介绍一下你们团队
Introduce your team

Shiny Frog was founded by three developer-designers in 2005 in Parma, Italy (though we have since moved the company to Dublin, Ireland). Matteo Rattotti, Danilo Bonardi, and Konstantin Erokhin met in university (college), and started building apps shortly after graduation.

Since then we have grown a little. We now have designer Nicola Armellini, Damien Kelly and Zowie Huang (中文名：Ziwei Huang, 黄紫薇）in marketing, and David Chartier as a writer and content strategist.

也介绍一下 Zowie 你自己吧，你是如何加入了 Bear 团队？
introduce yourself, Zowie. How did you join Bear team?

I am originally from Beijing, China. I came to Ireland five years ago and got a bachelors degree and a master degree in digital marketing. After graduation, I was looking for jobs related to digital marketing and I saw the Bear team was recruiting. I had actually been using Bear for a while, so this is such an exciting opportunity for me to get to know more about it (not to mention the cute bear merchandise 😍). 

I think my vibe really fits in the whole team —— relaxing, funny, and creative. The Bear team is the place that everyone appreciates all your ideas and opinions. Although I’ve only been here for two months, I really feel like this is the dream job for me.

Markdown 在少数派一直是非常热门的话题，也有很多用户和开发者发表过对它的观点。能不能谈谈你们对于这一标记语法的看法，为什么选择做了一款 Markdown 编辑工具？
Markdown has been a very popular topic in sspai. A lot of users and developers expressed their point of view on it. Can you talk about your point of view on markdown and the reason why you chose to do a markdown editor tool?

We like the flexibility, portability, and simplicity of Markdown. It’s easy to write and style our text in Bear, then convert it for use in all kinds of uses, from publishing online to creating JPGs to share on social media.

如同 Ulysses、OmniFocus 等应用一样，Bear 这个名字也已经作为品牌形象深入中国用户的内心，为什么突然又取了「熊掌记」这个中文名字？
Like Ulysses, OmniFocus, the English name Bear has been recognized as a brand image in China. Why did you give it a Chinese name “熊掌记”?

The Chinese name “熊掌记” came from the English name Bear, which was inspired by the phrase “bear in mind” (to ‘think about’ or ‘to remember’). First, it is ‘bear,’ then we add the characters palm (掌) and memorize (记). These represent that Bear is a note taking and writing app which you can easily use anywhere, right on your phone. 

In addition, “掌记” is the name of confidential secretary for provincial governor back in Tang Dynasty. Therefore, Bear can also be seen as a cartoon character who helps you to do all the secretary job. With this name, we hope it is an easy way to remember Bear and how it can be useful.

有人拿 Bear 写作，有人拿 Bear 用来记笔记，还有人拿 Bear 当知识管理工具…… 你们自己怎么看待 Bear 的定位？
Some people use bear to write, some people use bear to take notes, some also use bear as a knowledge management tool.... What do you think about the niche (positioning) for Bear?

We love hearing about all the ways people use Bear right now, and we often use it in these ways too. We’ve heard from customers who create notes of workout routines in Bear, then sync them to their Apple Watch to use at the gym. 

One way we think of Bear is a place for “flexible notes and beautiful writing.” We like building features to help these and other kinds of use cases, but we also want to be careful not to pack too many features into Bear. It’s a tricky balance, but we try to stay true to our original vision for Bear.

很多人一直在抱怨 Bear 不支持表格、LaTex、HTML 预览等特性，你们为什么没有支持这些功能？
A lot of people complain that bear doesn’t have features such as tables, latex, HTML preview etc. Why you don’t have those features?

We wanted to start small with Bear and then listen to our audience. We like all of these features, but the simple fact is that features take time and they can also clutter the interface. This is where that balance comes in—we could build a thousand features, but then Bear could look messy, be slow, and take much longer to build. Or we might need to seek out venture capital to grow the team quickly, which is something we absolutely do not want to do. We like being a small, independent team.

Fortunately, we’re working on a huge redesign of the Editor in Bear to support these and other major requests from our customers. Things like tables, preview features, and others are all in the works.

听说 Bear 的 1.7 版本又是一次大更新，能不能跟我们透露一下都有哪些内容？之前说的网页版会在这一版上线吗？
I’ve heard that bear 1.7 will be coming soon. Can you disclose to us what update will be in the new version? Will the web version be available in 1.7?

We generally don’t talk about feature before they’re ready. Surprises can happen, and then we could end up letting people down. Development is difficult work, so we try to show, not tell.

That said, we do hope to ship some password protection features in Bear 1.7. We actually tried to get them out in version 1.6 for iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, but they needed more time to polish. Which is a great example of why we usually don’t pre-announce features. :D

Bear 的设计也一直被用户称道，我们也比较好奇你们认为一款理想写作工具的设计应该是怎样的，你们在 Bear 的设计上做过哪些取舍？
The design of Bear has been praised by users as well. We are curious that what do you think the design should be like in an ideal writing tool. What choice have you made in the design of bear?

We strive for simplicity in our design. Since Bear is an app for writing and collecting ideas, we try to keep features out of the users’ way because your content is the most important thing.

Some of the hard choices we made early on in Bear involve ignoring the concept of folders entirely, and going just with tags for organization. It might require an adjustment for some users, but we believe the flexibility of tags can open quite a few doors.

Also, because of Bear’s strict nature of privacy, some features might be difficult or even impossible for us to implement. For example, your Bear notes remain on your device, we do not upload them to a web service. If you subscribe to Bear Pro, your notes sync between all your devices with Apple’s iCloud. Again, we cannot see any of your notes, tags, or other data. Your devices talk to iCloud and each other, that’s it.

This means that, for now, we can’t do things like online collaboration or let you share a note via a link. Your notes don’t live anywhere online that is publicly accessible, and we like that.

在今年 WWDC 现场的采访中，你们认为支持了视频功能的新版 Mac App Store 很有趣，也能帮助开发者更好地展示应用的特点。你们现在还保持着原来的观点吗，新版 Mac App Store 上线的这一个多月对 Bear 的数据方面有没有提升？
In WWDC live interview this year, you said that the new video feature in Mac App Store is very interesting. It also helps developers to show the features of the app to users. Do you still have the same opinion for this feature? And in the past month with the new Mac App Store, is there any improvement in the figures for bear?

Absolutely. Videos can do _wonders_ for showing users how an apps works and is useful. We’re thrilled about the Big Mac App Store redesign.

We don’t have actual numbers to share for the past month, but in general we’re really happy with the App Store. We’ve won Editor’s Choice awards and were fortunate enough to be featured a few times. It’s really helped to get the word out about Bear around the world, especially in China and Europe.

你们开发了这么多产品，Bear 应该是第一次对于订阅制的尝试，你们现在认为订阅制带来的效果达到预期了吗？维护一款订阅制产品，跟之前的经历有没有什么不同？
You developed so many products and bear should be the first time that you try subscription mode. Do you think it reached your expectations? Is there any difference of maintaining (improving) a subscription mode product from your previous experience? 

It certainly helps that much of the industry is moving towards subscriptions. But when we think about it, consumer software has long been sold for a one-time purchase price, yet supported like an ongoing service with regular free updates and customer support. Some subscription prices might be a little off the mark. But when priced right, we think it’s a great way to create a steady income that helps developers make a living, support their apps, and plan for the future.

Understandable, not everyone is happy with subscriptions. When is everyone ever happy? But we thought long about how to price Bear, and we knew we wanted to be in this for the long haul. Even so, we think Bear is incredibly affordable at $15 a year or just USD $1.50 a month, which is less than a cup of coffee.

Pinboard 客户端 Delibar 和图片管理工具 Pixa 都是你们的作品，他们也取得过不错的成绩，为什么最后选择了关闭它们？你们对 Bear 未来的计划是怎么样的
Delibar and Pixa are also good apps that you made in the past. They also got good reviews and downloads. Why did you choose to shut them down? What is your future plan for Bear?

(Note to the interviewer: Pinboard was originally listed here, but that is not our app or service. We made Delibar, which was a client for services like Pinboard and Delicious. We also have an app called image2icon which is our own app and is still available in App Store  now)

Every app is different because they often exist in industries with unique audiences and circumstances. But in general, Delibar and Pixa did ok to start out, but were also launched into difficult markets. Bookmark management never really took off that well, and photo and asset management has very large players like Adobe and, back then, Apple.

Thankfully, we learned a lot from our work on those apps, much of which we’ve brought to Bear. We don’t want to talk too many details about Bear’s future. But we are listening closely to what our customers want, and we have some great things planned for the next few years.

有什么想对中国用户说的话？
Anything you want to say to Chinese users?

Thank you so much for using Bear! We truly appreciate all of our customers because we wouldn’t be here without you. 

Our Chinese website and Chinese social media pages are coming! We are looking for a better way to communicate with our Chinese users and listen to your feedbacks. We hope more people in China can get to know about this cute little Bear who helps you write and take notes! 🐻💕