Reflect Open
This is just a quick Reflect update.
I recently retired. While I was employed, I relied upon Reflect as my primary note-taking application. I’ve written about why here and here. But Reflect has an annual subscription cost of $120. That’s steep now that my income is a little bit curtailed in retirement. However, the Reflect team recently announced Reflect Open, which is free and runs on a Mac.
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Here’s the promise:
The new Reflect stores your notes as ordinary Markdown files on your computer, uses iCloud for sync and encryption, and lets you mark specific notes as private so they are never shared with AI.
Sounds good. And I like free. I have already successfully moved my three-plus years of entries from Reflect 1 into Reflect Open. Without a different colored icon, I might not even noticed the difference.
The team is working on an iPhone version, which is available to try in TestFlight. I haven’t joined the test yet. I imagine the app will eventually be available and working fine. Here’s their plan:
Our proposed model is to keep the desktop app free and open source, then charge for the mobile app once it leaves beta. We don’t know exactly how this will play out, but we believe a free desktop app can bring Reflect to far more people while paid mobile supports its continued development.
I am glad that Reflect will remain a viable choice for my daily notes.
