Pear Note for iOS 2.5 is now available in the App Store. This is a big update under-the-hood. The two most notable changes are 64-bit support and updated Dropbox syncing.

64-bit support

Pear Note has remained a 32-bit app for a long time, which is why you’ve seen messages that “Pear Note needs to be updated”. This has meant that it could continue supporting very old iOS versions (even back to iOS 4), but Apple has been encouraging all developers to support 64-bit. With iOS 11, they removed support for running 32-bit apps, so Pear Note stopped working.

Pear Note 2.5 is now 64-bit, so it now runs on iOS 11. If you’re using iOS 11, update to Pear Note 2.5 and everything should be working again for you.

Updated Dropbox support

Dropbox has an API that allows apps to sync to it. Pear Note has been syncing to it since the early days of the API. Eventually, Dropbox created a new version of their API (version 2), but kept the version 1 API working. However, Dropbox is turning off the version 1 API at the end of this month (September, 2017). This means that Pear Note would no longer be able to sync with Dropbox.

Pear Note 2.5 can now sync to Dropbox’s version 2 API. The transition for you should be seamless. You shouldn’t even have to log in again – Pear Note handles everything in the background. And the good news is that syncing should be much faster now, as the new API makes a lot of things quicker.

A warning – this is a totally new sync engine under the hood. The old sync engine had a lot of little bugs that were fixed over the years. The new engine is better in many ways, but does not have the years of tweaks the the old engine had. So, if you notice new problems cropping up, please let me know.

Dropping support for old iOS versions

In order to support these changes, Pear Note 2.5 has dropped support for iOS versions prior to iOS 9. If you’re still using iOS 8 or later, you can keep using Pear Note 2.2.4. However, Dropbox syncing will stop working at the end of the month. If you need Dropbox syncing, you’ll need to update to a device running at least iOS 9.

Thanks

Thanks to all of you for your patience in waiting for this release. Let me know if you run into any problems.

Pear Note is not ready for iOS 11 yet. If you want to continue using Pear Note on iOS, please do not upgrade to iOS 11 yet. I am working on an update to Pear Note for iOS that will work with iOS 11 (as well as work with changes to Dropbox). I had hoped to have it complete by the time iOS 11 launched, but sadly it is taking longer than I had hoped. I hope to have this update ready for release soon, but I cannot say exactly when the update will be ready.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Hot on the heels of Pear Note 3.2 is Pear Note 3.2.1. Pear Note 3.2 had a bug in it that would prevent it from updating to new versions when running on OS X El Capitan 10.11. If you try to check for updates, you’ll see an error. Sadly, I did’t catch this until after it was released. So, I pulled the 3.2 download to fix the bug. 3.2.1 does not have this bug, and should be able to update itself just fine.

What if I installed 3.2?

If you were one of the few people who managed to download 3.2 before I pulled it, and you are running on 10.11, then you will have to manually update to 3.2.1. To do so, just download the trial in your browser, and replace the broken 3.2 with the 3.2.1 you download (if you just run the download, it will offer to put itself in Applications for you). It will see your installed license, so no worries about being in trial mode again.

Hopefully there is no 3.2.2 coming immediately, but please let me know if you run into any problems.

After way too long, Pear Note 3.2 for Mac is available for direct customers (App Store customers can get the update as soon as Apple approves it). This should get Pear Note working properly on OS X El Capitan (10.11). Please let me know of any remaining issues you run into.

Note – requires at least OS X Mountain Lion 10.8

Pear Note 3.2 drops support for 10.6 and 10.7. If you’re still running one of those old OS versions, you can continue running Pear Note 3.1.4 and it will continue to work fine. If you’re using 10.8, 10.9, 10.10, or 10.11, then Pear Note 3.2 is for you.

Apple is in the process of its annual OS release season. So, I wanted to let you know what Pear Note’s compatibility with the new versions was.

Pear Note for iOS

Apple released iOS 9 two days ago (September 16). I’ve found no issues running the current version (2.2.4) of Pear Note on iOS 9. It seems to work just as it did on iOS 8. History has told me that even if I find no issues, there’s a good chance some of you might. If you do, please drop me an email so I can put out an update with fixes.

TL;DR – Works fine

Pear Note for Mac

Apple plans to release OS X El Capitan (10.11) on September 30. There are significant issues in the current version of Pear Note (3.1.4) on El Capitan. I’m working on an update to Pear Note to fix these problems, but it will likely not be ready before the September 30 when El Capitan comes out. If you rely on Pear Note, I’d recommend waiting to upgrade to El Capitan until a Pear Note update comes out.

TL;DR – Wait for update

Today, Pear Note for iOS version 2.2 is available. For those of you running iOS 7, it includes a bit of a user interface makeover to match the style of iOS 7 better. Also, it fixes some major bugs that occurred when running on iOS 7.

If you’re not running iOS 7, the interface will remain the same. But you’ll still benefit from some performance improvements in there.

And everyone can enjoy the new excellent icon. It was made to fit great in iOS 7, but it really looks great on any iOS version. Thanks to so much to Kris Hunt for creating it.

Pear Note for iOS 2.1 and Pear Note for Mac 3.1 are now available!

Pear Note for iOS 2.1

Images

The big new feature in the iOS app is image support. You can now take a picture with the camera, grab a photo from your photo library, or copy/paste images from other apps into your notes. So stop describing what your teacher is holding and instead just snap a picture of it.

Sketches

Many of you have asked for sketching support in Pear Note. While Pear Note still does not contain sketching support within the app, the new image support means you can use other sketching apps in conjunction with Pear Note. When you’re taking notes with Pear Note – recording audio and typing away, and you need to add a sketch, just switch to a sketching app to make your sketch. Pear Note will continue to record in the background. When you’re done sketching, copy the image, switch back to Pear Note, and paste it in.

The nice thing about this approach is that you can use whichever sketching app suits your needs. There are a bunch of them out there, and you may prefer one over another. I personally like to draw using the Procreate app, which is very powerful and includes the ability to copy (though it is a bit hidden, as you have to swipe the layer in the Layers menu).

Minor improvements

There’s now in-app help available (under the Settings gear). You can now bring up the recording controls on the iPhone without flipping to the note back by long-pressing the flip-to-back button. Dropbox syncing is made a bit more robust, and other bugs are fixed as well.

Pear Note for Mac 3.1

Retina support

On the Mac side, the biggest change in the new version is Pear Note is now fully Retina-capable. So, if you’ve got a fancy new Retina MacBook Pro, Pear Note should now look a lot prettier. If you don’t have one, then just pretend you never read this paragraph.

Sandboxing

Pear Note 3.1 is also now sandboxed if you get it from the Mac App Store. This should not have any affect on functionality… I hope.

Other stuff

Pear Note 3.1 also saves documents in an updated format that includes saving images in a format that the iOS version can read. If you have any old documents that include images you’d like to see in the new iOS version, you’ll need to open them and re-save them.

And of course there are a bunch of bug fixes in the new version as well.

Macworld recently announced it’s 2012 App Gems Awards, where they pick the best iOS apps of the year, and Pear Note made the list! It’s an honor to be listed with the best of the best apps, a few of which I use every day. Read about Pear Note and the other winners at macworld.com or in the February issue of the magazine which you can find on newsstands or in the digital version on your iPad.

I’m looking for folks to test the Mac App Store version of Pear Note.

There are two versions of Pear Note for Mac – the one from the Mac App Store and the one from outside it. They’re essentially the same app with only a couple minor under the hood exceptions. Up until now, all the beta testing of Pear Note has happened on the non-App Store version, as that was much easier to distribute. Thank you to all who have tested and continue to do so on the non-App Store version.

This will be insufficient soon. Apple now requires that any feature updates to App Store apps be sandboxed. Because of this, I need some people to beta test the sandboxed App Store version of Pear Note for Mac. If you’re interested, please send me an email. I’ll gather those interested and beta testing of 3.1 should start in a couple weeks.

Pear Note 2.0.2 for iOS is now live on the App Store. It includes a bunch of fixes and improvements, but I’ll call out two key ones here.

VoiceOver support

Ever since shipping Pear Note on the iPad last year, I have wanted to include VoiceOver support for users with reduced vision. There was a problem, though. Pear Note’s text editor is a fancy rich text editor that I made for Pear Note so it could support highlighting, outlining, styles, and such. This is different from most other apps which just use the simple plain text editor that comes with iOS. Unfortunately, Apple had no way to allow custom text editors such as the one in Pear Note to work with VoiceOver. I went back and forth with Apple support on this, in the hopes that they would remedy the situation. Well, with iOS 6, they have done just that.

Pear Note 2.0.2 takes advantage of this new support in iOS 6, and now has full VoiceOver support. If you’re a VoiceOver user, please try it out and let me know how it goes. It has only had limited testing from real VoiceOver users, so please let me know if you find any issues so I can fix them.

Long documents

Pear Note used to struggle with very long documents (~5,000 words depending on the device). This should be much, much better now in 2.0.2. Please let me know if you are still having issues with long documents.

Please update away and let me know if you run into any issues.