All iPads Best note taking app?

[Tagbert]

I’m starting my PhD and looking for a note taking app for my new iPad Air. And since I’ll also be using my MacBook, I’d like the notes to sync so that it doesn’t matter which device I’m using or have in class.

As you can see there are lot of opinions about note taking apps and there are a lot of apps out there. Note taking is such a personal activity that you’ll need to look at what kinds of notes you want to take (typed, handwritten, voice, voice2text) and how you want to organize them and if you want to export them. Almost all of the suggested apps will sync using iCloud or similar services and will give you Mac, iPad, and iPhone versions. You will probably want to try some different ones out. You may want different apps for different purposes. You may want one app for class notes and a different app for research material.

There are also a lot of message threads around here on note taking and on different notes apps. We are blessed with an abundance of notes apps and most of them are pretty good.

 

[Nhwhazup]

Definitely a lot of options out there to use an iPad and hand write your notes. I know it sounds old fashioned but studies have shown that you retain the information better when you hand write your notes.

 

[spiderman0616]

Definitely a lot of options out there to use an iPad and hand write your notes. I know it sounds old fashioned but studies have shown that you retain the information better when you hand write your notes.

I accidentally discovered this in college. I was doing really poorly in Western Civilization, which I think is a bear at every college, and had to drop out. The next time I took it, the professor told us that all of her lectures, terms, and exams would come straight out of the study guide that she gives us at the beginning of each unit. I decided to take sparse handwritten notes during class just of the main points, then would go fill out the study guide in pen, then would study my handwritten notes every day for the 3 or 4 days before the test.

I aced every single exam she gave and got an A. In fact she made a point to comment on how much great information I gave in each answer. I'll even say that by the end of the semester I had stopped even listening in class because I already had a tried and true method to study the material on my own.

This is why I still take work meeting notes by hand and also why I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Apple Pencil and apps like OneNote and DayOne. It really does cause me to perform better at work, and even when I'm organizing stuff at home.

 

[Nhwhazup]

I accidentally discovered this in college. I was doing really poorly in Western Civilization, which I think is a bear at every college, and had to drop out. The next time I took it, the professor told us that all of her lectures, terms, and exams would come straight out of the study guide that she gives us at the beginning of each unit. I decided to take sparse handwritten notes during class just of the main points, then would go fill out the study guide in pen, then would study my handwritten notes every day for the 3 or 4 days before the test.

I aced every single exam she gave and got an A. In fact she made a point to comment on how much great information I gave in each answer. I'll even say that by the end of the semester I had stopped even listening in class because I already had a tried and true method to study the material on my own.

This is why I still take work meeting notes by hand and also why I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Apple Pencil and apps like OneNote and DayOne. It really does cause me to perform better at work, and even when I'm organizing stuff at home.

Yes, yes, yes.

 

[81Tiger04]

As you can see there are lot of opinions about note taking apps and there are a lot of apps out there. Note taking is such a personal activity that you’ll need to look at what kinds of notes you want to take (typed, handwritten, voice, voice2text) and how you want to organize them and if you want to export them. Almost all of the suggested apps will sync using iCloud or similar services and will give you Mac, iPad, and iPhone versions. You will probably want to try some different ones out. You may want different apps for different purposes. You may want one app for class notes and a different app for research material.

There are also a lot of message threads around here on note taking and on different notes apps. We are blessed with an abundance of notes apps and most of them are pretty good.

Most likely typing during class (via MacBook) and then adding handwritten notes at a later date (iPad). I'll also be reading and marking up lots of research papers.

 

[dsusanj]

Most likely typing during class (via MacBook) and then adding handwritten notes at a later date (iPad). I'll also be reading and marking up lots of research papers.

Do look at PDF Expert (paid subscription but largely functional wihtout it), Highlights, LiquidText and the likes for annotating, plus Zotero or Bookends as reference managers. Notability and GoodNotes will not integrate with reference managers.

Somehow I don’t find GoodNotes and Notability good for typed notes and text editing but YMMV.

 

[adrianlondon]

I scribble notes in an artists pad (ie decent paper quality, blank pages) then within a day or two annotate, just using Preview on my laptop, those notes onto the PDFs we're given.

Of course, this only works because for my master's we're given PDFs for almost every lecture.

I find taking notes on paper allows me to concentrate on the lecture, scribbling diagrams as appropriate, rather than wasting time with software. I know that I'd just spend more time playing with the note-taking app Also, typing it up acts as a quick revision of what I wrote (plus, if I don't annotate the slides very quickly I can't read my own handwriting ...)

I don't own an iPad.

 

[81Tiger04]

I scribble notes in an artists pad (ie decent paper quality, blank pages) then within a day or two annotate, just using Preview on my laptop, those notes onto the PDFs we're given.

Of course, this only works because for my master's we're given PDFs for almost every lecture.

I find taking notes on paper allows me to concentrate on the lecture, scribbling diagrams as appropriate, rather than wasting time with software. I know that I'd just spend more time playing with the note-taking app Also, typing it up acts as a quick revision of what I wrote (plus, if I don't annotate the slides very quickly I can't read my own handwriting ...)

I don't own an iPad.

It would be nice if we got the lecture notes. Unfortunately, I don’t know yet.

 

[81Tiger04]

On a simile note, does anyone have recommendations for screen protectors? I know these can be somewhat personal preference. But I’m looking for something that makes note taking enjoyable and that doesn’t distort the display brightness or color.

I’ll be highlighting and taking notes as I read a lot of PDFs.

 

[Nhwhazup]

On a simile note, does anyone have recommendations for screen protectors? I know these can be somewhat personal preference. But I’m looking for something that makes note taking enjoyable and that doesn’t distort the display brightness or color.

I’ll be highlighting and taking notes as I read a lot of PDFs.

I have tried many for both my iPhone and iPad. For the iPad, I prefer the film protectors. My absolute favorite is Power Support anti glare. It has just enough to give a nice feel to the pencil, cuts the glare but adds hardly any graininess to the clarity of the screen. If you have an 11 inch, it’s out of stock, unfortunately. And they don’t know when they’ll get any more. They do have them in stock for the 12.9 iPads.

 

[81Tiger04]

I have tried many for both my iPhone and iPad. For the iPad, I prefer the film protectors. My absolute favorite is Power Support anti glare. It has just enough to give a nice feel to the pencil, cuts the glare but adds hardly any graininess to the clarity of the screen. If you have an 11 inch, it’s out of stock, unfortunately. And they don’t know when they’ll get any more. They do have them in stock for the 12.9 iPads.

Thanks. Unfortunately, I have the 10.9” iPad Air.

 

[Nhwhazup]

Thanks. Unfortunately, I have the 10.9” iPad Air.

The Power Support Crystal Clear is also very good and in stock. Doesn’t have the feel for the pencil but super clear and lasts a long time.

 

[BornAgainMac]

I switched from Evernote to Apple Notes and it was a huge upgrade in speed and all my devices just have it automatically it and it seems to do everything I wanted.

I have tried other commercial products like GoodNotes, OneNote, Soho Notes, and something from CirclePonies called Notebook or something. Never tried Notability though.

 

[LibbyLA]

On a simile note, does anyone have recommendations for screen protectors? I know these can be somewhat personal preference. But I’m looking for something that makes note taking enjoyable and that doesn’t distort the display brightness or color.

I’ll be highlighting and taking notes as I read a lot of PDFs.

I don’t do much with handwritten notes, but I use OneNote for work, side gig, personal stuff, etc., because it syncs across Windows, iPadOS, iOS, and Android. My notes are available on every device I use and I think it’s free.

Also, I store PDFs in OneDrive and mark them up from there. They’re accessible from all my devices. I haven’t worked with any large or really complex files, but it might be worth trying.

As for screen protectors, I’m a fan of the Ambison matte glass screen protectors. They don’t show wear from the pencil and they don’t have the ”sparkles” look that the plastic ones have.

 

[MacNerd01]

I personally use Notability, I like the feel of Apple Pencil with it, it has lots of customization options, and it can do audio recordings. Only downside is the price imo

 

[GerritV]

I've noticed the same thing... I think Notability's pencil feel is indeed superior to GoodNotes' but most people anyways use GoodNotes. It think it must be on account that it's free compared to Notability... well, before it started offering a free version anyways. Online free apps / tools are normally the most used ones in these situations so I think it gave GoodNotes a good head start

IMHO the best writing experience, by a distance, is the one in Noteshelf 2.

Next to that, it also has:

1- exclusive tools like a felt tip pen, a graphite pencil, a calligraphy fountain pen and a chisel tip marker
2- audio recording
3- notebook analogy interface with customisable color
4- custom templates
5- large users community

To me, Noteshelf is #1 in the notetaking apps realm.

 

[81Tiger04]

No, there’s no recording in GoodNotes. OneNote does offer recording on the iPad, but the playback is not synced to your notes as it is in Notability.

Since you have enrolled into a PhD, while both GoodNotes and Notability are best in class when it comes to handwritten notes, I suggest you look into using apps like Obsidian, Craft, Notion, Logseq, and possibly Bear, as they will help you build your PKM system. Linking notes will be essential, as will be work with tons of written text. This is not where GoodNotes and Notability excel.

Also, for annotating science journal articles, apps like PDF Expert, Highlights, LiquidText etc. would be more useful than GoodNotes or Notability as they offer better annotations export (I assume here that you will want to process your annotations further) and some of these work nicely alongside reference management apps like Zotero and Bookends where you can store the PDFs (both available on the Mac and the iPad). OneNote is not great here; while you can insert PDF printouts on the page, you cannot export annotations easily.

My point is that GoodNotes and Notability are both excellent for handwritten notes and some/most of studying, but for a PhD you will probably need to add another app or two into the mix.

Looking back over this thread, this post makes a lot of sense. Much of what I will be doing is reading articles, highlighting excerpts in them, and making notes. This will occur predominately on my iPad. Perhaps one of the PDF apps you mentioned would be best?

And then for taking notes while in class, I could just use Google Docs since I will be typing on my MacBook.

 

[pdaholic]

Apple notes recently started duplicating my notes when I would edit them (potentially some issue induced by my workplace profile that tries to block iCloud). I started using Simplenote, and it works great for, well, simple notes. Sync is excellent and doesn't require iCloud.

 

[cosmogrammar]

No, there’s no recording in GoodNotes. OneNote does offer recording on the iPad, but the playback is not synced to your notes as it is in Notability.

Since you have enrolled into a PhD, while both GoodNotes and Notability are best in class when it comes to handwritten notes, I suggest you look into using apps like Obsidian, Craft, Notion, Logseq, and possibly Bear, as they will help you build your PKM system. Linking notes will be essential, as will be work with tons of written text. This is not where GoodNotes and Notability excel.

Also, for annotating science journal articles, apps like PDF Expert, Highlights, LiquidText etc. would be more useful than GoodNotes or Notability as they offer better annotations export (I assume here that you will want to process your annotations further) and some of these work nicely alongside reference management apps like Zotero and Bookends where you can store the PDFs (both available on the Mac and the iPad). OneNote is not great here; while you can insert PDF printouts on the page, you cannot export annotations easily.

My point is that GoodNotes and Notability are both excellent for handwritten notes and some/most of studying, but for a PhD you will probably need to add another app or two into the mix.

+1. PhD student here, recently started using Obsidian because the Evernote UI was starting to annoy me w/ its Pro Version ads, and I wish I had switched sooner.

There are levels to knowledge organization for sure, and Obsidian (if you use it w/ zettelkasten method) is a level up. Plus so many plug-ins that integrate with other apps like Readwise, Zotero, Kindle... It's a rabbit hole, but I've found it fun.

Obsidian is incredible but doesn't play that nicely with handwriting or mobile use (though there are good workarounds). I've heard Notion and OneNote are better for that.

 

[Isamilis]

Looking back over this thread, this post makes a lot of sense. Much of what I will be doing is reading articles, highlighting excerpts in them, and making notes. This will occur predominately on my iPad. Perhaps one of the PDF apps you mentioned would be best?

And then for taking notes while in class, I could just use Google Docs since I will be typing on my MacBook.

I use MarginNotes 3 (in iPad and Mac) and never look back. It's really good for reading books and academic papers, as you can make mind map and cards from your highlight and notes. It's also one time purchase. LiquidText has also similar functionalities - but it's subscription based.