App for strictly taking notes?

[GerritV]

Together was mentioned in the Circus Ponies thread.
IMHO it's a nice looking app, unfortunately a bit expensive - and no handwriting.
[doublepost=1453553100][/doublepost]

Just added Noteshelf to the list. It was "decent"... but I wouldn't recommend it.

If you give Noteshelf some time (and love), you might appreciate it more. The handwriting experience is the best I ever came across. I know it's being bitmapped, but I don't care - I hardly ever zoom in. And the crayon effect is so worth it.
Noteshelf has an in-app purchase that syncs your notebooks right into Evernote. I'm sure some people will appreciate that part.
And about the organisation system: you can store notebooks in notebooks. Which may be an answer to your critique.

ok - added OneNote. I actually liked it more than I expected. Notability and Goodnotes are still better (especially when it comes to handling mixed media and they have less Pencil lag).

It's probably me, but I find Notability more focused on text input than GoodNotes - which I find more into handwriting.
However, I try to expand my use of GN step by step. By now, it replaced iBooks for me. Next is PDF Expert (hard to beat) for annotating pdf documents.

 

[lexvo]

For me, Noteshelf gives the best handwriting experience. It is fluid and fast and the result looks great. Goodnotes is close second for me.

While I like Notability very much for text input and its functionality, I still think handwriting is not as good as with Noteshelf or Goodnotes. I myself always have trouble with their palm rejection not working well.

But: I know it also comes down on personal preference when choosing a note taking app. Best thing is to try a few.
[doublepost=1453656752][/doublepost]

However, I try to expand my use of GN step by step. By now, it replaced iBooks for me. Next is PDF Expert (hard to beat) for annotating pdf documents.

I am also thinking about one app for both notetaking and working with PDF's. Notability would be a good option for me if its handwriting/palm rejection were a bit better (I tried the latest version). Maybe I should give it one more try.

 

[GerritV]

I am also thinking about one app for both notetaking and working with PDF's. Notability would be a good option for me if its handwriting/palm rejection were a bit better (I tried the latest version). Maybe I should give it one more try.

Just wondering, when you say "notetaking" - in your case would that be handwriting or typing or both?
I still consider GoodNotes as a handwriting tool rather than for typing, perhaps undeservedly.

 

[lexvo]

Just wondering, when you say "notetaking" - in your case would that be handwriting or typing or both?
I still consider GoodNotes as a handwriting tool rather than for typing, perhaps undeservedly.

Notetaking for me is handwriting now. A few months ago I switched from typing to handwriting. Incidentally I do some note typing.

 

[friedmud]

Been swapping back and forth between Notability and Goodnotes a bit... I think I've finally settled on Notability for the long-haul. I simply love the way the "ink" comes out in Notability...

 

[xraydoc]

Together was mentioned in the Circus Ponies thread.
IMHO it's a nice looking app, unfortunately a bit expensive - and no handwriting.
[doublepost=1453553100][/doublepost]

If you give Noteshelf some time (and love), you might appreciate it more. The handwriting experience is the best I ever came across. I know it's being bitmapped, but I don't care - I hardly ever zoom in. And the crayon effect is so worth it.
Noteshelf has an in-app purchase that syncs your notebooks right into Evernote. I'm sure some people will appreciate that part.
And about the organisation system: you can store notebooks in notebooks. Which may be an answer to your critique.



It's probably me, but I find Notability more focused on text input than GoodNotes - which I find more into handwriting.
However, I try to expand my use of GN step by step. By now, it replaced iBooks for me. Next is PDF Expert (hard to beat) for annotating pdf documents.

I'd go back to Noteshelf if they updated for the iPP's resolution and multitasking. Until then, I won't use it and can't recommend it.

I've moved to GoodNotes.

 

[lexvo]

Been swapping back and forth between Notability and Goodnotes a bit... I think I've finally settled on Notability for the long-haul. I simply love the way the "ink" comes out in Notability...

And I prefer Noteshelf because I like the way the handwriting appears
(among other things)
[doublepost=1454233572][/doublepost]

I'd go back to Noteshelf if they updated for the iPP's resolution and multitasking. Until then, I won't use it and can't recommend it.

I've moved to GoodNotes.

Fair enough. I also don't like it when apps don't support new hardware or new iOS features.

 

[mmendoza27]

So glad I found this thread! I've been using Penultimate and Paper by 53.

- Paper by 53: I really don't like the ink engine. I'm glad they have a lot of tools, but I really don't like the way the pen marks appear. It's just too skinny for me. Plus there is quite a bit of lag with the Apple Pencil. I really feel like the app isn't really made for notes as much as it's made for sketching and diagramming. Great app, but not for note taking IMO. Also a pain to sync notes because you have to sign up for a Paper account. Blah.

Penultimate: I like the writing engine more. The size 2 pen is great. It doesn't lag as much and the ink just flows nicely. The one thing that really annoys me is that scrolling w/ 2-fingers is hit or miss. Sometimes it doesn't move and it just makes a pen mark. Plus it really annoys me that there isn't any gesture support for undo. I have to actually tap the button at the top-right to undo. Don't like the syncing that much either. I've never gone over the limit, but you only get like 60 MBs of data transfer a month. Weak. Oh yeah, cutting and moving text also leaves behind some marks and doesn't cut smoothly. That's also real annoying.

I just finished downloading Notability and the reviews on here have gotten me excited! Too bad I left my Apple Pencil at home today. I'll probably be going back during lunch to go pick it up.

 

[LCPepper]

Another vote for Notability here.

I recently got a Adonis bluetooth stylus, which I regret now, because all of the note-taking apps that are compatible with the bluetooth part of the stylus, well, they just pale in comparison to Notability.
But even without the bluetooth palm rejection, the job that Notability does is quite flawless, even better than the dedicated apps at time. Most certainly is the app that keeps up with the pen best too.

As for the passwords, yes, you can only set it on subject and then add notes to the subject. You can unlock and lock them by clicking on the padlock symbol; not obvious I know, but it saves having to quit and open.

They also seem to be quite open to suggestions and implementing them; a huge stride because of this was being able to edit the imported text from documents, rather than it just be a static, searchable 'background'.

Plus, it has a Mac app too... So it's on all of my devices.

 

[friedmud]

UPAD3 just got moved up the list. It had an update a few days ago that gave it really good Pencil support.

 

[lg251]

Can Notability, GoodNotes and UPAD3 allow you to add "checkboxes" (not handwritten but clickable buttons) within your note sheet?

 

[GerritV]

Can Notability, GoodNotes and UPAD3 allow you to add "checkboxes" (not handwritten but clickable buttons) within your note sheet?

Never saw that functionality in GoodNotes nor Notability. Don't know UPAD3...
You could have a custom template that has checkboxes drawn on it, but still - that wouldn't categorize as a button.

 

[lg251]

Never saw that functionality in GoodNotes nor Notability. Don't know UPAD3...
You could have a custom template that has checkboxes drawn on it, but still - that wouldn't categorize as a button.

Thanks for the input Gerrit!

 

[wmadan]

Zoomnotes can auto-backup to Dropbox, WebDav, Evernote and Google Drive. The handwriting is definitely not laggy on the IPP. Perhaps the reviewer had an older version. I do agree that page handling in Zoomnotes is deficient. I will also add that the interface is confusing to figure out.

That said, I like the feel of writing in Zoomnotes over Notability or GoodNotes. I would switch to Notability if it had a built-in lined writing template with line spacing in between the narrow and next template up. The narrow-lined template is way too narrow and the next one up is way too wide for me. Also, the lack of subfolders in Notability prevents auto-backup of my notes to the folders in my Dropbox where I want the notes to go. I would switch to GoodNotes if the writing experience paralleled Zoomnotes and Notability. Everything else about GoodNotes I like.

When OneNote adds a lasso select/cut/copy/paste feature, I will probably consider it more seriously.

 

[friedmud]

Update: the newest version of Notability just made it even better! Now anything other than the Pencil is completely ignored for marking. This means you can scroll with a single finger and there are never any palm rejection mistakes!

This was one thing Goodnotes had that Notability didn't... and I'm glad to see that feature!

Zoomnotes can auto-backup to Dropbox, WebDav, Evernote and Google Drive. The handwriting is definitely not laggy on the IPP. Perhaps the reviewer had an older version. I do agree that page handling in Zoomnotes is deficient. I will also add that the interface is confusing to figure out.

That said, I like the feel of writing in Zoomnotes over Notability or GoodNotes. I would switch to Notability if it had a built-in lined writing template with line spacing in between the narrow and next template up. The narrow-lined template is way too narrow and the next one up is way too wide for me. Also, the lack of subfolders in Notability prevents auto-backup of my notes to the folders in my Dropbox where I want the notes to go. I would switch to GoodNotes if the writing experience paralleled Zoomnotes and Notability. Everything else about GoodNotes I like.

When OneNote adds a lasso select/cut/copy/paste feature, I will probably consider it more seriously.

I just tried Zoomnotes again:

• Interface is terrible (jarryingly awful after using Notability for so long!)
• Still huge lag with the Pencil. To really see it take your Pencil and continuously draw in a huge circle all the way around the screen. Note how far behind your Pencil the mark is as it shows up in Zoomnotes. Now do the same in Notability. By my eye Notability has about 1/3 the lag of Zoomnotes.
• Writing is still "pixelated". Zoomnotes seems to "bitmap" writing in a way that makes it ugly. Most other apps use a vector graphics form of the strokes to give a nice, zoom/resolution, independent stroke.

As for Notability backing up into folders. "Subjects" in Notability are turned into folders on Dropbox.

 

[wmadan]

As for Notability backing up into folders. "Subjects" in Notability are turned into folders on Dropbox.

But there is only one level. GoodNotes allows you to create categories within master categories and the categories are saved as subfolders in Dropbox. If Notability did this, it would be more attractive to me since I wouldn't have to move notes around after they are synced. And while there are workarounds with importing your own templates into Notability, the app would be much better if it allowed the user to set the line width spacing (like in Notes Plus).

You are right that the UI in ZoomNotes is an absolute mess. I much prefer the simplicity of the UI in Notability and the inking.

 

[lg251]

Just tried Notability on the iPad pro 9.7 with the Apple Pencil and I'm a bit disappointed by the response time of the writing vs the Apple Notes application. I fell as though there's a tad too much latency when writing or drawing, which Apple's notes app doesn't have at all... Anyone else notice this?

 

[lg251]

Just tried Notability on the iPad pro 9.7 with the Apple Pencil and I'm a bit disappointed by the response time of the writing vs the Apple Notes application. I fell as though there's a tad too much latency when writing or drawing, which Apple's notes app doesn't have at all... Anyone else notice this?

To add some meat:

I tried One note this morning during a meeting, and it was faster than Notability, but a still tiny bit slower than Apple Notes (in terms of latency). I made a "none-geek" colleague, play around with all 3 apps quickly, and she came to the same conclusion as me, the latency was noticeable on the 3rd party Apps...while in the Apple one writing is flawless. No way of seeing the delay between the pencil moving on the screen and the render to appear.

 

[friedmud]

There might need to be some updates to the apps for the 9.7...

 

[VictorBlade]

This is a great thread, especially like the summary of apps & features by friedmud on page one: Thank you.

I like Notability, OneNote, and GoodNotes the best. My use case is as follows:

• iPad Pro 12.9 with Apple Pencil hand writing the main use - ie great inking experience & palm/finger rejection
• Needs to sync to cloud so that all notes immediately show up on my other devices - PC included
• (Cross platform support implied in above point)

This second point is pretty crucial and will become increasingly important over time to more people I believe. To my knowledge only OneNote provides full cross platform synchronization WHILE PRESERVING INK. You can take pages of ink notes on the iPad and open up OneNote elsewhere and edit / move / resize the hand written ink notes (assuming the target destination supports ink) (Mac you have to sit this one out (thanks Jobs)).

Notability provides an "auto backup" where it uploads a PDF version of the note to the cloud (Dropbox) and the auto upload is executed when you exit the note. So I can click on my PC or Mac desktop shortcut and go directly to a (static) PDF of the notes. Or go to OneNote and have the pure INK preserved and continue annotations (with a Surface Pro 4 or similar INK enabled Windows machine). You can even create/access ink from android / Wacom tablet or phone devices (Note 5).

GoodNotes's EDIT: My previous (now removed) statement that auto back up it's only in native format is not true, as zhenya points out. Auto back up can be configured to be in PDF format in a cloud folder you specify.

One last thing: There is a feature GoodNotes has that I wish would become a standard: NO ONE FINGER RESPONSE. In other words - on many apps / platforms "One Finger Scrolling" is seen as a desired feature. I get it. Easy to move the "paper." Here's the problem: it invariably creates unintended document movement, sizing, jitter. GoodNotes can be configured to get rid of this my insisting on TWO fingers on the screen to register an ability to move or size the document. This is truly wonderful.

I found I had to go back to the 12.9" iPad Pro (from the 9.7) so that there was enough screen to allow for the palm rejection to more readily and regularly work properly.

On the PC (like Surface Pro 4 and other pen enabled models) there is a different but very cool solution called "Tray Touch Toggle." It is a utility that sits in the system tray that allows you to toggle the touch interface on and off at will at the system level. So when you have your document ready for input, you can toggle off touch and then the whole device works like a real, virtual piece of paper with out any errant responses to touch input of any kind. Once you're used to using a pen device this way it is very hard to enjoy machines that cannot do this. That's why GoodNotes approach to document touch movement is so strong. I love it.

 

[lg251]

There might need to be some updates to the apps for the 9.7...

There was an update yesterday and the "latency" seems to have been corrected for the 9.7 iPad. I still feel as though the Apple Notes app is bit more natural when writing, but note taking with Notability is now enjoyable.

 

[zhenya]

GoodNotes's auto backup is only in native GoodNotes file format. And the PDF export is a manual process. This is a real setback.

Not so. I've been using automatic pdf backup in Goodnotes for years.

 

[VictorBlade]

Not so. I've been using automatic pdf backup in Goodnotes for years.

Glad to hear it.

I think I found it. Goodnotes allows you to perform the automatic back up into the PDF file format instead of native. Thanks for the tip, I'll have to see how good it works.

Ok, now just confirmed. This is very nice. Thank you for pointing it out. So glad it does not have to be manual! Maybe this will let me go back to GoodNotes instead of Notability for a "non OneNote" tool. Very nice.

 

[fortepianissimo]

Notes Plus is just updated with Apple Pencil support. Maybe worth a revisit?

 

[VictorBlade]

Notes Plus is just updated with Apple Pencil support. Maybe worth a revisit?

Just downloaded and gave a quick try. I haven't used it for a long time. It's hard for me to see how it is different.

As far as I can tell it does not provide the basic feature of not drawing with touch while using the Pencil. Both Notability and GoodNotes provide this. Plus GoodNotes also has the killer feature where it will ONLY take input from the pencil - completely ignoring a single finger for ink AND for moving the document (which requires two fingers). Brilliant!

OneNote - do you hear this?

Be interested in what others think about Notes Plus updated for Apple Pencil...