Guide
Gravity vs Apple Notes
Apple Notes is free, already on your iPhone and Mac, and does far more than Gravity: folders, scans, drawings, attachments and shared notes. Gravity is for the small stuff you think of all day. You type a thought, it lands at the top of one list, and the notes you never come back to sink below the ones you're using.
I make Gravity, so bear that in mind. For most people, Apple Notes is the better choice.
The short answer
Use Apple Notes if you want one free app for everything: long notes, scanned receipts, sketches, a shared shopping list and folders to keep it all in.
Use Gravity if most of what you write is a line or two, you want to get it down without deciding where it goes, and you'd like old notes to move out of your way without tidying. Use Gravity too if you carry an Android phone, because Apple Notes has no Android app.
Side by side
| Apple Notes | Gravity | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (iCloud storage beyond 5 GB is paid) | $9.99 per platform; Gravity Sync free in beta |
| iPhone and iPad app | Yes | Yes |
| Android app | No | Yes |
| Mac app | Yes | Yes |
| Windows app | No | No |
| Works in a web browser | Yes | No |
| Write and search offline | Yes | Yes |
| Same notes on iPhone and Android | No | Yes |
| Folders or notebooks | Yes | No |
| Tags | Yes | Yes |
| Links between notes | Yes | No |
| Markdown | No | Yes |
| Checklists | Yes | Yes |
| Handwriting and drawing | Yes | No |
| Speak or record notes | Yes | Yes |
| Shared notes | Yes | No |
Where Apple Notes wins
You already have it. There's nothing to buy, and it syncs through iCloud with the Apple Account on your phone.
It holds far more than text. You can scan a document, drop in a PDF, sketch with Apple Pencil or paste a photo. Gravity takes typed or spoken text, with Markdown and checklists.
You can share a note or a whole folder and edit it with someone else. Gravity has no shared notes.
If you like filing, Apple Notes gives you folders, Smart Folders, tags and links between notes, and you can build as much structure as you want.
Where Gravity wins
Gravity opens with the cursor in the box at the top. You type and press Return twice, and the note is saved. On the Mac, Option-Space opens a capture panel over whatever app you're in. Apple Notes has Quick Note on the Mac, but each note still lands in a folder you'll have to dig through later.
New notes go to the top and the ones you leave alone sink, so this week's thoughts stay in view. When an old note matters again, you swipe it right and it's back on top. That's Karpathy's append-and-review method built into the app. In Apple Notes you'd be cutting and pasting inside one long note.
Start a note with todo: or read: and Gravity colours it and lets you filter by that word. You set nothing up first.
Gravity runs on Android. Notes sync between iPhone, iPad and Mac through iCloud, or across those and Android with Gravity Sync. On Android, Apple Notes only works through iCloud.com in a browser.
On iPhone, iPad and Android you can tap the mic and speak a note, and Gravity transcribes it on the phone. Apple Notes can also record audio inside a note and transcribe it.
"I have always had problems organizing notes, trying to prioritize and always ending up making one note with a bunch of random stuff and the way this app works really sympathizes with me."
Play Store review
Price
Apple Notes is free, although notes full of attachments eat into your iCloud storage. The app is $9.99 per platform. iCloud sync between iPhone, iPad and Mac is free, and Gravity Sync, which adds Android and your AI apps, is free during the beta and becomes a subscription after it.
Who should pick which
- Students, and anyone keeping lots of reference material: Apple Notes, for folders, scans and handwriting.
- Families sharing lists: Apple Notes, for shared notes and folders.
- People who think in fragments (ideas, to-dos, things to look up): Gravity. It stays out of your way while you write and brings the good ones back when you scroll.
- People who tried to get organised and gave up: Gravity, because it has nothing to maintain.
- Anyone with an iPhone or Mac and an Android phone: Gravity.
You can also use both: Apple Notes for reference and Gravity for the small things you don't want to lose.
Moving from Apple Notes
On macOS Tahoe, open a note in Apple Notes and choose File, then Export As, to save it as Markdown. Drop the files into the free import tool, which turns them into one file for Gravity to import, and the notes arrive in your list.
Questions
Can Gravity read my Apple Notes?
No. Gravity keeps its own list. You can move notes across once with the import tool.
Does Gravity have folders like Apple Notes?
No, and I don't plan to add them. A word and a colon at the start of a note works as a tag instead. I wrote about why I'm not adding folders.
Is Gravity faster than Quick Note?
For getting a thought down, a little: press Option-Space, type and press Return twice, and the panel closes. Quick Note on the Mac is close behind. The bigger difference comes afterwards, when Gravity keeps your recent notes on top and you never sort anything.