Dive into big ideas with Muse 2.0

Muse is a workspace built for the messy middle of your creative process: deep thinking, synthesizing, and sense-making.

Version 2.0 includes everything from its predecessor: an open canvas of nested boards, cards and ink for visual and spatial thinking, and content snippets like PDFs, videos, and tweets. And here’s what’s new…

Muse for Mac = focused productivity

The vision for Muse 2 is to bring your boards to every computing device you use for work. Each device cues a unique mood and way of working. iPad, for example, is relaxed and informal; and it’s fun to work directly with your hands. New for 2.0 is Muse for Mac.

Mac is where creative work gets done. It’s the best platform ever created for creative and productive tasks, encapsulating 30+ years of thinking. Muse for Mac is designed from the same principles as Muse for iPad, while taking advantage of more screen real estate, the keyboard, files, and overlapping windows.

• Read the new Muse for Mac handbook
• Dive deep on the design of the Mac app in this Metamuse episode

Text blocks = write spatially

Muse 2.0 introduces text blocks, a way to write spatially. This brings a new dimension to writing and note taking, alongside your handwritten scribbles and rich media.

Text blocks are now the default way to write in Muse, from a single line to email drafts to the first draft of your next long essay. Double-tap anywhere on a board to start writing with text blocks.

By combining the joy of visual thinking with the efficiency of linear text editing, Muse lets you express the full richness of your ideas to create unexpected connections and creative leaps.

Local-first sync = fast and offline-capable

Your Muse workspace is shared across Mac and Muse for iPad using a technology called local-first sync.

Muse keeps all the data locally and any edits happen completely on the device. That means you never need to experience any delay or stutter when moving a card, drawing or highlighting, or typing some text.

Often the places best suited for contemplation are the least well-connected, like a long flight or train ride. Local-first means if you’re offline, everything will continue to work as normal. Once you reconnect, all your edits will be uploaded at blazing-fast speed.

• Dive deep on our sync technology in this Metamuse episode

Muse for iPad = relaxed thinking

Muse for iPad is still the best place for reading, annotating, and open-ended brainstorming. It offers a human and creative working style by embracing what makes iPad special: the intimacy of the touchscreen, the immediacy of the high-performance display, and the fun of working with your hands.

Muse 2.0 for iPad uses text blocks and the sync capability described above. Otherwise you’ll find all the same great features you know from Muse 1: fluid gestures, nested boards, rich media cards, excerpts, iPadOS multi-window and drag-and-drop support, and so on.

If you’re coming from Muse 1.9…

If you’re a user or customer of Muse 1 for iPad, you should already be updated to 2.0. You’ll probably notice the refreshed interface styling right away:

The first time you run Muse after upgrading, you’ll see a brief housekeeping screen as your data is migrated to the new format. After that, a notification at the top allows you to opt in to sync:

Feel free to dismiss this and continue to use Muse normally. You can opt in any time from the Settings panel. Read more in the sync opt-in FAQ.

You can now use text blocks by double-tapping on empty board space. Any text imported into Muse (for example, by copy-pasting or from the browser extension) will now arrive as text blocks.

Notes (previously “text cards”) are more compact and can now be used with either text or ink. They are great for short annotations and fixed-size sticky notes. All your existing text cards are converted to notes and can be used in largely the same way.

Try it today

This is a huge update to Muse, and inevitably there will be bugs, glitches, and performance problems. Write us via in-app feedback or hello@museapp.com with any reports. In the meantime, thank you so much for your support during the beta and the launch. We hope this is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter for deep work tools.