Physix Frontier
AI note organization: don't let it act autonomously yet
I compared fully automated AI organization versus AI suggestions with manual confirmation, and actually ran through both. The former is convenient: throw files in, and AI automatically creates tags and moves them into folders. The latter feels more like Fog 2.0's update philosophy. Developers removed the first version's focus on AI auto-organization; AI helps look at content and gives suggestions, but humans make the final decision. Demos I commonly saw at hackathons had flashy first versions, but the next day when the network cut out, all rules fell apart. I lean towards the latter.
First, define three things. Don't start thinking about models and auto-classification. Prepare three samples: meeting notes like "Discussed reimbursement on Wednesday, WorkBuddy fields weren't extracted completely," inspiration notes like "Q1 robot doing mermaid wave, dragged a few times in visual action editor," and to-do lists like "Redis caching intermediate state." Then create three folders: Meetings, Inspiration, To-Do. Folders are where notes go, similar to computer directories; beginners shouldn't go too deep, keep it within three levels. The goal is to draw clear boundaries for the AI.
Then run a minimal flow with Fog. Fog 2.0 is a note and folder app on iPad; the store page says free, designed for iPad, macOS unverified. Install it on the iPad first.
Open Fog, click New Folder, input Meetings, Inspiration, To-Do, and save. Seeing three folders in the list means it worked. Click New Note, title it "Reimbursement Process," body text "Discussed reimbursement on Wednesday, WorkBuddy fields weren't extracted completely," and save. If you see Smart suggestions, select the note and click the suggestion to see which folder it recommends. Do not click Accept All. Confirm one by one: click Confirm, and the note enters the target folder; click Ignore, and the note stays put. Also, separately record correct and incorrect suggestions.
My testing shows AI is sensitive to words like "reimbursement" and "to-do," easily throwing meeting notes into To-Do. Meetings often contain "who is responsible for the next step," so humans need to look at context.
Fog 2.0's description includes a phrase: "Fog helps, you decide." AI is only responsible for prompting; humans still bear the result.
Let's talk about a few pitfalls. Auto-move is a pitfall. You think it's just generating tags, but it actually moves the notes away. Copy the notes before testing; don't touch the originals.
Folders being too granular is also a pitfall. Some people create "ProjectA/ThisYear/Reimbursement/Pending/Confirmed," which looks professional but is exhausting to search. I generally start with coarse folders. I used Notion Database for a week; initially, I wanted to list many fields, but later found that having records first, then fields, flows better.
Flow interruption is another pitfall. If this becomes a small tool later, suggest not keeping state only on the page. Refresh the page, and intermediate results are gone. I've been trying Redis these past two days; simply put, it stores data in memory with fast read/write, suitable for temporary states, like "Suggested as To-Do, but not yet confirmed." Beginners shouldn't touch it yet; get the manual confirmation flow working first.
This tutorial only does a minimal flow: three notes, three folders, one set of suggestions, one person confirming. Many teams in hackathons get stuck because ideas are too big. This task is small; run it through once, and you can explain it clearly.
My judgment is that AI organizing notes fears turning inaccuracy into default action. Don't let it act on its own first. Wait until you have a feel for suggestion accuracy, then consider automation.
After learning this, the next step is to try finding a few recent meetings, inspirations, and to-dos from the past week, import them into Fog or any note app, let AI only give suggestions, and you handle the confirmation. After confirming, see which category is most easily misclassified.
📌 This article is compiled from Hacker News, original: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smart-notes-folders-fog/id6760272134
Copyright belongs to the original author. This is a compilation and independent analysis based on public reports.
