Bear gets Apple Watch app and new Drop Bar feature in major 1.3 update

Bear, my favorite note-taking app for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, just got a major update with version 1.3, which finally brings support for Apple Watch, as well as a new feature called the Drop Bar.

Bear was previously updated to take advantage of all the latest iOS 11 features such as Drag and Drop, which makes it even more impressive that this latest update arrived so soon.

To see these new features in action, check out our hands on video.

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Drag and Drop was a new feature introduced in iOS 11 that lets you drag and drop items inside an application, between an application, or even the icons on your home screen. It is pretty powerful, in some ways more powerful than on a full-fledged computer, because while dragging items, you can still interact with your device. Opening apps, folders, etc.

The Drop Bar takes advantage of this Drag and Drop functionality in a powerful new way inside of Bear. You can tap and hold on a note, and drag it to the Drop Bar at the bottom of the screen. It allows you to perform several different actions.

  • Pin note
  • Move to trash
  • Duplicate note
  • Share
  • Export
  • Copy as…
  • Copy link to note
  • Copy note’s identifier

Even better, you can do this with multiple notes too. So I can select several notes and move them all to trash, export them all as one large note, or merge them together. It’s a pretty great way to work with notes.

On top of the Drop Bar, we also have a new Apple Watch app. It makes it easy to create notes, add to notes, and view your ten most recent.

It creates notes using dictation. There is no need to try typing on your Apple Watch, as it would be extremely cumbersome. On any of your recent notes, you can swipe left and append additional text to the end. If you happen to have a list or checklist in a note, you can mark items as complete from your watch as well.

I’ve been a fan of Bear since abandoning Evernote just over a year ago. These new features make it better than ever, and I can’t wait to start integrating these into my workflow. Bear is currently available for free on the App Store.

Let me know what you guys think of this latest update down below in the comments.