Updated Comparisons
So, I've tried several handwriting apps, not all - but many. I also go to YouTube and try to keep up with ones that I haven't bought. I'm always looking a compelling reason to try a new one - to see if it's better than the one I'm using now! They're all constantly changing - better and better.
Here's a history of the handwriting apps I've liked, and what made me switch. (BTW ... I would love to hear similar stories from others. Are you still using the handwriting app you were first happy with? How many times have you switched to a new app? What features made you switch? Please consider sharing that information here.)
My History ...
Note Taker HD
The first one I settled on was Note Taker HD. This was quite a long time ago. I was excited about how well the zoom window worked. However, now nearly all good handwriting apps use a zoom window. Things may have changed for this app by now, but back then there were two things I didn't like about Note Taker HD - (1) jaggy marks when zoomed in. Seems the smoothing wasn't very good. (BTW ... other apps that boasted "smoothing" were over smoothing - and missing some of the intended characteristics of the stroke.) (2) The second thing that I didn't like about this app was it's GUI interface. The organization was lacking a bit. I found quickly found another app that addressed both of these dislikes, and also used the zooming window feature that I did like about Note Taker HD.
UPAD
IMO, UPad is still a fantastic handwriting app. I still think it has one of the most accurate stroke recognition engines out there. It's very quick and accurately follows the intended stroke with a fantastic balance between filtering and accurately. It's great. There's only one thing that I feel could improve UPad ... that would be how the ZOOM WINDOW ADVANCE FUNCTION works. As it is, (and, by the way several handwriting zoom windows work this way ) when you enter into that last bit of the zoom window, the app waits for writing to stop for a short amount of time - and then snaps the window to the next section. That works fine for about 80% of the time - but being in the MIDDLE OF A WORD RIGHT THERE, or, having to dot an "i" or cross a "t" right there sometimes was not done quickly enough by me. The dotting and crossing was done in the next section. Also, since this happens often, you enter into a mode of writing quickly - which causes you to become messy! Still, this is a great app - and probably one of the best as far as accurately following intended strokes. But I soon found a better app that addresses this complaint.
Notes Plus
Since I have been investigating several handwriting apps - I have populated a "HANDWRITING APPS" folder on my iPad with several apps. I have bought, tied, and quickly wrote off several that have just sat in that folder unused! One day, I decided to go back and try a few of them again since it had been quite a while since I originally bought several of them. Notes Plus was one of those that I bought back in the beginning. I quickly found that it has gone through lots of changes - I was pleasantly surprised! If you haven't tried this app lately - you owe it to yourself to give it another try. You may have been like me and just wrote it off in the past, but may be pleasantly surprised by it now.
Here's what I really like about this app - it's ZOOM WINDOW ADVANCE FUNCTION ! There is no "marked off" last section visible to you. But once you write past 50% of the window, you then see the end of your writing repeated in the starting third of the window. Why is this great? Because, you have the choice to use either the remaining last half OR start over in the first third! Either way is fine. If you just ended a word, then start the box over - but if you're in the middle of a word, well, then just complete it. This app is the only one that has really solved the problem of a zoom window being as seamless as possible to a natural workflow of writing!
There are a lot of bells and whistles about this app, but for basic handwriting - and really using that feature - this seems to be the best app out there.
Please let me know if there's another app that works it's zoom window like this!
Now, having said that, there are some hic-ups every now an then with this app. It's stroke recognition engine is very very good - it smooths just fine and it does follow the intended stroke. It's quick and responsive on my iPad 2. But every now and then, it seems to just blank out for a split second during following a stroke; when it does, it simply decides to draw a straight line from before it blanked out to when it returns back to following! This may cause the lower part of a "p" to get chopped off. But, this is a rare occurrence - and I do tend to write in cursive. Not sure this would happen if you print - which it seems most people do. Still, this happens so infrequently, and I'm noticing less and less with each update, I'm very happy to live with this app as is.
Perhaps there may be a better app I still need to find. I look forward hearing recent updates from other. Like I said earlier, it's hard to keep up ... things are constantly changing!
