Pear Note 3 for Mac is now available
Yes, that’s right. Pear Note 3 for Mac is now out for all of you. Pear Note 3 for Mac adds several new features, including support for auto save and versions, full-screen mode, HD video recording, and support for taking notes on Skype calls. And, it’s a free update for all of you who already purchased Pear Note for Mac.
Optimized for Lion
Pear Note 3 adds support for several new features present in Mac OS X Lion. Auto save and versions are two features that work together to prevent users from losing data. Versions of a document are continually saved automatically as a user works. If there’s ever a problem, a user can browse back through history to see what the document looked like at any time in the past. Also, full-screen mode has been added.
Under-the-hood improvements
Pear Note 3 includes a completely new recording and playback engine when running on Lion or later. This is not something you can look at and see as a user, but it does enable things to get better in a lot of ways. For instance, it improves efficiency while recording. Also, it enables new recording settings including high bitrate audio and HD 720p video recording (assuming you have a HD-capable camera).
Skype integration
Pear Note 3 also integrates with Call Recorder for Skype from Ecamm to enable users to take notes on Skype calls. Call Recorder will record the call, including audio and video, while Pear Note synchronizes its timeline with the recorded Skype call. This means notes can be taken on virtual meetings just as they can be taken on physical ones.
Updated look
The look of Pear Note has also been updated, including a minor facelift to the app and a brand new icon.
Pear Note for iPad update
Also, Pear Note 1.0.4 for iPad is available today which brings improved compatibility with Pear Note 3 for Mac as well as Retina graphics for the new iPad and a new icon to match the new Mac icon.
Update
In my excitement I left out a couple important details that you should all know about:
- Pear Note 3 supports Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) and later. If you’re still running Mac OS X Leopard (10.5), you’ll have to stick with Pear Note 2. Don’t worry, there’s a link to the latest version of Pear Note 2 on the website in case you ever need to re-download it.
- Pear Note 3 no longer includes in-app search. Previous versions of Pear Note had a search box to search your entire system for notes from within Pear Note itself. I wasn’t sure whether to create this feature in the first place given that Mac OS X already had a feature (Spotlight) that did the same thing. Ultimately, I decided that Spotlight just wan’t good enough and so created the in-app search box. Over time, Spotlight has gotten much better. As of Mac OS X Lion, Spotlight has become much more functional than and just as fast as the in-app search in Pear Note. Also, the App Store is about to require all apps sold in it to be sandboxed, and full system search is not permitted for a sandboxed apps. So, the feature has been removed, and you should use Spotlight directly instead now. For more information, see the help.