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All iPads How do you choose between notes apps?

I'd vote for notability. years ago when in the same spot its main thing that pushed it over the top was a little menu option called support for left handed people. It rearranges things for lefties (palm rest methods friendly to right handers can be not so nice to lefties at times). Something lacking in others at the time. As I am left handed...it was nice someone though of us. If others changed and realize we lefties exist I do not know. Case of you get that one chance to impress a customer. If they wander somewhere else...they may not come back. Notability after a buy many years ago never had me want to leave it tbh.


Besides that over many years of updates and such I recall only 1 issue of an update gone awry. For reasons unknown I lost all local notes. Recoverable from my dropbox syncing with minimal effort really. Not sure if the apps update or some confusion with an iOS update also done around the same time. Since 2 variables I can't pick who was at fault. Given other issues in other areas with iOS update if pressed into a corner I'd say iOS though.

Features liked in notability include a variety of graphing paper options for notes. used for network and server diagrams, generic diagrams where I like some order and for fun stuff its where I keep my minecraft design ideas of late. Not sure if on others. Again at testing/picking others didn't have this by and large.
 
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RadioGaGa1984 said:
Favorite is still the Apple notes app and I also like notability.
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Will the apple notes app do what I am looking for in my post at the end of page 1?

That might be my deciding factor on getting one so any help from all is appreciated.
 
Ghost31 said:
This is a real first world problem to get frustrated about, but I can never decide which notes app I wanna use between Apple's and notability. I like writing in apple's a lot more when I'm jotting down notes as it looks like a real pencil, but there are very limited options and I can't write on top of pictures of pdf's, or use different color/lined paper, or do any kind of audio recording within the app. That's when I would have to switch to notability.

So I'll go do my thing in notability for awhile but then I feel like my I handwriting looks worse and I like the way things look in notes.app more, so I'll switch back to Apple notes for handwritten notes and I keep going back and forth for that. And it's a funny complaint to have and I know I'm just being weird about it, but I like having my ONE app I go to for things ya know? So I can have all my crap in one place and it's all just...right there. But to have some notes in one app and some in another is a bit annoying sometimes.

In ending my pointless freaking post, anybody else feel like this? Having difficulty choosing between apps and experiencing frustration trying to manage your stuff in both, but never being able to just use 1 fully?
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i too have most recently wanted to know all this. this is where i'm at.......

i want an app a can QUICKLY take hand written notes and doodles when my phone goes, then tidy these scribes up to a readable degree for all who might want to use later. All with the Pencil of course.

Onenote - i initially tried OneNote from recommendations here. I found it pretty good. did all i wanted, but in a less than fluid way. i found it's filing system and page set up a wee bit confusing to be honest. and its editing of hand written stuff wasn't too pleasant - couldn't chop and change and move and paste at all. couldn't directly print either, and i didn't like OneDrive space. it was a tad too much.

Notes - Apple's own app is great. great for typing, and wonderful for pencil sketching, but thats where it stops basically. you cant edit hand written stuff very good. cant intermix pre-drawn stuff with anything. cant mix fresh drawings with typed text. cant over draw/type onto each other. not very flexible at all.

Notability - must admit, the best, easiest and most logical system i've found. the cloud systems are full and good (i use drop box), sharing, emailing, printing etc are all instant and there. hand writing and typing are fantastic and are all editable and mixable together all the time. cutting/copying/moving sections of hand written notes or doodles is, well, a doddle. palm rejection is great, left handedness for me is good etc etc, I'm yet to find any downsides to it.
Quickly taking a brief, then quickly editing my scribbly notes better on the page is equally fast and easy. security is good. i like the page lines and templates too.

App testing is subjective and up to you, but costs might get in the way.
Personally, i want a SIMPLE non complicated do-it-all app.

this is the app for me i think.
 
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sjleworthy said:
Notability - must admit, the best, easiest and most logical system i've found. the cloud systems are full and good (i use drop box), sharing, emailing, printing etc are all instant and there. hand writing and typing are fantastic and are all editable and mixable together all the time. cutting/copying/moving sections of hand written notes or doodles is, well, a doddle. palm rejection is great, left handedness for me is good etc etc, I'm yet to find any downsides to it
this is the app for me i think.
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Did you get auto backup working from Ipad? It only works for me from my Mac and one downside is that if you lock a folder, it won't backup but as soon as you open it to use then the note will go upto Dropbox which may not be what you want. Else I agree, it is a very good app.
 
emembee said:
Did you get auto backup working from Ipad? It only works for me from my Mac and one downside is that if you lock a folder, it won't backup but as soon as you open it to use then the note will go upto Dropbox which may not be what you want. Else I agree, it is a very good app.
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yes, my notes back up automatically to the main dropbox (and visually in front of my eyes) when i've finished note taking in the ipad
 
Cnasty said:
What app does everyone recommend for uploading agendas and having the ability to mark them up for meetings?

Example: I attend a lot of meetings for my job and they always supply paper agendas. Do you just take a pic of the agenda and upload it so you can mark that up with notes on the actual agenda and save for later retrieval?

Looking for ways I would really use the iPP in my daily workflow versus the notebook I carry around with scribble on paper
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PDF Expert, Notability, Noteshelf, Goodnotes and other apps can do this. I have done this for a while with PDF Expert. You could try Documents 5 for this, it is from the same firm as PDF Expert (Readdle) and its free.
 
sjleworthy said:
yes, my notes back up automatically to the main dropbox (and visually in front of my eyes) when i've finished note taking in the ipad
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Mine won't, unless I need to turn off iCloud? Tried to contact them but not responsive, so have to stick with Mac backup.
 
I dont have icloud activated so i couldnt say. But even so, manual backup is only a single click.

How about completely de-activating autobackup in the ipad app, then re-activating and configuring it with a cold boot thrown in? Sometimes works.

Also, out of grumpy old age and cynicism, i always hit the back-up button manually rather than completely rely on auto backup whatever software i use as i've been stung too many times before
 
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I am a teacher and I mix and match between OneNote and Notability. Apple Notes is nice, but doesn't do the job for me, I mostly use Notability, it syncs with dropbox and can open pdf versions of documents and write on them and re-export to dropbox or leave in the Notability file system. OneNote is good cross platform and for sharing with other OneNote users, it however doesn't print out well, so if printing afterwards is something you will want or need to do, you may have issues there with OneNote.

I have a bunch of other apps, as I was always trying to find the app that did what I wanted and handled a stylus well (iPad air), but that would vary based on stylus sometime which app worked better. I never really used notability until I got the iPP and Apple Pencil, it works flawlessly.

Either way, try them out and find what works for you and go with it.
 
username: said:
Give up handwritten notes. Handwriting is over. Typing is the future.
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I know I may be a little late to the party, but really? I feel like the opposite is true. These handwriting apps are getting better and better at OCR to the point where you won't need to type, and if you wanted to, you could convert your handwriting to text.

Also, why would I type if I need to make graphs, solve math and engineering problems, etc? Typing is way too limited.
 
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