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Best iPad Note Taking app !!

The best app for note taking in iPad is:

  • Notebooks for iPad

    Votes: 17 4.6%

  • UPAD

    Votes: 28 7.5%

  • neu.Notes

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • Penultimate

    Votes: 65 17.5%

  • FastFinga

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • Noterize

    Votes: 7 1.9%

  • Noteshelf

    Votes: 49 13.2%

  • Note Taker HD

    Votes: 43 11.6%

  • CourseNotes

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • PhatPad

    Votes: 2 0.5%

  • Notebooks for iPad

    Votes: 8 2.2%

  • WritePad for iPad

    Votes: 4 1.1%

  • Other (Please mention)

    Votes: 147 39.5%
  • Total voters
    372
I wish there really was a way to determine the "best" note taking app.... but in reality there are 4 or 5 that are all really, really good. And they each have distinct advantages over the others as well as a bunch of personal preferences.

The wisest thing to do is probably try to figure out what things you specifically NEED out of a note taking app. Find the ones that have all your needed features, then watch a video of each of them in action and just decide based on your initial impressions. Then just stick with it. Any of them will make you happy as long as it has your essential features

edit: Oh and those 4 or 5 apps happen to be Noteshelf, Note Taker HD, Notes plus, Penultimate, and UPad. Oh and then the soon the be released eNote Taker looks to be very good as well. Not feature-filled, but simplicity is not to be underestimated.
 
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Do any of these apps allow you to both annotate /highlight a PDF page as well as search through the text to find a word orphrase?

Kind of like upad plus search?

I am looking for something that allows me to highlight and annotate PDF textbooks but also allows me to search the text of the book..

I think goodreader does this but from the YouTube videos it looks like highlighting is a pain..
 
archdelux said:
Do any of these apps allow you to both annotate /highlight a PDF page as well as search through the text to find a word orphrase?

Kind of like upad plus search?

I am looking for something that allows me to highlight and annotate PDF textbooks but also allows me to search the text of the book..

I think goodreader does this but from the YouTube videos it looks like highlighting is a pain..
Click to expand...

If your main goal is annotating PDFs I would look elsewhere from a note taking application. I don't find goodreader's highlight cumbersome to use at all. Have you looked at Readdable Docs or iAnnotate ye?
 
archdelux said:
Do any of these apps allow you to both annotate /highlight a PDF page as well as search through the text to find a word orphrase?

Kind of like upad plus search?

I am looking for something that allows me to highlight and annotate PDF textbooks but also allows me to search the text of the book..

I think goodreader does this but from the YouTube videos it looks like highlighting is a pain..
Click to expand...

UPAD is GREAT for annotating PDFs ... with both handwriting and transparent marker highlights ... but yes, it's missing search. Would be great if the developer added that.
 
I've tried so many....settled on something unconventional

I am a significant note taker. I am in meetings at least 6 hours a day and take a lot of notes. I've tried several handwriting apps, typing apps, combo apps, and for me, the largest thing missing from most of the apps out there is organization. I really want to like Evernote but i don't like that it MUST sync...there are some things I don't want sitting unprotected in the cloud. I tried NotebooksHD and wanted to like it but just wasn't crazy about the UI and appearance. NotetakerHD is great for handwriting but I thought the organization of the notes was not good and you cant search through handwritten notes.

I use AwesomeNote now, mostly for it's great organization features. It can organize notes by date taken and allows you to create custom folders. You can search all notes using keywords as well. It allows freehand sketch (although this feels like an afterthought and could be better) and insertion of pictures.

Where I use it unconventionally is that I don't take notes in the ANote any longer. I take my notes using a mindmap app called iThoughtsHD. If you are not familiar with mindmaps check them out. They are a visual way to take notes that is intuitively how your brain organizes things. What i like about iThoughts is that you can email a completed MindMap to meeting participants (or yourself) and the email contains a .png of the mind map and an outline of everything typed. I then insert the image into ANote and paste the outline in the note page. Now everything is searchable and the image exists for recollection. Here's an example of how it looks within ANote:

Mindmap example.png

Mindmap example
Insert notes
And sub notes
You can add more info
About anything
Separate topic here
And subtopics too
Mindmap examples
Each node can have a note attached
You can set a task to a node as well
Even reference relationships

So overall I find that taking notes using mindmapping is very intuitive and flexible, but must be done with a keyboard. So if you like to freehand write, this solution won't work for you. AwesomeNote is a great note taking and storage app for all the notes you need to review and recall.

I also use GoodReader a ton....to store all documents I want to review/have access to. I also use PDFExpert to annotate pdf documents. Its very easy to use and does a good job marking up pdfs.
Jeff
 
uPad has taken a turn for the worst all of sudden, no idea what is going on. My app is buggin' out
 
I'm looking for an app that will let me click a camera button while taking notes, snap a picture with the ipad2 camera, and have that shot immediately placed into the notes...which one does that?

It seems that Note Taker HD let's you insert pictures, but does it work as above?
 
longlong14 said:
imo they all suck, nothing beats the good o' paper and pen
Click to expand...
You are correct as far as actually taking the notes are concerned. But an app could have the advantage in that a) Dropbox sync would prevent you ever losing your notes and b) effective tagging could help you organise/search your notes efficiently.

Anyone know of a notes app that is easy to use and has these two features? I have got Notes Plus (which is great for writing the notes) but it is very scarce on features.
 
robertk328 said:
Notes Plus is $1.99 today in the app store.
Click to expand...

I saw it on sale on the App store and decided to buy it. The shape recognition and other things seem useful. I've mostly been using Awesome Note primarily on my iPhone and iPad, and I sync between both of them using Evernote.

I like the folders and interface, but the hand writing implementation could be better. Also, I have one folder in that application dedicated to a daily diary, and I've noticed that after now having around 240 entries in that folder, there is a slight lag when opening that folder, and I'm afraid it will get worse as I add more entries.

I've also used the UPAD lite version, and I like it, but I don't like the interface very much for some reason, and the icon sucks too, hehe.
 
Alright, so I'm barely beginning to use Notes Plus, and I'm going through the tutorial "Quick Start" file slowly, but so far I'm noticing that I don't really like the typefaces used throughout the apps menus and such.

Edit: Went back to the UPAD lite version. I didn't like Notes Plus very much.
 
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robertk328 said:
Notes Plus is $1.99 today in the app store.
Click to expand...

I decided to purchase NotesPlus with the price drop as I am hopeful to find an application to replace pen and paper for business meetings.

I am very disappointed with the handwriting for NotesPlus. It seemed to ignore certain strokes (e.g., crossing of t's) and overall handwriting wasn't near as smooth as Upad light. NotesPlus auto advance was excellent and I like the ui, but the text input makes it unuseable for me.
 
Penultimate is what I use for jotting things down. BUT, iAnnotate is pretty much the reason I have my iPad2. I save all my school documents and ppt's as PDF's, sync to dropbox, and then sync to iAnnotate to take lecture/study notes. Works flawlessly and I LOVE it.
 
Lehigh88 said:
I decided to purchase NotesPlus with the price drop as I am hopeful to find an application to replace pen and paper for business meetings.

I am very disappointed with the handwriting for NotesPlus. It seemed to ignore certain strokes (e.g., crossing of t's) and overall handwriting wasn't near as smooth as Upad light. NotesPlus auto advance was excellent and I like the ui, but the text input makes it unuseable for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah - I even bought it at the higher price, and wanted to love it, but the laggy input in zoomed mode drives me nuts. Can't use it until he fixes the performance.

Until then - Noteshelf is the one to beat for me - it's fast, simple, and very smooth. Works very well.
 
I still haven't decided which one I'm going to buy but upad is taking advantage because it's the only one that has a "free" app so we can try before buyin. and I really liked it.
 
luckystriked said:
I still haven't decided which one I'm going to buy but upad is taking advantage because it's the only one that has a "free" app so we can try before buyin. and I really liked it.
Click to expand...

I like a lot of features of a lot of them ... there's some cool things about this one and that one. I could elaborate ... But ... UPad is the best out there as far as following intended strokes of my handwriting with the smoothing algorithm to remove noise.

just my 2 cents worth summation ...
 
What about Notes Plus? I have had it for a while but don't use it much, I don't like taking notes on my iPad. It works for me but I don't see why it would be missing from your list.
 
benhollberg said:
What about Notes Plus? I have had it for a while but don't use it much, I don't like taking notes on my iPad. It works for me but I don't see why it would be missing from your list.
Click to expand...

I bought it and it's handwriting is not as great as uPad and the others. I have to press harder and it seems to still miss things like dotted i's. A little disappointed I bought it.
 
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