Bear vs Wrist Recorder Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bear
A beautiful and simple Markdown app for capturing, writing, and organizing your thoughts and ideas. It offers a distraction-free writing environment, flexible formatting, and powerful organizational tools like tags and tasks. Ideal for anyone looking to streamline their note-taking and creative processes.
- Distraction-free writing environment
- Flexible Markdown formatting
- Tag-based organization
- Task management
- Note linking (WikiLinks)
- Web clipping extension
- Apple Pencil sketching
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Bear is a beautiful, powerfully simple Markdown app to capture, write, and organize your life. Take notes, plan your day, journal thoughts, organize tables, create lists and tasks, sketch ideas, link notes together, write a book, and much more. Bear is used by writers, lawyers, chefs, CEOs, teachers, doctors, engineers, students, parents.. you get the picture. Getting started couldn’t be faster—no signup and no account. Just open a note and write naturally. "My journaling app of choice is Bear" - Kit Eaton, New York Times * 2017 Apple Design Award * 2016 App Store App of the Year * Editors' choice for 7 consecutive years * Most of our parents love it ## BEAUTIFUL. SIMPLE. POWERFUL. PRIVATE - Tools stay out of your way so you can just write - Sketch ideas on iPad with an extendable canvas and Apple Pencil (and other styli) - Clip web pages and other content with Bear’s app extension - The redesigned Info Panel now with Table of Contents and Backlinks - Use Apple Watch to dictate and append to recent notes - Support for all the scripts including RTL languages like Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian - Easily create notes with Siri and Shortcuts - Your notes, not ours - Bear is private at its core: We cannot see your notes, tags, or anything else ## FLEXIBLE MARKDOWN - Work in plain text - easy to move between apps - Still use formatting like bold, italics, strikethrough, links, tables, and more with Markdown - Combine text styles like bold and underline, even in headings - Markdown hides for a clean reading experience - Use WikiLinks to connect notes and build a personal wiki or knowledge management tool ## GET ORGANIZED with #tags, tasks, and more - Add #tags, #multi-word tags# and even #multiple/nested/tags anywhere in a note for quick organization - Pin important tags to the top of the Sidebar - Make important tags stand out in the Sidebar with TagCons - Add tasks to notes and easily view all notes that include tasks - Fold sections to get them out of the way ## SHARING MADE EASY - Export notes to plain text, Markdown, TextBundle, Bear note, and rich text - Export notes to HTML, DocX, PDF, JPG, and ePub (Bear Pro required) - Easily share your notes to any third-party app with the Share Sheet ## SEARCH FAR AND WIDE - Use Spotlight to search your notes from anywhere - Search for text inside photos and PDFs (Bear Pro required) - Focus on specific types of notes with powerful Special Searches like @todo, @images, and @yesterday ## CREATE YOUR COZY SPACE * Pick from nearly 30 themes for the perfect writing space in both Light and Dark Mode (Bear Pro required) * Choose an app icon that speaks to your personality (Bear Pro required) * Set your own fonts for plain text, headings, and code * Set line height and width, paragraph spacing, and more ## GET MORE WITH BEAR PRO One subscription enables a variety of features on all your devices and keeps the Bear hugs coming. - Sync notes between your iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud - Encrypt individual notes with a password that is entirely private to you - Lock Bear with Face/Touch ID - Export to more formats including HTML, DocX, PDF, JPG, and ePub - Search for text inside images and PDFs in Bear notes - Over 30 beautiful app themes & app icons $2.99 monthly $29.99 yearly 14-day free trial ----- Price may vary by location. Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your App Store account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You will not be able to cancel the subscription once activated. After purchase, manage your subscriptions in App Store Account Settings. Any unused portion of a free trial period will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription. ----- bear@shinyfrog.net Twitter: BearNotesApp Reddit: reddit.com/r/BearApp Facebook: BearNotes Instagram: BearNotesApp Privacy Policy: http://www.bear.app/privacy/ Terms of Service: http://www.bear.app/terms/
Wrist Recorder Notes
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Wrist Recorder puts a voice recorder on your wrist. Tap a complication on your watch face and start talking. Your note is saved on Apple Watch, sent to your iPhone, and transcribed automatically. RECORD FROM YOUR WATCH FACE • New Recording complication: one tap opens the recorder and starts recording. • Add to Latest complication: keep talking into your most recent note. • Record on Apple Watch even when your iPhone isn't nearby. Notes are sent over when it's back in range. • Play a note back, add to it, or delete it right on your watch. TRANSCRIBED ON YOUR IPHONE • Every note is transcribed as soon as it reaches your iPhone, with no need to open it first. • Add more to a note later and the whole note is transcribed again. • Scrub to any moment in a note, or skip back and forward 15 seconds. • Select and copy any part of a transcript, or share it. • Share a note's audio as a single sound file, even if you added to it later. ORGANIZED WITH CATEGORIES • Sixteen color-coded categories to start, from Work and Personal to Lists, Reminders, Ideas, and Meetings. • Pick a category while you record, on iPhone or Apple Watch, or change it later. • Hide the categories you don't want to see, like Work on the weekend. • Add, rename, recolor, and reorder categories in Settings. EASY TO FIND • Newest notes at the top, each with its category, length, and a one-line preview of what you said. • Search names and transcripts, with every match highlighted when you open the note. • Rename a note with a swipe, or by pressing and holding its title. The new name shows on your watch too. • An icon shows whether each note was recorded on iPhone or Apple Watch. • Select several notes to share their transcripts or audio, or delete them together. SYNC YOUR WAY • Sync deletions between iPhone and Apple Watch, or keep each device's notes separate. • Copy notes recorded on iPhone to your watch to play them on the go. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No account, no ads, no tracking. • Recordings and transcripts stay on your iPhone and Apple Watch. • Transcription uses Apple's speech recognition, on your iPhone when it's supported. Requires iOS 17 or later. The Apple Watch app requires watchOS 10 or later.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Wrist Recorder Notes at none against Bear's 2. Wrist Recorder Notes also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 2 weeks). Bear's advantage is device support (4 vs 2). On price, ads and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Bear sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Wrist Recorder Notes asks for nothing beyond the download.
Bear ships an update every 2 weeks, Wrist Recorder Notes daily. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bear | Wrist Recorder Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (6.9K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 76.9% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6.9K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 16 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 230 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shiny Frog Ltd. | Savi Solutions |
Bugs and requests
Bear
Reported bugs
3 issues- Sync issues causing note conflicts and data loss
- Cursor jumping and input issues on iPad
- Inconsistent behavior when importing/exporting content
Requested features
5 requests- Add password protection for individual notes
- Improve search capabilities to find text within notes
- Implement table support for more robust note-taking
- Develop a web-based version for broader accessibility
- Allow manual sorting and organization of notes
Wrist Recorder Notes
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Bear
- Monthly Pro subscription7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly Pro subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
Wrist Recorder Notes
No in-app purchases









