Well, I didn't mean to switch my setup, but I'm back to Obsidian again! It's super-powered purple kryptonite and I'm just scratching the surface. I only meant to test it out with HTML, which found a crack in my Apple Notes armor. Notes is a great app and I still have some use for it. But for my HTML coding and journaling, I find volcanic glass works best.
HTML parsing
Obsidian's native language is Markdown. But it also speaks HTML at a basic level, which is much more than what Apple Notes can do with web markup code. Obsidian color codes HTML elements, offers line numbers, and has a handy built-in preview or reading mode. So as I draft my blog posts, marking them up with HTML tags, I can easily tap an icon to see my post as it will look online in final form. It doesn't auto-complete or suggest HTML items like Brackets or, I think, Textastic. Yet it's a big step up in convenience and simplicity from Apple Notes even at a basic HTML level.
Journaling
The app has a feature, called “Daily Note.” It’s super simple yet very nice. It's a button that automatically creates or opens a note with the current date as the title. Even better, I have it set so when I open the Journal vault, the Daily Note also opens automatically, ready for soul-gushing. This is great for my daily journal entry. The date is formatted such that all my journal entries are sorted chronologically by title.
Using the Importer plug-in tool, I was able to get all my notes out of Apple Notes and into a new vault in Obsidian. This let me easily move my thousands of journal entries into Obsidian as they were automatically converted to text files (.md). It worked like a charm! The only extra step, though, required me to set up the import on my MacBook. Then I could sync and do the bulk of the migration on my iPad. (Hint: give it time to index everything.)
The Vault
Enter the Vault. Besides organizing your data into a Folders, there's a high-level Vault system. Obsidian opens with a certain Vault; it's like the top parent folder. So the only folders or notes you see are the ones in that vault. Due to the special name and the way Obsidian shows only one vault at a time, I'm able to focus better on my current task. It reduces the cognitive load I had in Apple Notes, where I'd see all my folders for everything all at once. Different types of notes in folders were mixed among other same looking folders.
Obsidian lets me easily switch between vaults. I have one for Journaling and one for Blogging. When I open the former, the only folder hierarchy I see is the one specific to the way I organize my journal entries. And when I open the latter, I view only my blog folder scheme. An added bonus is that any Tags I use are specific to the vault. In Apple Notes' monolithic approach, all my tags for everything were mixed; I had to be more careful about how I tagged and organized notes.
Simple files
I prefer Obsidian's fundamental setup, using discreet simple text files in the file system. Instead of creating a specialized database that locks in your data and obfuscates the filing system, Obsidian uses plain text in markdown files. You can easily organize your data freely in the native file system or within the app; it "just works" either way. Apple Notes contains your data in a special database file. But Obsidian doesn't contain your data, rather leaving it in the open folder system on your computer. And it works across platforms; I've used it on macOS and Windows simultaneously with ease.
Speaking of simple files, I've also stopped using Apple Notes to scan documents like receipts. Instead, I scan directly in the Files app, storing them in a specific folder as pdfs and tagging them. It's another way to use discreet files in the traditional file system instead of locking up everything in Notes. Also in Files, I can mark up scans with the Apple Pencil as in Notes.
Another advantage to storing my html files, notes, and scans in the file system (Obsidian or Files) is that I can easily create a clone or backup locally on a flash drive or external SSD right from my iPad, like it's a real grown-up computer. Nice!
Summary
My current Obsidian setup is using the app on both iOS and iPadOS, with iCloud for sync. I'm still using Apple Notes for my general notes that are less important long-term than my journals or blog data. But I'll probably import those to another separate Obsidian vault soon. I'm not yet sure what I'll do with other types of notes though.
Apple Notes works well, but Obsidian works better for certain things. Among Notes strengths, its greatest is Apple's overall ecosystem convenience. But Obsidian is some purple kryptonite strong enough to weaken my grip on Notes or Apple's grip on me. And it's better with its own key strengths like HTML functionality, the Daily Note, Vaults, the text file system, and some I didn't mention like note interlinking with backlinks. While it has me using the Notes app less, it has me using the Files app more, in multiple ways. That's the principle of Obsidian: free your files.