iPad Pro 10.5 for University Note Taking?

[snowman1]

I am currently a medical student dealing with a lot of powerpoint and PDF slides. I wonder if I could go all digital with an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil to annotate on the powerpoint and PDF during lectures. And read all my notes from the iPad. Has anyone tried this? How well does it work? I don't plan to get an ASK as I have a 15 inch MacBook Pro at home and if I have to type a lot I would just use the MacBook Pro instead. Thanks for any recommendations and advices!

Fellow medical student here! You can most definitely go all digital.

During lectures: I use my iPad Pro 9.7" almost exclusively to annotate PDFs/powerpoints/other documents. Sometimes, I'll have my rMBP out just to reference some notes from the previous night's preparatory work, but other than that, I use only my iPad Pro. I prefer to use Notability for annotations, but Goodnotes is good too (each has their pros and cons).

Prep work at night: I use mainly my rMBP to take notes. Handwriting simply takes too long for me esp. with the large volume of material that is covered each day. I use OneNote to import PDFs/textbooks/readings and then type notes off in the margins. If there are certain things that require handwriting (drawing pathways, annotating diagrams), I use my iPad's OneNote app to draw them (and then the annotations quickly appear on my computer as well!).

 

[KarmaRocket]

I've been using One Note on my MBP for note taking however would I still be able to do the same on my iPP?

Yes. You can sync OneNote between desktop and mobile.

One reason why I use OneNote for note taking is mostly because it syncs across multiple platforms. Including Windows and Mac.

 

[darkgremio]

Field seller for one of the larger tech companies, lots of presentations and note taking on a daily basis. The iPad Pro 9.5 passed my needs in terms of a on the road productivity machine, but I found the Apple Pencil to be laggy, until the 10.5 came out. I would recommend this, taking notes on the 10.5 is A LOT smoother with the 120hz. screen.

If you are looking for full portability I would recommend AWS Workspaces. It's on the free tier as well, so you can use their VDI solution for free practically. Essentially AWS Workspaces has a native app for iOS that gives you the ability to have a desktop computer on your iPad and it works quite well with the smart keyboard. (Permitting you have internet, since the VDI is in the cloud)

 

[TomSolid]

Hi everybody! Interesting discussion going on here regarding note taking apps! I was looking in all of them actually reviewed them on YouTube too. I would go for GoodNotes, however Notes Plus combines a lot of features of GoodNotes and Notability and there is a very interesting app too! Feel free to check my YouTube channel to get an overview what apps suits you the best!