Many of Bean's operations are carried out by the underlying Cocoa framework of Mac OS X.

"[4] Since this announcement, Hoover has provided further updates and fixes for Bean, reaching version number 3.6.1 by August 2023.

The design of Bean was heavily influenced by Marten Van De Kraats' article "Lean Word Processor Specifics".

Starting with version 3, Bean has a completely new user interface with an emphasis on simplicity.

As of 2024, modern versions of Bean are compatible with Intel and Apple Silicon-powered Macs.