For years, I relied on Notion in business and personally, including our team at Echo Point Global. It has always been the central hub for my personal life, documentation, project management, and tracking blog posts.
For me, Notion was always the default option, no matter how many other “Notion killers” entered the market. And sure, Notion isn’t perfect. It took them more than 5 years to finally get to offline mode, even with limitations.
Personally, I live in the Apple ecosystem. I use a Mac, iPhone, and I spend 90% of my time working, coaching, consulting, and writing blog posts on my iPad Pro.
With the new Apple updates and iPadOS 26, the complete overhaul on the iPad that feels more like a MacBook Pro, I wondered if I could go all-in on Apple’s native apps for a month and see how it compares to Notion.
Would I miss Notion’s flexibility, or would Apple’s apps strengthen my workflow?
So I closed Notion, left it untouched for a month (team still operates in it), and replaced it entirely with Pages, Numbers, and Apple Notes.
Spoiler: It was surprisingly great, even better in some areas.
Why I tried this experiment
This decision wasn’t about frustration with Notion, even though Notion lacks speed and performance when tables are growing, or randomly crashes with the new update. Hell, I can even forgive the fact that Apple’s writing tools aren’t working as well as they used to.
I just happened to notice that using Notion on my iPad Pro wasn’t the same experience from years ago. Pages didn’t resize correctly when multitasking, text formatting often misses the mark, and touch often clicks on the wrong link in my tables.
For years, I ignored most of the Apple apps. They weren’t the greates productivity suite a decade ago. But they spent years now refining their suite and are deeply integrated with iPadOS, iCloud and MacOS.
An everything tool like Notion is great, but when they push the term “everything” a bit too far sometimes, then sometimes simple, focused apps are better that come with your hardware.
Writing in Apple Pages: Distraction-free & clear winner
I write blog posts, reports, and strategy docs daily, and Pages felt instantly better on iPad than Notion.
The writing experience on an iPad Pro, paired with the Magic Keyboard, felt closer to a desktop word processor than Notion ever did.
- The interface is clean and doesn’t try to do too much
- Formatting is intuitive, and exporting to PDF or Word is seamless
- The two-page view helps me work faster to read, iterate, and edit
- I noticed a boost in my productivity and output, because I stick to writing
For the first time in years, I found myself enjoying the process of writing long-form on my iPad. No fiddling with blocks or waiting for things to sync. It just worked as intended.
Apple Numbers: More lean and flexible
I honestly expected Numbers to feel like a downgrade from Notion’s database and table features. But once I got used to it, it fits my personal workflow better.
Since I am the one personally writing every blog post on Echo Point Global, I wanted to replicate my table in Numbers where I can document my blog post title, SEO title, URL, category, character count, and month.
Just like we did SEO and keyword tracking in 2006 without fancy tools or databases.
And you know what? It works.
Notion is notorious for being slow once a table has a few hundred lines in a table, and that’s frustrating. The loading time for a spreadsheet in Numbers is 5x faster than Notion
- Tables are flexible: I could design spreadsheets exactly how I wanted without being boxed into Notion’s rigid database structure.
- Charts and visuals are beautiful: Numbers make it easy to turn raw data into polished visuals, something
- Performance on iPad is excellent: Scrolling and editing large tables is smooth, and everything syncs instantly across iCloud
Yes, it wasn’t as “connected” as a Notion database for teams, but it was faster, lighter, and better for personal use.
Apple Notes: Simplicity at its best
I always used Apple Notes, but my notes were scattered between Notion, OneNote, and the native app.
The most noticeable difference is the speed and accessibility. I came to realize that Notion takes too long to capture a quick note, and more often than not, I lost my thoughts before I could jot them down.
That’s when I realized that I should separate both tools. Notion should be used for documentation and shared team notes that have no shelf life. Apple Notes is for fast note-taking, brainstorming, and temporary captures. OneNote is for permanent personal notes.
What I gained from leaving Notion behind
There’s a lot to unpack, but if I have to make a top 3, it’s:
- Native optimization matters on iPad Pro
- Focus beats flexibility (personally)
- Writing in Apple Pages is superior, and I can’t go back
With the new iPadOS 26, the Apple Apps feel like they were truly built for iPad. And yes, they were already, but the latest version turned an expensive tablet into a total workhorse for 90% of the users.
Notion can do almost everything, but I value digital minimalism, and focus always beats flexibility for me. Pages, Numbers, and Notes are designed for a singular purpose, and they refrain from people falling into a trap of too many tasks at once.
However, my biggest surprise was Apple Pages. Even though I knew writing blog drafts in Notion isn’t perfect and it certainly isn’t a word processor, I kind of went with the idea that using fewer applications is more, even if I have to make some trade-offs.
But writing on my iPad Pro in Apple Pages in a double-page view is my greatest discovery. I can’t go back to using Dropbox Paper or Notion for writing. No other word processor, like Google Docs, MS Word, matches the minimalism, focus, speed, and integration Apple Pages offers.
Notion always has its place
I won’t pretend Apple’s apps can fully replace Notion for a team. Notion’s collaboration, project management, and knowledge-sharing features are unmatched. My team still lives in Notion, and that won’t change anytime soon.
But for personal productivity, I’ve realized I don’t need Notion. The Apple suite gives me:
- A smoother writing experience
- More beautiful spreadsheets
- A faster, more natural capture system
And all of it works flawlessly in the Apple ecosystem I already live in. Combine that with Apple Calendar and Apple Reminders, and you’re leveraging their entire suite at no cost with the highest efficiency.
Final thoughts
This experiment started as curiosity, but it ended as a genuine workflow shift. I’ve fully switched to Pages, Numbers, and Notes for my personal work and writing blog posts, while continuing to collaborate with my team in Notion.
It’s the best of both worlds:
- Notion for team collaboration and shared knowledge
- Notion for consulting clients and async coaching
- Apple’s apps for personal productivity and deep work + MS OneNote
For anyone, including solo founders and indie hackers who spend most of their time on an iPad Pro or the Apple ecosystem, I’d highly recommend trying the same experiment.
Don’t always overcomplicate things. When Apple apps might give you exactly what you need in your early days, before scaling at zero cost.
You might be surprised at how much smoother and enjoyable your work becomes when you lean into the tools Apple built just for you if you’re using an iPad Pro and Mac.
Author bio
Jiang Ming-Te is the founder & creator of Echo Point Global, where he works with founders through consulting and async founder coaching, while also acquiring and reviving overlooked projects through micro private equity.