Show HN: Muse – Tool for Thought on iPad

https://launch-preview.museapp.com/

by adamwiggins • 6 years ago

266 188 6 years ago

launch-preview.museapp.com

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Hey all, Muse cofounder here. I’ve been on Hacker News 13 years but this is my first Show HN. You might know me from YC08 and as Heroku cofounder and author of 12factor.net.

Today my team and I are launching Muse, a thinking tool.

Engineers sometimes talk about “typing problems” and “thinking problems”; Muse is for the latter. For example: designing a distributed system, doing a deep read of an algorithms paper, or creating a product roadmap.

My colleagues and I spent a few years doing research at a lab called Ink & Switch. You can read HN discussions of our publications on software performance [1], the creative process [2], and local-first software [3].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20255457

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21581444

One research question for us was whether touchscreens could ever be as powerful as desktop tools like vim or emacs. That resulted a prototype we named Muse. We saw commercial potential and spun it out of the lab last year.

A founding insight for Muse is that deep thinking happens away from the computer. e.g. in a sketchbook, on a whiteboard, or just in your head. There are some up-and-coming tools for thought like Notion and Roam but they’re tied to the desktop/laptop form factor and primarily focused on text. We saw an opportunity for a thinking tool that blends together visual media, text, and offers spatial navigation on a tablet.

Since this is a technical crowd, you might be interested in some of the challenges building this thing, like maintaining 120fps at all times. There is no concept of opening a file or a loading screen—you just navigate to a document and it’s already there. Ink rendering is another ongoing engineering challenge, from point simplification to curve fitting to stroke masking for the eraser. Happy to talk about any of this in the comments.

We’re charging $100/year, comparable to other prosumer tools like Dropbox, Evernote, Roam, etc. There’s a generous free tier and you can export your data as a flat files (PNG, PDF, TXT).

We’re building in public on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MuseAppHQ and Mark and I talk shop on our podcast: https://museapp.com/podcast

HN is known for sharp critique, so bring it on. Will also answer questions or accept praise if you feel like doing one of those :-)

FreezerburnV• 6 years ago

Hi Adam, great to see Muse finally launch! I saw it talked about in some of those earlier posts and have been interested in it for a while.

I still need to actually install this and give it a try (saw it just before a work meeting sadly, about to have lunch with the spouse, etc.), but did want to ask a quick question about it in comparison to an iPad app I found recently called Endless Paper. The main point of it being to have an infinitely zoomable/scrollable “document” you can both draw on with a stylus but also import pictures you can draw over, etc. How does Muse compare to that kind of idea, and does it offer something similar to that? Or is it more of something like Tinderbox where you can organize a whole bunch of different things at a single “zoom level” in a sense?

I’ll leave thoughts once I get a chance to play around with it some :)

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Thanks!

Tinderbox (https://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/) is a great comparison—they have a different design aesthetic, cost a bit more ($249 one-time), but similar use case of deep knowledge work and thinking.

Endless Paper (https://www.endlesspaper.app/) is a sketching/drawing app, so not very similar to Muse.

On the infinite canvas point: this is one of the things we researched in the lab. Our studies revealed that it sounds nice, but in practice it's incredibly disorienting because you have no sense of scale. That's why we have a discretely-zooming interface; the difference is subtle but critical for high-speed thinking working.

no_wizard4• 6 years ago

Are planning to support the iPad's new touch pad capabilities? Your landing page only shows it working with hands on touch. Wondering if thats due to when it was created vs actual capabilitity, or if you're missing functionality.

If you don't support this for the gestures, where is it on the roadmap? I'm a new iPad pro owner, so this would appeal to me greatly. Honestly, its a sticking point I'm not getting over easily. While they should just 'translate' I know some app developers have had to consider the touchpad when designing their apps for more complex gestures.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Muse does work with pointer support, either the trackpad on the Magic Keyboard (https://www.apple.com/ipad-keyboards/) which you're probably referencing, or just hooking up any Bluetooth mouse. But you're correct that we have yet to add proper trackpad gesture support--I'll consider this a vote for that on our roadmap. (:

A trackpad-driven mode can be nice when you're using it with a keyboard for a lot of text entry, but I think Muse excels when you're in full tablet mode with the stylus. Hence we feature that more prominently in our documentation (https://museapp.com/handbook).

jmnicolas4• 6 years ago

Initial reaction : wow ! I need an iPad. Second thoughts : yet another subscription, seriously what are they thinking? Third thoughts : what about MY data, are my inner thoughts stored in the cloud?

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

We believe privacy is important for creativity, so all content is stored 100% on-device. No cloud, although we plan to add some sharing/collaboration features later on. As much as possible we'll use local-first principles on that, which might not surprise you since I'm a coauthor on the local-first paper. https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first.html

Subscription fatigue, yeah, I know. Hoping to write an article about this in our industry, but the reality is that this is what's sustainable for a small team that wants to avoid venture funding (and eventual acquisition "incredible journey" stuff) or monetizing by selling your personal data.

Closi7• 6 years ago

We’re charging $100/year, comparable to other prosumer tools like Dropbox, Evernote...

Well Evernote has a free tier and past that it’s really <$50 per year - plus there is currently an additional 40% off, so I think your competitor pricing research might be a little off.

I mean if you are really comparing against Evernote it’s really free for a similar service, and offer multi-device sync between mobile and their desktop app as a service, so I would say the Evernote free tier is the most comparable even though I like the look of your product.

This is a $19.99 app or $2.99 per month subscription to compete with things like notability.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

That's a reasonable objection. Muse does have a free tier also.

Notability is a great app, but it's a sketchbook so not really a comparison.

mbreese• 6 years ago

Evernote has a free tier and past that it’s really <$50 per year

Not to mention, Evernote used to cost more, but that lost them a bunch of customers (and lost their dominant market position). So, I'm not sure that's the competitor that I'd be trying to follow for pricing.

IOT_Apprentice• 6 years ago

Notion has a free tier as well. I've moved to it from Evernote after paying for the full version for years. I'm not sure I'm enthralled with $99/year, given I pay that amount for O365 which gives me much more plus 1TB of OneDrive.

As you have a free tier, I'll give it a shot.

newfromblammo• 6 years ago

To add some perspective to the price point. In New Zealand we hav 15% sales tax, plus the exchange rate. The purchasing power of the NZD when adjusted for earnings etc is pretty close to even

Which is a silly way of saying, if you think the pricing looks daft where you are, it costs almost twice as much here!

vr46• 6 years ago

Annoyingly, it's pretty good. I had trouble getting the first thing to work smoothly, took five goes, but after that things were straightforward. I use my iPad extensively if not exclusively with some clients and my weapon of choice for the last 18 months has been Concepts.app mainly because I draw and write to demonstrate my ideas and thoughts.

I can't actually see a clear use for Muse right this second, but I am going to attempt to use it to lay out a high-level application architecture so let's see how it goes down tomorrow with the CTO. The major issue I can see coming is that everything is slower than me writing on the screen. Creating a box, typing stuff, moving it, then drawing arrows and line. I have to keep switching between fingers and pencil, which disrupts my flow. I'm sure your research will have some insight on this matter. It's a nicely polished product and you seem to have nailed both design and execution, if not the costs - it's not really in my discretionary spending budget right now, but if it proves a critical component, that changes everything. Good luck.

lattalayta2• 6 years ago

Very cool, I recently purchased an iPad pro and Pencil and was looking for something like this. I really like the idea of infinite canvas (a la PureRef) for organizing thoughts and references and making relationships between different types of data.

Since you said you're looking for feedback, I'd love to be able to add an Apple or Google Map view, and zoom into a specific area, add pins, and add notes. Think planning a trip or road trip.

The other idea I've been looking for is something that renders in-line web previews in a flexible way. So if I were to paste a link to a website into the app, it wouldn't treat it as just a text hyperlink, but rather, render a small web preview that I could resize or manipulate to display the portion of a page I'm interested in. Ideally this would then be cached so if the page were to update my preview wouldn't break. But also have an option to refresh the preview to update to the latest content. Or auto-refresh to use it more like a dashboard monitoring tool.

Otherwise, for critiques, I wish it played nicer with landscape/portrait. And I kind of like how interactions are geared towards dragging things in from off the screen or flicking things off the screen, but I feel like it's not quite smooth yet. Things seemed to get stacked together and cluttered half in/half out of the canvas as I was working through the tutorial.

Cheers for the launch!

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

A map card type would be incredibly useful—I use screenshots of Google Maps right now. Noted for the roadmap!

Web pages (including subsets) also a critical card type on our roadmap.

You're right that portrait mode is clumsy right now. We will fix this for sure--it's a challenging technical and design problem due to the spatial model.

dfee• 6 years ago

Adam, I think what you’re doing is cool and important. One of the reasons I’ve struggled to buy an iPad is I just don’t know how to tackle using the killer feature - immersive interactivity - for thinking.

Most note apps are just that: note apps. I’m sure as you went on the journey of building this, you assessed and categorized every app out there.

As an indecisive consumer, understanding the landscape and thus the unique value for Muse (relative to the other offerings) would be huge. Is this in the same category as a note taking app, what are the philosophical differences, etc. Maybe that doesn’t make a ton of sense, so let me try making the point in a different way:

if you’re right - you’ll have changed the path for humanity’s thinking in the biggest way since the “text editor”. Buying in requires me to understand the compromises and trade offs - something that could be accommodated by sharing your design principles publicly.

For me, I’ve been waiting on the right App to buy an iPad. I’m not sure if this is it, but I have a maxed out iPad Pro I just bought my wife so I can at least give it a go. Good luck to both of us.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Thanks and appreciate your stepping forward to try something new (with a big hardware investment, at that).

I view note-taking (apps, or just on paper) as being about capture and later retrieval. But in a pretty static way--you take notes from a meeting, later you read them to remind yourself. Knowledge bases like wikis are more powerful version of this data in, data out mechanism.

Muse is about thinking. That means: pulling together a huge number of sources, arranging, culling, finding patterns, having insights. Which can then lead to a creative work (like a book or a piece of software) or a decision (like making managerial decisions as a startup founder or team lead).

Hope to hear how your journey with the iPad (and Muse) turns out :-)

asciimov• 6 years ago

My concern is sticker shock.

You mention "a generous free tier" yet I don't see any talk on the web page for the free tier nor what all I'm getting for $100 a year.

If I had to decide between this and a subscription to ACM (also $100) I'm taking the ACM subscription, cause I know I'm getting something of value there.

Infinitesimus• 6 years ago

Congrats on the launch!

Are there plans to have this cross-platform?

setr4• 6 years ago

Your main page is focused on content creation, but I think you're missing a key aspect of these kinds of tools -- content searching. Right now, it reads as: thoughts are messy, and your tool enables to think in that messy fashion.... and everything stays messy. My immediate concern is that I can trivially add data to the system, but I can't get it back out (both automatically, by export features, and manually, by navigating it)

Particularly, looking at https://launch-preview.museapp.com/handbook, the inbox/card mechanic seems worth pointing out, and boards/cards as your primary model of higher-level organization.

Also a question: the handbook says boards contain cards, and cards contain boards -- they can be organized as mutually recursive? That's cool. In fact, there are very few of these modern systems that properly let you recurse

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

You can search: https://museapp.com/handbook#to-search -- but you're right this isn't our main focus, the way it is for something like https://mymind.com/ . What we've seen from the year of beta testing is that our spatial memories are very powerful and even users with huge corpuses navigate rather than search.

Yes, boards and cards are a key abstraction. Boards are just a type of card that can contain other boards--think of boards like folders/directories on a filesystem.

chris_st2• 6 years ago

So, onboarding bumps in the road. Downloaded to my phone first, laboriously typed in the magic code from the email, and hey, it works.

Switch to iPad, it's downloaded already, and... I have to enter my email again? AND the code? Okay, the email says, "Click this link on your iPad to register" so I click the link on my Mac (don't do email on my iPad), transfer the link and... Nope! It won't accept it, gives the same, "Open this link on your iPad" message.

I'm with the "Add sign in with Apple" people... seems like a much nicer thing, for us.

chris_st2• 6 years ago

Is there any way to "look through" the inbox for a specific thing? I put two images into it, and found when I went to a board that I could only pull the top one out (bit of a pain to have to move it into the board, move the one I wanted into the board, then put the first one back in the inbox).

Might be nice to have a "slide over" type view of all the things in the inbox, and choose one at a time.

blisseyGo• 6 years ago

I was looking forward to trying it but the first thing it did was ask for my email. I would have liked if it let me at least try it without having to enter my email. Anyway, reluctantly, I entered my email but then I never received the access code.

I think you have a pretty big hurdle in the sign up and might be losing customers because of this. I would suggest allowing users to at least try it without signing up and also provide "Signup with Apple" instead of email.

jmarinez• 6 years ago

Hi Adam,

Hard to give feedback because your design decisions and trade offs are not public and in your writing you give more of a business vibe than a designer, would've been nice to have the designers here instead of you. But you asked for it so here we go...

Good attempt so far. Frankly, something like it should've been "a mode" for iPadOS. Instead, unfortunately, you're app is restricted by its horrible limitations. There's no separation between content and features that can be applied to content. Take PDF just as an example. No matter how good your team is, the chances that it will create a better toolset than what Adobe already has created are slim. The second I decide to interact deeper with any of Muse's supported content types while in a board, I'm left to leave Muse and deal with an entire different app. Result? My flow is broken. This interaction is conceptually unnecessary. If the PDF is already open in Muse, why can't I bring all the great features from Adobe in and when I'm done I continue with my flow?

2. Your metaphor needs a lot of work. I won't go into many details but I'll highlight one of them. What's up with the grids? Why can't I arrange the content anyway I like? Flipped, 34 degrees, etc.

3. Infinite canvas - bring this in. How to deal with it spatially was solved decades ago.

4. This is related to the last two points... computers are a meta-medium and either you are stuck in the medium that existed before or you're not letting your designers that know this not shine. Stop thinking only in 2D!

icelancer2• 6 years ago

> 3. Infinite canvas - bring this in. How to deal with it spatially was solved decades ago.

Definitely best idea here IMO.

systemvoltage• 6 years ago

Stop thinking only in 2D!

This is a hard no for me. 3D wizbang stuff sounds amazing on paper (heh) but in practice, it is massively distracting. People tried to build 3D desktops and a whole bunch of bullshit 3D wankery with GNOME and KDE and none of it was as revolutionary as it claimed to be. The time it takes to build 3D content arragement app for Muse can just be spent in improving 2D problems you're referring to.

I also dislike your tone about - "You can never achieve this" or "was done decades ago, why haven't you done it yet?"

Try doing it yourself then, and show some compassion. Provide constructive feedback and not lofty statements that criticize unconstructively.

This is one of the things that really bothers me about feedback. Please don't do this.

jordache5• 6 years ago

Wait, this free form content collating tool doesn't have an infinite canvas? So I'd have to create more boards once I run out of space?

jwr• 6 years ago

Since I seem to be straight in your target group, and since I'm still looking for a good thinking tool, I took the time to write up my thoughts after trying the app.

I currently use two tools: GoodNotes and Concepts. Concepts is much better for drawing, with its layer system and the excellent "use your finger to lasso-select" tool. I love the infinite canvas, too. But Concepts requires too much fiddling. The tool palette can't be fixed. I would like to have the same tool and color palette in all documents, so that I can avoid wasting brainpower on fiddling with tools. Concepts also fails in organizing multiple documents — the viewer wastes lots of screen space and it takes a long time to find a document. I reported all this to the Concepts team, but they seem to prefer to compete in the crowded "drawing app" space rather than in the almost empty "thinking app" space.

GoodNotes is much better for thinking. I love the responsiveness, a simple tool system. Palette management is better in that I could set the colors once and have the same ones available everywhere. I still can't lock/save/export these settings, but as long as I'm careful, this works.

GoodNotes isn't perfect: there is a bug where the app opens with the list of documents rather than where you left off. To use the lasso selection, you have to use the toolbar, rather than use your finger like in Concepts. It has a weird concept of "paper sizes" (what paper?!) — I want to draw on a canvas which is exactly iPad-sized, with no panning, zooming or margins, but I always end up with either wasted margins, or fiddling around with zooming in GoodNotes. Document organization isn't that great — I want to quickly create multiple single-page notes and I do not want the app to ask me each time whether I want to save or delete my "Untitled" document. This isn't Windows 95, people.

Moving on to Muse:

First, to get this out of the way: $100/year is just fine. In fact, I could pay more if the tool became really good. It's a business tool for me (at a first approximation, I get paid for thinking).

I don't care that much about the emphasis on inserting images or videos. That's just not what I do. My notes are mostly drawings and text.

Inserting PDFs and marking them up is a very nice feature and I liked the PDF viewer initially. Still, it wouldn't work for me in practice: when designing electronics I routinely work with 600-page PDFs. I need the tool to remember the position, have a simple bookmarking system, and a way to quickly navigate to somewhere around page 400 visually. Also, no continuous scrolling, please — single page flips only.

I expected a double-tap on the pencil to pull up the eraser and it didn't.

I couldn't figure out how to pan the board (perhaps you can't?). I think I need either zooming+panning or multiple pages.

I couldn't figure out how to delete a card.

I could drop the card into a board (initial screen), in spite of trying multiple times.

The lasso system is way inferior to GoodNotes or Concepts. I'd rather have object-based selection, not one that cuts through anything. And I really, really like the idea (from Concepts!) of using your finger to lasso.

The tool colors are ugly. I would like to have my own palette (5-8 colors and at least two thicknesses).

I tried using Muse for actual work, but at the moment there is just too much fiddling around and I'd lose some of the functionality I now have in GoodNotes.

Summary: while price is not a concern at all, this is quite far from a good thinking tool for me, and the primary emphasis on inserting images isn't aligned with my needs.

keenmaster• 6 years ago

I was about to say, GoodNotes can be used in the same way, and that's just one feature of GoodNotes. It took me a while to realize that though, so GN can improve their marketing and design.

Muse should try to reach feature-parity with GN and/or lower their price. Then I think they can surpass GN, because GN wasn't designed specifically to replicate a thinking board/desk. Altogether Muse is coming out strong with a great design philosophy and marketing approach.

natcombs2• 6 years ago

I'd consider $100, but not a $100 per year subscription? Come on!

hatsunearu2• 6 years ago

Yeah lol, they trippin

I can do this shit for free with Concept or whatever and that one also works super well.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Concepts (https://concepts.app/) is great! But it's a drawing app, not really related.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Out of curiosity, what's your take on the price of Dropbox ($120/year), Evernote ($96/year), or Roam ($165/year)?

evo_9• 6 years ago

My hunch is most of the HN crowd are like me and were around before Dropbox got big. Aka, being on it early you tended to invite all your family and friends, and in doing so got a storage bump. I'm at roughly 10gigs from those early days and I have never paid for a dropbox subscription and I highly doubt I ever will.

Great looking product though, maybe consider a special HN subscription code that makes that 100 lifetime. I do think that is a pretty tough selling price from a new product/just launching standup.

lostgame2• 6 years ago

I have never paid for DropBox in my life, I don't pay for OneNote's cloud syncing, and I use them both every day.

I'm surprised the people involved in the company didn't see the price tag as a potential super turn off to customers. I'm the target demographic for this product, saw the price; gave a chuckle, and I'm a little curious as to how it made front page at that cost.

Never heard of Roam, but Dropbox and Evernote are old, established; brands and if I was to pay around the same amount of money anyway, I'd obviously go for Dropbox, something that's been around a while. Google Drive also offers a lot of space for free, and Docs sync is great.

A lower price is an excellent way to break in to a new market, and I'm not sure why the developers of this app didn't go for that. I like to support new developers, so this is a shame.

turtlebits2• 6 years ago

Dropbox is a service. Even if you don't use the app, they are providing value to you. Evernote app is free, but the value comes from storage and sync (access).

Apps don't provide value unless you use them.

tobyhinloopen2• 6 years ago

Dropbox: cloud storage is really important part of a backup

andreilys• 6 years ago

yea pretty wild. Especially when you consider the fact this startup will likely be defunct 5 years from now (whether because they got acquired and parent company killed the product, or they couldn't run a profitable company due to such high subscription fees)

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

We're not a startup.

raleighm2• 6 years ago

Last year I stumbled upon the research articles about Muse development at Ink & Switch. They exude care and craftsmanship. Really fun to read. Highly recommended. Muse's newsletter is great, too. https://www.inkandswitch.com/

I didn't know anyone on the Muse team but was so curious I reached out and asked for beta access and they kindly gave it. I've been using for about a year. I really love it. My use cases are light -- hobby sketches, sundry visual notes -- but I keep finding more things to use it for because it's just so... fun. It's fun feeling so extended and free using a digital tool.

I'm pleased to see it on HN front page.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

A year, wow--that's the very earliest beta we made available. It was pretty rough back then, so thanks for sticking with it!

eugeniub3• 6 years ago

Sorry, $100/year just feels too high. It's about the same price as a Photoshop subscription.

Correction: Previously I got some numbers mixed up, and I said it's almost twice the price.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

You're able to judge the fairness of the price without having tried the product?

We have quite a few paying customers, and I think they'd say it's worth it because it helps them think and be creative in a way that no other tool does.

But obviously that's a decision that's up to each person, and we offer a free tier so you can find out for yourself.

Happily we're a small team, so we only need a few thousand customers at this price to make it sustainable.

biddit• 6 years ago

You may find more value digging into why the grandparent (And many others here) didn’t find value from the demo and propositions on your home page, than arguing with us here.

One of the most important concepts I learned doing 100’s of pitches is that understanding the value of your product is not the customer’s problem - it’s yours. Find a way to communicate it better :)

eugeniub3• 6 years ago

Honestly at that price point, I would not try it because I would fear liking it more than fear not liking it, because liking it means I have to fork over $100 every year to keep it. I'm not against subscription pricing, but this is my mentality, illogical as it may be.

bosie2• 6 years ago

How do you get photoshop for 50 bucks a year?

eugeniub3• 6 years ago

My bad, I got some numbers mixed up. I updated my comment.

Wump2• 6 years ago

There seems to be a lot of griping about the $100/year price here. The folks behind Muse have made what seems to be a solid product and want to charge for it to build a sustainable business. I don't understand what the issue is.

On the one hand, people complain about having to pay for things (especially subscriptions). On the other, they complain about startups that try to grow fast, subsidize the cost of the product with venture money, and get acquired and shut down. I don't have a problem with either approach; I think they both have their place.

But how can software developers trying to build great products (and businesses) escape this lose-lose scenario?

You may not feel that this specific product is worth $100/year to you. That's fine; not everything is for everyone. But how do we, as a tech community, better support people and teams trying to create value in a sustainable way?

ckluis• 6 years ago

FWIW, I paid for this the second I crossed the free trial threshold. The polish is 1% level. It's truly a next-level product.

raleighm2• 6 years ago

I agree. That price for a great home to do great thinking? Well worth it.

turtlebits2• 6 years ago

The subscription model for apps is a hard sell. Remember all the backlash Jetbrains got?

Personally, I'm on the same page. I will pay for a service, but for an app, it has to be one I'm dependent on for in my work, not a personal note taking app that I may not use very often. Make me pay monthly for storage or subscription tier. Not just to use the app.

This looks intriguing, but IMO, GoodNotes at $8 single purchase is good enough for me and is an infinitely better value. I normally trial new apps, but this one is just way too expensive.

Closi7• 6 years ago

But how do we, as a tech community, better support people and teams trying to create value in a sustainable way?

By giving people honest feedback when they ask for it, including letting them know that their pricing structure what is stopping us purchasing it.

Wump2• 6 years ago

Another way of framing "the price is too high" is "the value is too low -- here are the things XYZ that I would love for you to add to justify that price for me."

It seems the second flavor of feedback is more useful to the developers.

bm5k2• 6 years ago

If the in-app purchase allows family sharing (which isn’t even possible until ios14) I’d be much more likely to shell out.

Chances are, if I wind up liking the app enough to pay, my wife would also, and I hate paying full price x2...

wmab2• 6 years ago

Congrats on the launch, it's great to see the space develop as well as more applications being designed for specific uses, I can see Muse fitting in with my other iPad habits (such as Fresco for wire design), and targeting a specific user for their niche.

The price tag certainly has HN crawling, clearly without downloading and seeing how simple it is to use with only an email. Most prosumer companies play down the cost, and highlight the free trial. Given the "power user" nature of getting up to speed with Muse (video + 9 "tasks" to complete) it's worth trying to remove all friction from installs since you'll get churn from a subset even before prompting them about the price, due to the commitment someone needs to make with new habit forming and learning.

Will you be adding collaboration into the app? With remote teams increasing I can see this helping share ideas and promote collaboration outside of Google Docs/Notion/Figma etc.

Did you dog food the development? I imagine designing and building the app would have required a lot of deep thinking!

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Thanks, and yes collaboration is on the roadmap. Because thinking is first and foremost a private activity, we wanted to get the single-user experience right as a foundation.

Heavy dogfooding, yes! I use Muse for absolutely everything in designing, planning, and thinking about strategy for our company and product. Can't imagine my life without it after a year of using the product.

wmab2• 6 years ago

Awesome. Keep it up and I look forward to seeing the feature roll out over the coming months!

crusso• 6 years ago

My thought on the pricing as well. Every drug user knows that you never talk about price because the "first hits are free".

tyre• 6 years ago

This is very cool.

The price point was a shock.

I think committing to a year-long subscription is a tough sell. Not because the product isn't great, but because I've tried apps before and then abandoned them because they didn't become a habit. Maybe it lasted a month, maybe two, but they never became part of my routine.

So committing to paying for a year up front is a tough sell.

The other question is why it is a subscription. Not why _you_ want it to be a subscription, but why the product needs to be. You mention in another comment that "all content is stored 100% on-device". So it's not that I'm paying for cloud storage (which I already have, and I don't have multiple iPads so it would be more of a peace of mind thing anyway.)

I understand that it funds your continued development, but it's hard for me to see what that means. Is there a product roadmap so I can say, "Yeah, actually, I want to pay for those new features."

Here's how I would pay:

1. One-time cost for software that would get updates until the next major version.

2. Monthly subscription for software if there is a product roadmap. I want to see what I'm buying.

3. Yearly subscription with a discount to (2). The commitment is worth something to you. It would have to be worth it to me too.

Rough guesses:

1. $50

2. $10/mo

3. $100/yr

rememberlenny• 6 years ago

When I bought an iPad pro, I asked friends what are their favorite apps. One person religiously vouched for how much Muse has affected the way they work on a day to day. Like me, they are a artist and in the software space, and felt Muse gave them the ability to both organize things spatially, while making use of the iPad's drawing features in everything they do.

I was able to get on the beta and found it quite satisfying as an application. Its basically the missing OS for iPad to let you do everything that you imagine the iPad is supposed to let you do.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

This is amazing, thank you ️<3

moojd• 6 years ago

I've been looking for a note taking / chart app that worked spatially like this and that would allow you to zoom indefinitely from high level concepts into low level details. Specifically something that worked collaboratively like lucidchart, google docs, etc.

Is there anything similar to this that works in the browser? I'm tempted to buy an iPad just to try this out. Looks great!

SparkyMcUnicorn• 6 years ago

All this talk of a free tier, but I can't see any information about it on the website or app store. Is it the "Free Trial", which indicates to me that it's a time limited demo?

I want this information before installing yet another app that appears too expensive for the value it provides. If I think the free tier might work for me, I'm much more likely to be convinced to go paid once I experience the value it adds to my life.

If this was $8/month I probably wouldn't have given the price a second thought, even though I'm fully capable of basic math.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Good feedback! We used to include the trial terms (unlimited time, up to 100 cards) in the signup email but now that it's direct download from the App Store we need to find another place.

And good point about monthly vs yearly perception.

biztos3• 6 years ago

I also think that $8/mo (or $9, whatever) is a much lower barrier to entry.

The difference here is I'm unsure how much I'd actually use it... so if I like it I'd happily pay monthly for a sort of extended "pro" trial, knowing that if it turns out I don't really use it I can just cancel in the App Store.

At $100/year I have to be pretty sure I'll use it a lot: I probably have a dozen different subscriptions in that range but I definitely don't want two dozen.

I'm not saying I won't give you the $100, just that I prefer to trial full-featured products and I'm happy to pay for an open-ended trial within reason. No idea how typical that attitude is.

bookmarkable• 6 years ago

My feedback... 1. Trial is way too short for a $99 purchase. 2. Adding a photo, deleting, and re-adding uses up "trial cards" - so the trial is really just tutorial-level playing with the software. 3. Not clear why I can add elements to the top layer... why would I have an Empty Board and a photo next to each other? Why can't I drag the photo into the Empty Board? Instead, the photo covers the board. Confusing. 4. I know you aren't alone, but why do you need my email address before I know anything about this app? Just let me tap open and experiment before you ask. 5. If you must have an email, why aren't you supporting Sign in with Apple so I can use a relay email? 6. I'm not clear when I would open this app. I would've prefer a full page of example boards to see how power users would/will use this tool. I can always delete example boards, but instead I have a blank page and 4 second videos. That screams time investment and learning curve ahead.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Thanks for the feedback.

- You can use the trial for unlimited time, and many folks do.

- We've tried onboarding that includes sample boards, but this tends to be confusing because it's someone else's thoughts rather than your own.

- There is a learning curve--we like tools take a bit of time investment, but one that will pay off with power and flexibility in the long run. vim and emacs were two inspirations here. https://museapp.com/handbook

jordache5• 6 years ago

they really should use MindNode's trial model.

lumax• 6 years ago

Nice to see Muse launch! I've been using the beta for a few months now after stumbling on the Ink & Switch design essay when researching tools for thought.

It's awesome, I can recommend it wholeheartedly - the modeless interaction and spatial organisation might seem subtle, however they really enable a very smooth workflow that allows to think about something without being distracted by the tool. The best example is probably erasing something in Muse with the 'left finger on screen mode' in contrast to tapping an eraser symbol as in the standard design of note-taking apps. This gets internalized pretty quickly and then erasing doesn't distract ones line of thought anymore. I actually find myself doing this 'second finger erasing' by accident in other note-taking apps all the time.

Like others in the comments, as a student I also found the price tag a bit hefty - however Adam Wiggins mentioned in an email that they are planning a ~30$/yr educational discount. I personally found that a lot more reasonable, maybe that's interesting to other students as well.

gklitt• 6 years ago

I've been using Muse for a while and it's a lovely, beautifully designed product. Feels like the rare tool that really gets the most out of my iPad Pro hardware. I use it for most of my deep brainstorming sessions.

I'm a PhD student so I have a limited budget, but I don't mind the $100/year price point. It's become a key tool in my research workflow so it's totally worth it. I find it a bit odd that people think Netflix is worth more money than a tool that might transform your creative output.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

You nailed it.

bachmeier3• 6 years ago

I find it a bit odd that people think Netflix is worth more money than a tool that might transform your creative output.

I'm sure for some it will, but at least after a look at the website, I can't imagine it's going to transform my creative output relative to the system I already have for free. (Disclaimer: I don't have Netflix either.)

timlloyd• 6 years ago

I’m with you. The comparison with Netflix is pertinent for me. When lockdown started here in the U.K. I cancelled my subscription and started spending more time reading and exploring.

Didn’t think twice about paying for Muse when the time came. There was an available slot in my subscription budget :p It helps me think things through, which helps me do better work, which makes me happy. And it feels good to support principled people who care about how tools, environments, aesthetics, affect our thoughts. No regrets.

iPads/many things aren’t worth the price for some people. We don’t all have the same priorities, and that’s OK!

Maybe the price doesn’t bother me much in the long term because for me, Muse isn’t where things end. It’s where they start, take shape, get fleshed out, discarded, iterated, improved. It’s my desk not my library. If a better “desk” comes along I’ll use that instead. But right now, Muse is it.

natcombs2• 6 years ago

I find it a bit odd that people think Netflix is worth more money than a tool that might transform your creative output.

While the price is nearly the same, Netflix pays for thousands of employees and hundreds of actresses & crews to produce entertainment.

This app doesn’t have hundreds of employees doing my thinking, reviewing my notes, or making suggestions. Apples & oranges

TYPE_FASTER2• 6 years ago

Are you planning on offering some kind of API/integration ability? I'm thinking it would be great to have structured content, such as rendered org mode or Markdown, in a widget I can put on a board. Especially if I could link widgets and link to boards, which would allow for creating really interesting mind mapping abilities.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Yes! Check out our research on this topic: https://www.inkandswitch.com/end-user-programming.html -- although a simple API and Shortcuts hooks would be a good starting place.

TYPE_FASTER2• 6 years ago

Cool, thanks for replying. I would also request a desktop version of the app. While the gestures would be different, it would be really nice to be able to share the content across devices.

news_to_me• 6 years ago

Just downloaded this, looking forward to fitting it into my workflow!

It's a bit of a bummer that it only really supports landscape mode, though — I strongly prefer portrait mode when working on the iPad. What was the design decision to only (primarily) support one mode?

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Portrait-orientation boards are coming soon!

8K832d7tNmiQ• 6 years ago

I'd buy it if it's 9 dollar a year, but a hundred is a stretch too much.

chrisjarvis• 6 years ago

this makes me want an iPad, looks beautiful, bookmarked for the future!

ogre_codes5• 6 years ago

If the app stores all my data locally, why does it require an email? It doesn't even say why an email is required, just an annoying "Enter your email to get started" with no option to skip.

I don't understand why apps have gotten so hostile towards curious users.

For me, that's a hard Nope.

bm5k2• 6 years ago

Yup. Made it to the email gatekeeper and uninstalled. The screenshots look neat though.

bronson2• 6 years ago

Thank you! I would have bounced here too. You saved me the trouble.

nickmain• 6 years ago

Sign-in-with-Apple might be acceptable here, allowing the user to opt for an app-specific anonymous email. But the lack of explanation is baffling.

ogre_codes5• 6 years ago

If the data is stored locally, there is no need for any account/ email/ whatever anywhere. That's what is completely baffling here.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

That's fair, and we're considering ways to make it possible to try the app without an email.

However I'm curious: do you apply this same criteria when trying software like Notion, Figma, or Google Docs? I assume you have different criteria based on whether the software is downloaded to your local device or not, but would love to understand why that's so.

valine• 6 years ago

Requiring sign is a deal breaker for me as well. What happens is that a year from now I may want to use your application but will inevitably be on a new/different device and will have forgotten the email and password I used to create the account.

Why add friction when it is obviously not necessary. Using the app without an email should be a primary workflow. Adding a temporary “try offline” mode is insufficient imo.

That being said if you have to require sign in Sign in with Apple is definitely the way to go.

ogre_codes5• 6 years ago

However I'm curious: do you apply this same criteria when trying software like Notion, Figma, or Google Docs?

Above you mentioned your preference for keeping data local to the device. That is one of the big motivators for even downloading the app. I don't use Notion or Figma, and prefer Pages or Numbers to Google Docs when possible, so yes I do apply the same criteria.

Even though I avoid it when possible, I can at least understand why a tool like Google Docs which is cloud first or collaborative by nature requires an account. Why a local-first app requires an email is a complete mystery to me. What's the benefit to me as a user? If you don't make that case, I assume it's for marketing and pass on it.

rkagerer2• 6 years ago

Google keeps my docs on the cloud so it's obvious why I need to authenticate.

Wholly local desktop or tablet apps have no business asking for my email because they have no credible need for it. Authentication is borne by other elements (the OS, my physical security, etc).

As soon as an email dialog pops up, it breaks my mental model of "local software" and I worry about what the software is doing under the hood. Especially if it doesn't come with any rationale about why it's asking me for it. e.g. Will I get more spam (and yes, the quarterly message you send me about product updates is spam in my book unless I explicitly asked for it - you're not as important as you think you are), does it phone home, what other telemetry is being siphoned off, etc? It's a red flag that smells wrong, and signals the software isn't behaving according to my expectations.

How would you feel if you walked up to a car that asked you to punch in your email address before you could open the door to take it for a test drive?

klik99• 6 years ago

For me it's not a deal breaker (in fact Muse looks awesome and I'll be checking it out soon!) but is a bad smell that could be a deal breaker if there's other things that feel off. Don't know if this applies to others who say it's a deal breaker, but I have a grasp on my own psychology.

If an email is required and not optional, it's because the service/provider needs it for the service to work. If I'm using an online service providing my email is obviously for reasons that make my own experience better. If using an completely offline app, there is no clear way it makes my own experience better, so it must be entirely for THEIR benefit, which brings up what they're doing with that data. As a user when being introduced to a new product it's like meeting someone new and picking up on subtle social cues and deciding if they are trustworthy or not.

As a founder myself I know being able to identify users can benefit them. It's also irrational that signing up for an online service bypasses this gut check. However psychology is rarely rational.

abraxas• 6 years ago

Umm yes to all of the above with the exception of Google docs as Google already has my email address because I have a Google account since they have a bunch of services that I like. Every single Tom Dick and Harry with an app ain't getting my email address so they can sell it to ad companies to pad their profits.

Not to be brash but to you this is your dream and your vision but to me it's just an app and one I've no idea if I'm going to like. Stop making it hard to fall in love with your baby.

tobyhinloopen2• 6 years ago

99$ per year? Well I guess Im not the target audience.

Got to admit, it looks pretty nice. That price is just... nope.

For the curious, I might have bought it for a one-time 20$ AND only directly from the app store, no 3rd party service dependencies

janandonly2• 6 years ago

I can not imagine ever paying €109,99 per year for any app. Not even an app that I would use every day.

But maybe I'm not the intended consumer?

bfirsh• 6 years ago

If you're in the early stage building a product, their podcast is extremely helpful. It really deserves a Show HN all of its own.

https://museapp.com/podcast

I particularly enjoyed two recent ones, Authentic Marketing[0] and Principled Products[1] (which also has some background about 12 Factor Apps, if you remember that). Very useful for our stage where we have a new thing, but we're still trying to figure out how to explain it.

Thanks Adam, et al!

[0] https://overcast.fm/+Y-HVh9MxU [1] https://overcast.fm/+Y-HUBwJwA

sarora27• 6 years ago

Hi Adam,

Thank you for sharing Muse! I love it.

In one of your comments you mention:

"There is a learning curve--we like tools take a bit of time investment, but one that will pay off with power and flexibility in the long run. vim and emacs were two inspirations here. "

I'm building a product with a similar sort of learning curve. Do you have any resources you recommend for better understanding how to build these types of products?

Thanks!

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

That's a really good question—I would love such a resource.

There are some design discussions on the emacs mailing list about the tradeoff between accessibility and power tool that might be relevant: https://lwn.net/Articles/819452/

It's a whole new ballgame in the mobile era though. People have been trained to dismiss an app if they can't figure it out in 10 seconds of use.

Mark and I talked about that on this podcast about our love of manuals, so maybe that's a start: https://museapp.com/podcast/3-read-the-fabulous-manual

eitland4• 6 years ago

FWIW I enjoyed the manual. Too many tools go "all UX - no manual" and think a manual isn't necessary. Often I am afraid this leads to products that become less useful than they could have been.

janandonly2• 6 years ago

I wanted to try this app. My iPhone firewall (lockdown.com) showed a bunch of tracking apps all ”calling home” to I uninstalled it without trying.

bronson2• 6 years ago

https://lockdownhq.com Looks impressive, glad you mentioned it.

nkristoffersen• 6 years ago

This looks awesome! Congrats on the launch!

I am a current paid user for Miro and use it in much the same way you show here but with the added benefit of allowing external collaborators on browsers.

But, if I didn’t include so many external users, I’d try this. Hell I may try it right now any way. Looks so smooth.

adamwiggins28• 6 years ago

Miro is a solid choice for group whiteboarding, and being native to the web has lots of advantages. Their iPad app is pretty good too.

We wanted to start with getting the single-user experience completely right, but Miro-like collaboration is on the roadmap.

epaga• 6 years ago

This is nearly exactly my dream rewrite of my iOS app Mindscope http://www.mindscopeapp.com/ that I never quite got around to doing. Love this. Congrats!

Mindscope always was text (and later arrows) only, which had its advantages because it forced focus. But I love the Apple Pencil support!

I love seeing your solutions to the same problems I encountered developing Mindscope. Especially Love your solution for dragging one card into another by dragging it then pinching into the other. It feels very natural.

Major props.

jordache5• 6 years ago

lol $100 for a year. What happens when the company goes away?

How does world-class apps like Procreate make money? They've been providing free major updates for years!

TheRealNGenius3• 6 years ago

I genuinely don't know. Would you care to explain how procreate makes money if you do know?

screye• 6 years ago

Looks like the new OneNote on steroids.

I like it.

I am deeply integrated with Office and Onenote at this point, so I don't see myself switching. But, it seems like something I was planning to do when I purchased my Surface pro 7.

nafizh• 6 years ago

I read a lot of pdfs. But there doesn't seem to be any quick way to scroll through pages except by hand, zoom in or out a single page or search within a pdf. Basic functionalities actually.

diego898• 6 years ago

I'm extremely impressed with the demo/free tier so far! Out of curiosity, have you tried LiquidText? This is how I envisioned that app working!

Also, so far, I can see myself //easily// getting lost in the nesting. In my "outer most" board, I had to handwrite "HOME" in the top left just to make easier.

I think //searching// is a killer missing feature right now. Also, limits on board nesting depth, and board "templates" something to let me setup a "deep reading a PDF" board template that is reusable.

jordache5• 6 years ago

Does each board have unlimited canvas size?

shdc2• 6 years ago

Only in 1 dimension (x)

srinathkrishna2• 6 years ago

Been following your journey and I was waiting for the free tier. A free form note taking app is something I've missed and I think muse would perfectly fit this.

srinathkrishna2• 6 years ago

Been using it for a couple of hours now. I'm sold with the PDF excerpt feature. Reading books and papers is going to be fun!

Can you elaborate on the data residency aspects? It's mentioned that all data is stored on the iPad. Do I need to have an iCloud storage account eventually as I accumulate more notes?

ziburski2• 6 years ago

No need for iCloud storage. You are only limited by the storage on the iPad itself as everything is stored locally.

m0zg• 6 years ago

Impressive UX work, and looks genuinely useful, but I'm always wary of storing any of my work in proprietary formats without the ability to export it in readable form. Is there export? If I were to decide to stop the subscription, in what form can I download my work, if at all?

ziburski2• 6 years ago

Yes, you can export all your content as a .muse bundle — which you can rename to a .zip and unzip to get all the source data.

Also, even after your subscription ends, you will still have access to your content (and to the export feature) indefinitely. You just can’t create new cards (as long as you have more than 100).

It’s really important to us that your data isn’t locked into Muse, not by the data format and not by a subscription requirement.

gitgud• 6 years ago

It's a beautiful app, but personally I don't see the need for a subscription service, if it's a standalone app (no mention of cloud hosting or back-end servers to maintain) and would expect a bit more detail before paying $100 USD/y.

biztos3• 6 years ago

I think it looks pretty interesting and I will definitely give it a try. If I find it useful I don't have any problem with the price.

I have several projects where something like this, done "right" (whatever that means for me) could be a big help: starting a newsletter; moving to a new city; writing a book; maybe also building an app.

I wonder, though, how is it not "just" an interactive Mood Board?

So I can put in some screenshots and links and add some text and sketch on it, this by itself could be good for research... but how do I connect things? Is there some kind of hierarchy I can apply? Will it give me some kind of insight after the fact or do I just play with my Boards and then, I dunno, export them when I'm done?

I found the Handbook pretty helpful but I would suggest having a couple videos available on the landing page so I can easily get a sense of what you can do with the app. And at least one of them should be a power-user example.

Good luck with it! I like the idea of the single-app business with a small team; I hope it works out for you.

biztos3• 6 years ago

Oh wow, you have to enter your email address to even try out the app. That’s a way bigger barrier to entry than a $100 price point.

Until they change that, there’s no way I’m using or recommending their app.

Is this now considered acceptable for productivity apps?

Edit: and how does that work with GDPR?

desireco42• 6 years ago

I wouldn't mind paying you as a company or dev $100, but just the fact that Apple will take $30 is giving me shivers. It is brutal.

disposedtrolley• 6 years ago

I used Muse during the private beta and found it to be a refreshing take on free-form note taking. I've yet to figure out how to incorporate it into my workflow, but I'm very, very happy to see a passionate team working on fluid, performant software.

The gestural interface and limited toolset made it easy to focus on taking notes and arranging thoughts rather than "fighting the program" and wasting time choosing between dozens of pens and colours.

Best of luck with the launch!

ta1234567890• 6 years ago

Looks cool. Reminded me of padlet.com

alphachloride• 6 years ago

How would you compare this to Microsoft OneNote? It is free and cross platform. It also lets you put "anything" on your space and lets you scribble or type anywhere.

What would you say justifies the $99 jump to Muse?

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-onenote/id410395246

shdc2• 6 years ago

I'm able to play videos through Muse.. which is so far useful. Wish muse had infinite scroll and zoom.

eitland4• 6 years ago

I've tested it a bit:

- This looks really promising. It is aleady quite usable and there are some really nify ideas in there.

- The price is extremely steep for an app and in addition it it is recurring and the only options are yearly payments.

- Looking at what those guys have created and written before this looks like something I could lobe in the long run (end user programmability, local first etc)

To say exactly how good it is: if there was a monthly payment option I'd probably have signed up already just to support it (I do that from time to time with ideas I love even thought I often end up cancelling most of them.)

copypasted• 6 years ago

In defense of price...

I'd consider it as much an investment in the iPad itself as it is in the software. In other words, assuming you have already bought an iPad, I'd argue there are hardly any apps that truly take advantage of the tablet interface (exceptions include Affinity by Serif, Procreate). For me, Muse took an expensive screen and delivered on the promise of the iPad/tablet that Apple/the rest of the tech world fumbled. Long live Muse...

Show HN: Muse – Tool for Thought on iPad

Related Stories