|||

PTPL 082 · Obsidian Sync Is So Good, I Bought a Keyboard For My Phone

Why I’ve stopped trading usability for an ideal—for now

Subscribing to Obsidian Sync, to me, means no longer trading usability for an unrealised ideal of interoperability. At last I have a sync solution I can trust!


Do the simplest thing that could possibly work

Ed Vielmetti briefly examines the phrase Do the simplest thing that could possibly work” (credited to Kent Beck) in this blog post.

When future you will have completely forgotten how you did something, maybe they will also try the simplest thing first and land on the same approach that past you tried.

I like the concept and am seeking it for my personal productivity practices, but I also like tying ribbons on things from time to time. Nothing wrong with a bit of pretty if that brings you joy or helps you focus.

Obsidian Sync—early adopter offer ends Dec 31, 2023

If you’ve been following my writings for a while, you’ll know just how hard I tried to live the plain text life with my files on my back, hopping from one text-reading app to the next, like some sort of itinerant tech-hippie.

The dream is still close to my heart, but it’s a distant one. Time to live in the present and stop trading usability for an ideal that I prophesy will one day be. One day.

And so it has come to pass that I have been an Obsidian Sync subscriber for two weeks now, and yea, it is as good as they told me it would be. Hallelujah!

As I mentioned in a recent PTPL, I’m still sad it was necessary to subscribe to a specialised service in order to access my Markdown flashcards on my phone. That Apple have somehow crippled iCloud so that the free option for people who want to use Obsidian on their iOS devices is unacceptably slow.

People on Mastodon are still telling me that Syncthing or Git could have done the job for free, but I was never able to get either to work—user error, no doubt. Anyway, looking more closely I saw that Sync offers some pretty fine grained options when it comes to version control, restoring deleted files, and what to sync on which device, than the free alternatives ever could.

Now that I have a sync service I can trust, to say that I love being able to seamlessly shift between my MacBook Pro, iPad, and iPhone, confident that the work I’ve done on one device will be there waiting for me on the others, is an understatement!

Obsidian Sync makes flashcards more fun

As much as I dream about complete interoperability between text reading apps, my needs are (apparently) specialised when it comes to flashcards with integrated audio files, and so far Obsidian has proven to be the best option for those. And don’t forget being able to view the full names of files on a small screen! Ian Hayes and myself are seriously thinking about lobbying Apple to fix this, in the name of more complete accessibility.

The only hiccup I’ve had with Sync has been that the audio recordings in .webm format I made for my French flashcards inside Obsidian on my Mac, don’t sync to iOS. I’m in the process of converting and replacing those files. Oddly enough, I can no longer find the plugin I used to use for in-app recording; it spontaneously disappeared from my sidebar. Sharing recordings made in Apple’s Voice Memos to Obsidian has become a more compatible though slightly less convenient replacement.

Get it now if you need the space

I’ll end by saying that if you’ve been thinking about buying Obsidian Sync, now is a great time. They’re offering 5 × the storage space (50 GB instead of 10 GB, over 10 vaults) for life between now and the end of 2023, so if this something that interests you, don’t delay too long. They won’t be repeating this offer.


Sign up to receive the latest content in your inbox

Up next PTPL 081 · New Weekly and Monthly Analog Templates for Simplified Planning No and Low-Clutter Gifts for Apple, PKM, and Analog Enthusiasts
Latest posts Inktober 2024 PTPL 128 · Keep Your Content Separate From the Container in Which It Lives PTPL 127 · On Backing Up Paper, and Static Websites for Tiny Archives Efficient App Agnostic Tasks in a Single Plain Text File (Obsidian Optional) PTPL 126 · What the Dash-Plus System Looks Like in My OBTF and Analog Notes Word Puzzles (that aren’t Wordle) PTPL 125 · Choosing Between Digital and Analog, and a Plain Text Accounting Update How to Keep Your Wheels Turning Smoothly Despite the Automation Paradox PTPL 124 · Saving Safari tabs as Markdown links, and Mono Fonts in Obsidian Looking Through Windows (From the Outside In) PTPL 123 · ‘Analog Office’ Blog and Tomoe River Planner Recommendations Mastodon and the Fediverse — Social Media’s Brighter Future Celebrating Independent Indie Blogs PTPL 122 · Aligning Your Task List with Your (Changing) Values PTPL 121 · Getting Focused With a 4-Quadrant Weekly Planning Matrix PTPL 120 · Quick Add vs Text Expansion in Obsidian Touch Typing For Classic Book Fans Your Name in Landsat Psst — They Don't Know What You're Talking About PTPL 119 · Yes, You Can Be Plain-Text Enlightened and Still Use Apple’s Reminders! PTPL 118 · My Simple, Sensible Plain Text to Proprietary App Workflow PTPL 117 · Oh, You Like Making Notes! Why Not Use… ? PTPL 116 · Plain Text Accounting Level 1, Complete! PTPL 115 · There’s Something New at the Top of My One Big Text File PTPL 114 · Obsidian, Silver Bullet, and Org-Mode—3 Different Approaches to Working With Notes PTPL 113 · Some Free Tools Cost Too Much PTPL 112 · Organise Your Stuff— Alternatives to Bartender and Hazel PTPL 111 · You Only Need 2 Calendar Categories For Effective Time Management PTPL 110 · How to Easily Type  macOS ⌘ Modifier Keys PTPL 109 · Households With Written SOPs Are More Resilient Than Those Without PTPL 108 · Workflowy’s Plain Text Calendar Beats Obsidian’s
... ... ... ...