I built my own dashboard. I still can't quit Apple Notes.

I've been in the Apple and Mac ecosystem since the early 2000s, but I only started using more native Mac and iOS apps later. Let's admit it, the earlier Mac version of MS Office was never really great, and Apple Notes used to feel more prehistoric than most note-taking apps out there.

But Apple is always doing Apple shit, and their native apps have gotten better than almost everything else on the market today.

Context

I used to write blog post drafts on my iPad in Apple Notes, then polish them in Apple Pages and publish from there. All of that became obsolete the moment I built my own dashboard, thanks to the power of vibe coding.

A while ago, I checked how I was using my dashboard, and specifically what I wasn't using. I just needed something that works, that fits my workflow, and one of the things I built in was a note function.

Read also: 90 days with the dashboard I built, and what I still don't use

The reality is I don't use that function as much as I expected, because I keep going back to Apple Notes. The problem wasn't in how I built it.

The problem is that Apple Notes is just too powerful, and it takes almost zero clicks to open it, jot something down, and go back to whatever I was doing without thinking.

My brain is wired into using Apple Notes. It's second nature at this point.

What each one is for

Overbuilding my dashboard isn't really a flaw. It happened during the honeymoon period of vibe coding, and I've since made a clear, clean separation between the two.

My dashboard is for notes with a longer shelf life, research for topics I'm actively working on.

Apple Notes is for everything fast: pasting recap sessions from Claude, one pinned note that's my running to-do list, quick temporary notes for ideas or blog topics before they move over to my dashboard, and temporary context from chats with Gemini and ChatGPT, since those serve a different purpose.

Read also: Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT and Kimi: how I labeled them and use them

Apple Notes is such a powerful feature across my Mac, iPad, and iPhone, while my dashboard only really works on iPad and Mac.

It doesn't run on iPhone, and I'm often outside or cooking in the kitchen, thinking about something to write about, and pulling up Apple Notes is just natural.

My dashboard was never meant to replace everything I used to use. It was meant to make my work easier, and it does. My output has gone up by something like 300% since building it, but some things are just better left as they are, in the right use case.

Besides, it's not like I'm adding another subscription. It's a native Apple app, and that's hard to beat in terms of speed, interface, and ease of use.

Read also: Subscription check: what I'm paying now, and what's coming

I also think I should be using Apple Notes a bit better. Maybe more structured, as a backup for the most critical things.

The odds of me losing content in Apple Notes are close to zero, and as much faith as I have in my own dashboard, something is reassuring about storing the important stuff in a mature native app made by Apple.

What's next?

I think I'll re-audit my Apple Notes structure and make it a bit more optimal. Even though it's already frictionless, I need to clean it up more regularly so I'm not stuck wading through outdated temp notes. Otherwise, it gets too cluttered.

Just like I've labeled how I use every AI agent, I've made a clear distinction between what goes in Apple Notes and what belongs in my dashboard.

I'm not going to overcomplicate it. My Apple Notes usage is about speed, not about moving shit around in folders and building fancy structures, because otherwise I end up wasting too much time organizing, and that's just counterproductive.

Apple Notes, inside the Apple ecosystem, is just too fast, too polished, and too frictionless to ignore, even when you've built something more custom yourself.

Sometimes the tool that wins isn't the one you made. It's the one that was already there, working.