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Best iPad Note Taking app !!
- Thread starter fhd4
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Good question, I hope someone with good suggestions hops in and shares his/her recommended app.
Taking a different approach
I've been developing LooseLeaf - an app that allows you to quickly write and sort notes, tasks, questions, and ideas. All you have to do is write your notes, and then put symbols in the margin to classify your notes. Then you can choose to see only tasks, or only questions, etc.
It's a much more pared down approach than what you're asking for, but I think that the focus and simplicity of it leads to better notes and easier recall of information.
The app is currently in a closed beta, but looking for more feedback - please sign up at http://beta.looseleafapp.net if you're interested.
Thanks!
Ethan
I've been developing LooseLeaf - an app that allows you to quickly write and sort notes, tasks, questions, and ideas. All you have to do is write your notes, and then put symbols in the margin to classify your notes. Then you can choose to see only tasks, or only questions, etc.
It's a much more pared down approach than what you're asking for, but I think that the focus and simplicity of it leads to better notes and easier recall of information.
The app is currently in a closed beta, but looking for more feedback - please sign up at http://beta.looseleafapp.net if you're interested.
Thanks!
Ethan
Kind of sounds like LooseLeaf is following and EverNote strategy .... sound's interesting ...
I have Remarks and I have tried using it. I primarily use these sort of apps for presenting college lectures (i.e., as an electronic whiteboard and repository of constantly evolving lecture notes), and secondarily as a note taking tool. So, my comments will reflect my particular use, which may not be the norm.
From my review of Remarks 1.4 on the iTunes Store:
3 Stars, but could be 4 or 5 if these missing features were added...
-much better zoom function; should be able to smoothly increase/decrease size of zoom window, and adjust it; floating circle is awful
-the ability to cut/copy/paste ink
-VGA out, so that the screen can be displayed on a projector without the user interface appearing. Almost all other competitors offer this: Goodnotes, Noteshelf, Notes Plus, DocAS, Note Taker HD, Upad.
-a faster rendering engine; this one is very laggy still (the whole app is sluggish on an iPad3; e.g., pinch zoom in/out lags, zoom box advancement lags, etc.)
-more pen colors
The big thing I wish for with Notability, is way to set tasks as todo's, something that I can have all in one place and check them off instead of crossing them off.
Trivial but it would be nice.
I'm using Remarks (and so far Remarks only) quite extensively.
Reading and annotating pdf's and adding pages to note and sketch, drawing, handwritten notes, journal, post-it replacement, emailing pdf's to my co- workers... Remarks is always next to me on my workplace.
MrPeripatetic makes some good points - my ideas on them:
- the present Zoom box is all I need, zooming is zooming and I don't want/need more hassle to resize the box. Often clients sit next to me in a meeting, and any additional fiddling on my iPad might distract others.
- the floating circle: absolutely agree. It doesn't fit in the otherwise clean interface. Perhaps add the controls to the bar above the zoom pane.
- select, copy, cut and paste: that would be great!
- VGA out: don't need it myself
- there was a speed improvement from1.3 to 1.4 but of course more speed is always good
- if possible a colour picker instead of just more colours.
No more Remarks for me. EVERY note with audio ends up being corrupted destroying both the written and audio notes. I contacted Remarks tech support and they told me that it is a known bug. Back to Notability for me.
Is the PDF rendering on PDFexpert faster than Remarks? I was thinking about looking into PDFexpert but Remarks for me is very slow and has trouble with the preloaded PDF's. I also would like to see copy and paste lasso similar to Notability. Other than that I like Remarks and think it's a great app, especially for annotating PDF's.
The update is going to fix that. It should be live in 7-10 days.
Thanks for the feedback! We have also fixed and improved almost everything!
I will keep you informed when Remarks 1.5 is coming out.
What about the zoom box, VGA out, and cut/paste ink? Will any of these be addressed in the upcoming update? If not, will they ever?
That's fine & dandy that the update will hopefully fix the issue BUT your app has ruined 3 meetings worth of notes on me.
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Zoom box works now I believe, not sure about the other items you mentioned.
Hello everyone
Please check out our latest app called PDF Max. It has a rich set of desktop class features and is equipped with an excellent UI that help you annotate & take note with PDFs in the most convenient way.
We are working for a big update of the app in September, which will come with a lot of superb features.
You guys can found the information & latest news about PDF Max at this post: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1370700/
Thank you!
Please check out our latest app called PDF Max. It has a rich set of desktop class features and is equipped with an excellent UI that help you annotate & take note with PDFs in the most convenient way.
We are working for a big update of the app in September, which will come with a lot of superb features.
You guys can found the information & latest news about PDF Max at this post: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1370700/
Thank you!
For me, it comes down to Notes Plus and GoodNotes. Both are very very good!
GoodNotes has the better shape detection, and Notes Plus has handwriting recognition. I slightly prefer the overall feel of the GoodNotes UI, but Notes Plus seems to be a little more full-featured. Can't go wrong with either one, really. I still haven't quite decided which one I like better...currently leaning toward Notes Plus.
GoodNotes has the better shape detection, and Notes Plus has handwriting recognition. I slightly prefer the overall feel of the GoodNotes UI, but Notes Plus seems to be a little more full-featured. Can't go wrong with either one, really. I still haven't quite decided which one I like better...currently leaning toward Notes Plus.
I registered with the site solely for the purpose of giving my 2 cents.
I think Notes Plus would be a great app... but it has a few severe and critical flaws/glitches that make it unusable.
Why I stopped using Notes Plus:
1. Typing into a text box -- after so many lines, the text won't display on the screen (even though the shaded box shows that the text should be recognized).
2. When in writing zoom mode, you can't move the writing box around the page while keeping the writing area below. The writing area always adjusts to rest right below the zoom preview.
I am in a lot of math and science classes, so I need to constantly be referencing other equations and notes on the fly. If they are under the zoom box, I can't see what I am doing**. No good.
3. Even though notes plus does allow you select and resize text (awesome feature I wish notability would adopt to solidify it as the best note taking app out there), when resizing the text the program glitches and forgets the previous size of the writing.
Sometimes when resizing text, I will accidentally resize over existing text. To my dismay, when I try to undo the resizing, the program won't recognize the resize-action and will begin undoing previous states. When this happens, I have to erase ALL of the skewed text and any text it is obscuring. This can be catastrophic and is unacceptable.
4. Interface is awful. Even the clunky notability is more lucid.
5. Line heights when typing. There is no way to get the text to line up with the templates. This results in text going across lines and makes for really unpleasant-looking notes. This is, of course, is if the text even shows up in the first place.
Furthermore, they limit the configurability of margins, font-size, page size, etc to an excessive degree. If I don't want margins, let me not have margins.
6. When using the swipe motion (up and down), Notes Plus will think you are trying to access the previous/next page. As a result, you have to wait for the program to load the page, then swipe back, wait for loading, then start writing again. Keep in mind that this does not happen every once in awhile, it happens all the time. They need to consider a left to right swipe (which seems more natural when dealing with paper-like content), or some other method for switching between pages.
For these said reasons, Notability is my go to app. It is definitely a little more sluggish when zooming and scanning pages, but it is reliable and offers better overall functionality (Notes Plus does blow notability out of the water when it comes to the smooth zooming and page scanning). Also, notability is $1 as opposed to... $7, $8? I forget. Even if Notes Plus was $1 I wouldn't buy it again.
** Notability allows you to move the zoom preview anywhere and won't shift the zoom writer until the previewer goes off the viewable page.
I think Notes Plus would be a great app... but it has a few severe and critical flaws/glitches that make it unusable.
Why I stopped using Notes Plus:
1. Typing into a text box -- after so many lines, the text won't display on the screen (even though the shaded box shows that the text should be recognized).
2. When in writing zoom mode, you can't move the writing box around the page while keeping the writing area below. The writing area always adjusts to rest right below the zoom preview.
I am in a lot of math and science classes, so I need to constantly be referencing other equations and notes on the fly. If they are under the zoom box, I can't see what I am doing**. No good.
3. Even though notes plus does allow you select and resize text (awesome feature I wish notability would adopt to solidify it as the best note taking app out there), when resizing the text the program glitches and forgets the previous size of the writing.
Sometimes when resizing text, I will accidentally resize over existing text. To my dismay, when I try to undo the resizing, the program won't recognize the resize-action and will begin undoing previous states. When this happens, I have to erase ALL of the skewed text and any text it is obscuring. This can be catastrophic and is unacceptable.
4. Interface is awful. Even the clunky notability is more lucid.
5. Line heights when typing. There is no way to get the text to line up with the templates. This results in text going across lines and makes for really unpleasant-looking notes. This is, of course, is if the text even shows up in the first place.
Furthermore, they limit the configurability of margins, font-size, page size, etc to an excessive degree. If I don't want margins, let me not have margins.
6. When using the swipe motion (up and down), Notes Plus will think you are trying to access the previous/next page. As a result, you have to wait for the program to load the page, then swipe back, wait for loading, then start writing again. Keep in mind that this does not happen every once in awhile, it happens all the time. They need to consider a left to right swipe (which seems more natural when dealing with paper-like content), or some other method for switching between pages.
For these said reasons, Notability is my go to app. It is definitely a little more sluggish when zooming and scanning pages, but it is reliable and offers better overall functionality (Notes Plus does blow notability out of the water when it comes to the smooth zooming and page scanning). Also, notability is $1 as opposed to... $7, $8? I forget. Even if Notes Plus was $1 I wouldn't buy it again.
** Notability allows you to move the zoom preview anywhere and won't shift the zoom writer until the previewer goes off the viewable page.
Ditto the comments about Notes Plus. I used Notes Plus for quite a while. I had high hopes for it, but ultimately gave up on it for most of the reasons mentioned in the previous post. I currently use Notability, which has great functionality and seems to be very stable. The last time I checked Notes Plus could not due the following functions that Notability can do:
- search typed content of notes files even if the file is not open
- append multiple PDF files to a notes file
- automatically add pages while you are typing or entering handwritten notes, yet still allow reordering/inserting of pages
- not sure on this one, but Notability supports selecting handwriting and sliding it to a location on another page
All that said, Notes Plus is very capable and does some things better than Notability.
- search typed content of notes files even if the file is not open
- append multiple PDF files to a notes file
- automatically add pages while you are typing or entering handwritten notes, yet still allow reordering/inserting of pages
- not sure on this one, but Notability supports selecting handwriting and sliding it to a location on another page
All that said, Notes Plus is very capable and does some things better than Notability.
I really like the option in Notability to have a default note title or to affix the date or time to the note titles. I may just be overlooking it, but I wish Remarks had this option.
Okay ... I'm too used to NoteShelf's extremely nice interface to switch to anything else right now. But, I really really wished it had the ability to re-place, re-paste (whatever the correct technical term would be) the ORIGINAL image like Notes Plus. Notes Plus must keep a copy of the original image stored away ... and when you select it, it's ready to grab a corner and upsize, downsize, etc ... all from the original image ... even if it's been replaced and pasted a million times before.
When you're doing any sort of multiple photo layout, your first step is just getting the images on the page. After that, then you start worrying about placement and sizing them in a back-and-forth process, until you're happy with the results. Notes Plus is great at this sort of thing.
I do this all the time in a vacation journal, sample page shown below ... (my typical handwritten notes were removed from this demo page.)
When you're doing any sort of multiple photo layout, your first step is just getting the images on the page. After that, then you start worrying about placement and sizing them in a back-and-forth process, until you're happy with the results. Notes Plus is great at this sort of thing.
I do this all the time in a vacation journal, sample page shown below ... (my typical handwritten notes were removed from this demo page.)
The lack of tight Evernote integration is what I'm having difficulty with.
It's obvious that Microsoft is "withholding" OneNote handwriting support from iOS/Android, for good reason -- once Windows 8 hits the market, OneNote will be the strongest performer in the note-taking arena with its ability to recognize and search handwritten text.
I've been trying to craft my own solution by combining an iOS handwriting/notes app with Evernote, and then using Evernote's OCR capabilities to make my note collection searchable. Unfortunately, EN's OCR engine is only reliable in recognizing handwriting contained within JPG images, and not PDF files -- I say unfortunately because many iOS apps only allow you to export as PDF or some other non-JPG format.
My next issue comes down to the actual integration of apps with EN -- Penultimate is the only app that I can find thus far that gives you the option of actually overwriting an existing note in your EN account. This comes in very handy when I'm keeping, for instance, a Penultimate notebook titled "Voicemail" -- with Penultimate, I can continually edit/add to my single Voicemail notebook, and overwrite the "old" copy that's sitting in my EN account each time I upload the "new" one. That way I won't have 500 "Voicemail" notebooks cluttering things up. I have not found an app other than Penultimate that gives the option to overwrite an existing EN file.
That being said, I'm unhappy with Penultimate for a small handful of reasons, starting with its lack of a zoom feature as well as the humorously small size of each "page."
It's obvious that Microsoft is "withholding" OneNote handwriting support from iOS/Android, for good reason -- once Windows 8 hits the market, OneNote will be the strongest performer in the note-taking arena with its ability to recognize and search handwritten text.
I've been trying to craft my own solution by combining an iOS handwriting/notes app with Evernote, and then using Evernote's OCR capabilities to make my note collection searchable. Unfortunately, EN's OCR engine is only reliable in recognizing handwriting contained within JPG images, and not PDF files -- I say unfortunately because many iOS apps only allow you to export as PDF or some other non-JPG format.
My next issue comes down to the actual integration of apps with EN -- Penultimate is the only app that I can find thus far that gives you the option of actually overwriting an existing note in your EN account. This comes in very handy when I'm keeping, for instance, a Penultimate notebook titled "Voicemail" -- with Penultimate, I can continually edit/add to my single Voicemail notebook, and overwrite the "old" copy that's sitting in my EN account each time I upload the "new" one. That way I won't have 500 "Voicemail" notebooks cluttering things up. I have not found an app other than Penultimate that gives the option to overwrite an existing EN file.
That being said, I'm unhappy with Penultimate for a small handful of reasons, starting with its lack of a zoom feature as well as the humorously small size of each "page."
What about Outline+ ?
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outline+/id538029496?mt=8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apXEOw7xl6U
It is on sale this day (4.99 insted of 14.99)
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outline+/id538029496?mt=8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apXEOw7xl6U
It is on sale this day (4.99 insted of 14.99)
It seems that a common theme in this thread is the ability to handwrite notes, which Outline+ lacks
It looks interesting and the website indicates that they are going to add handwriting soon. Does it have enough potential usefulness to be worth getting it at $4.99?