts are still 100%
| supported for both customers and free accounts, including our
| sync service. This only affects new downloads.
| jot wrote:
| Using this makes me feel like the iPad is finally better than
| paper.
|
| It's so rare to see such attention to detail.
|
| My only wish is that I could pay the team more directly rather
| than via Apple.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Much appreciated! And yeah the "Apple tax" isn't awesome but
| lots to be said for user trust on being in the App Store, a
| frictionless purchase experience, etc.
| throwawaypls wrote:
| Is there a possibility of adding OCR/linking it with apps like
| Roam Research or LogSeq?
| adamwiggins wrote:
| OCR is one we've investigated but it's tricky to find the right
| API that is compatible with our local-first values. One
| customer tipped us off that the creators of Nebo have an
| interesting one. So we'll look into that.
|
| Lots of folks use Muse together with Roam, Obsidian, or LogSeq
| just using standard OS tools like drag-and-drop. LogSeq
| example:
| https://twitter.com/itsjustmath/status/1527410705820839937
|
| But I think there's a lot more we could do here with deeper
| integration--deep bidirectional links etc.
| divan wrote:
| If you're exploring similar apps space, check out
| https://endlesspaper.app It's iPad only, but super simple and
| truly gives you "better paper" experience.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Great sketching app! But unrelated to Muse, which is a thinking
| workspace focused on text, PDFs, links, and images. The ink
| annotations and ability to sketch are a minor feature.
| haswell wrote:
| I hear what you're saying, but really this is up to the end
| user to decide.
|
| For some, the best "tool for thought" is something that tries
| to replace paper as directly as it can, because
| writing/drawing on paper is how some people think best.
|
| So I don't think it's quite fair to say this is unrelated.
| Perhaps the feature sets are different, but the underlying
| goal of the end user might not be.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Fair enough. Pen and paper are the ultimate tool for
| thought, so something that tries to translate them fairly
| directly into a digital environment also is.
|
| Guess my point here is that Muse is not an attempt to
| translate paper into the computer, other than some
| superficial elements like using a stylus to ink. IMO
| software and computers can go so much further than that.
| magicink81 wrote:
| For readers looking for ideas about exactly how software
| can go so much further than paper, I recommend this now
| classic essay by Bret Victor, Magic Ink:
|
| http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/
| divan wrote:
| Be curious. It's not a sketching app. It's literally endless
| paper w/ endless zoom levels, which is pretty sick to use in
| practice. Basically instead of creating "nested" board, you
| just zoom into the area/letter/shape and start whole new
| spatial universe there.
|
| Plus it supports images, and drag-n-dropping them directly
| from other apps in a iPad split mode makes it a joy to use
| often.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Well said. I'm not arguing its utility--I've used it and I
| think it's a great app. But I do think of it as "fractal
| sketching" rather than spatial research.
| pvg wrote:
| Also showhn here in 2020, 189 comments:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24294397
| yes_but_no wrote:
| I really like the idea but even "How Muse boards work" board
| lagging on my iPad pro 10.5 and I don't enjoy the pen feel. I
| think default notes app or even better Concepts app (which is
| another infinite canvas app and doesn't lag) have a much better
| pen feeling.
|
| Still subbed tho.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Thanks for trying & buying. Concepts has amazing pens (makes
| sense because it's focused on drawing), but agree we can/should
| improve the ink experience a lot.
| dshipper wrote:
| Very satisfied Muse user. It's great for compiling lots of
| research, reading PDFs, and basically getting a good visual map
| of what you're learning.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Thanks Dan! Hope the Mac app is a good addition to your
| workflows as well.
| fumar wrote:
| I want to try it but upon Mac download, it requires an email to
| proceed. Apple sign-on or Hide my email don't populate as an
| option.
| adamwiggins wrote:
| Feel free to use a one-off email account (as long as you have
| access to it indefinitely, since it ties your devices
| together). Unlike Figma, Notion, etc we don't ask for anything
| other than an email.
|
| We tried implementing Apple sign-in but found the experience
| pretty weak, both for the end user and for us on the business
| side.
|
| In the future would like to implement some kind of disconnected
| mode to remove this friction. But email is needed for the sync
| aspect, which is one of the biggest selling points (and wow
| moments) of the product.
| davidbarker wrote:
| You can create a Hide My Email address manually if you go to
| System Preferences > Apple ID > Hide My Email (Options) > Tap
| the + button.
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