Nook vs Igneous

Nook is a calm, private place for your notes, journal and everyday thoughts. Everything you write stays on your iPhone. There is no cloud, no account, and no tracking. The app has no internet access at all, so your words simply never leave your device. Most note apps sell you the cloud. Nook does the opposite, and makes a promise you can actually verify: your notes are yours alone. PRIVACY TYPING Something you have not seen before. Turn on Privacy Typing and every word you write is blacked out on screen the moment you finish it, so no one can read over your shoulder on the train, in a meeting, or at home. The word you are currently typing stays faintly visible just for you. Tap the eye to reveal the whole note, and Nook remembers the setting per note. You choose the bar color and how hidden the current word stays. HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT Protecting a page while you write it does little if your list still reads like a table of contents. Tap the eye on the home screen and every title and preview is covered behind glass. Bring them all back with Face ID, or uncover one note at a time, which is safer still. Everything covers itself again the moment you leave the app, so Nook never opens onto your own words. SOMEWHERE TO START Fifty one writing prompts, written by hand and grouped by what you might need: today, how you are, the people in your head, looking back, looking ahead, the quiet ones, the unsaid ones. They work on every device, with no model required. On devices with Apple Intelligence, Nook can also suggest a topic or reflect on an entry using Apple's on-device Foundation Models, with no network call at any point. WHY YOU WILL LOVE NOOK • Privacy Typing. Black out every word as you type, so no one reads over your shoulder. • Hide your notes. Cover every title and preview in the list, and bring them back with Face ID, all at once or one note at a time. • Truly private. No account, no email, no sign in. Open the app and start writing. • Lives only on your phone. No cloud and no servers. Your notes are stored locally and protected on device. • Locked for your eyes only. Choose Face ID, Touch ID, or your own passcode to open Nook. • Lockable folders. Put a passcode on any folder, and everything inside it stays private too. • Write beautifully. Titles, headings, bold and italic, plus a page background and text color for every note. • Beautifully organized. Nest folders as deep as you like, give them colors, pin what matters, and search everything in an instant. • Yours to back up. Export an encrypted backup to Files or AirDrop. You choose the passphrase, so only you can ever open it. • Prompts for empty days. Fifty one hand written prompts, plus on-device suggestions on Apple Intelligence devices. • Made for iPad. A two column desk, folders down one side and your pages beside them. • A widget that fits in. Quick capture from the Home Screen, following your own tint. • Calm by design. A warm, focused interface with a gorgeous light and dark theme. NO SUBSCRIPTION. EVER. Try everything free for 7 days. If you love it, buy us a coffee just once and Nook is yours forever. One payment of $5.99. No subscription, no account, no cloud. PRIVACY YOU CAN TRUST Nook collects NO data. There is nothing to leak, nothing to sell, and nothing to track. Your App Store privacy label says it plainly: Data Not Collected. Made with care by an independent couple. Buy us a coffee and keep your thoughts to yourself.

Igneous is a notes app you drive with one thumb. On iPhone there's no toolbar at the top of the screen: everything lives in one dock at the bottom, and it moves the way Safari's tab bar does. Your notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you choose — on your device, in iCloud Drive, or anywhere Files can reach — so they open in any other app, today and in twenty years. No account, no database, no analytics. GET ANYWHERE WITHOUT REACHING • Tap the pill in the dock to search every note, like tapping Safari's address bar. • Swipe it sideways to move between open notes, and keep going past the last one for a new note. • Swipe up on it and your open notes spread out as cards. • Swipe in from the left edge for your notebook, and from the right for the Inspector. • Pull down on a note to find a word in it. Hold any button for more. • While you read, the dock folds into a slim pill out of the way. Liquid Glass on iOS 26; solid with Reduce Transparency. • On iPad: a floating notebook pane, a real tab bar, and as many windows as Stage Manager will hold. CAPTURE THE MOMENT • Press the Action Button, a Lock Screen widget or a Control Center tile and you're typing in a new note — even from a closed app. • Record a voice note from the Action Button, Siri, the app icon or the note you're in. Igneous transcribes it on your device while you talk, shows the words on the Lock Screen, and saves the audio and transcript into today's note or a note of its own. • Copy a voice note — recording and transcript together — and paste it into Messages, Mail or another note. WRITE IN MARKDOWN, SEE IT BEAUTIFULLY • A live editor that renders headings, lists, tasks, tables, callouts, highlights, maths and diagrams as you type, while the file stays plain text. • A formatting bar just above the keyboard, and Writing Tools that keep your links and structure intact. • Wikilinks, embeds, backlinks, tags and a graph of how your notes connect. • Search every note instantly, including handwriting on your canvases. • Daily notes, a calendar, tasks gathered from every note, templates and a board view. DRAW WHEN WORDS WON'T DO • Canvases for sketches and diagrams, with Apple Pencil on iPad, beside cards and links to your notes. • Opens JSON Canvas and Excalidraw drawings. WORKS WITH YOUR MAC — AND OFFLINE • Keep a notebook in iCloud Drive ▸ Igneous and it's on all your devices. • Or pair with Igneous on your Mac over your own network: the phone keeps a full offline copy and sends its edits when it's back. Changes to different lines are combined, and if you both changed the same words, both versions are kept. Drawings merge shape by shape. • Nothing ever passes through a server of ours — there isn't one. SHORTCUTS, SIRI AND WIDGETS • Actions for new notes, today's note, tasks, search and voice notes, ready for Shortcuts and Siri. • Home Screen widgets with buttons you choose, Lock Screen widgets, Control Center controls, Focus filters and Live Activities. YOUR NOTES, YOUR FILES Igneous reads Obsidian-flavoured Markdown as written and never adds anything you didn't type. Point it at the vault you already keep.