Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

My search for a (almost) perfect note-taking app is over

CristobalHuet

CristobalHuet

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 18, 2008
1,166
3
Montreal
Noterize 3.0 came out today (nicely priced at 2.99) and having just played around with it for the past 20 minutes, I can safely say a lot of us who have been looking for the one note taking app to rule them all will not be disappointed.

http://ax.itunes.apple.com/us/app/noterize/id364906681?mt=8

Best parts about this app that made me crave it once I read that AppAdvice review last week...What follows is my overly enthusiastic review. :D

-DROPBOX IMPORT AND EXPORT - brilliant. I'm a Db junkie, and apps like CourseNotes and iWork don't allow for easy import/export of documents. This does, and it even has box, google docs, and others that are supported.

-Easy PDF annotation inside a note set. Now I can paste in my professor's pdf's easily....there's a web browser similar to GoodReader's that lets you download files...and you can import from Db, box, etc...

-Highlighting/Freeform drawing - CourseNotes got highlighting right, but mo freeform drawing was a dealbreakeer for me. I like to doodle small imagers/graphs during lectures to help me better understand. The app lets you switch between text and pen modes easily. Another nice feature also present from CourseNotes is the ability to have a fullscreen text mode...some apps only let you make a text box (you have that option too, lets you make stickies and size them, etc). Haven't tried typing with a BT keyboard yet.

-Audio recording - Finally, I love the fact you can record audio in the background on a page by page basis (much like Evernote). Only downside is you can only get the audio off the iPad from iTunes doc sharing, not that big a deal anyway.

-Websnaps...clipping webpages is a nice nice touch, especially if you're a wiki-addict as I am! :p

One downside that AppAdvice pointed out is that PDF annotation isn't spectacular, meaning annotations may look a little blurry, from what I've seen at least. As a student, this doesn't bother me a lot, but if you're hardcore about annotating, stick to iAnnotate...Noterize does the job, but it's not the best option for this. Another is the lack of fonts in full screen text mode. You get more in text box mode...another thing that would be nice is the option to bold individual words, but with pen/highlighting, I guess this isn't a big deal.

The app exports in PDF format and imports, both PDF and PPT.

Overall, I hope I persuaded you to give the app a shot, especially if you're someone who's been unhappy with the current note taking choices out there.


Cheers! I hope I didn't come off as a shill (been a member here for two years now).:)
 
The biggest question I have is...have they built in a decent bullet/tab method?

All notetaking apps I've looked at seemed to have missed that.
 
iCheddar said:
The biggest question I have is...have they built in a decent bullet/tab method?

All notetaking apps I've looked at seemed to have missed that.
Click to expand...

From what I can tell it doesn't have a bullet method...the tab method on the other hand may work with a BT keyboard, though I'm not sure.

Having used Pages (Mac) for much of my past notetaking, I guess I never got used to the bullet method you're referring to, which is why I neglected to make any mention of it in my OP.

The dev has been very responsive to user feedback, and has delivered updates regularly....I'll try and get in touch with him, might be worth shot.

Sorry to let you down. If it's any consolation, Circus Ponies is making an iPad version of their Notebook Mac app, which has the bullet method you're referring to, so all hope for you is not lost. :eek:
 
How do you think the audio recording compares with Evernote... or better yet, SoundPaper?
I know SoundPaper is the best notes app hands-down for classroom use because at the rate that the professor or lecturer is speaking, you seriously do not have time to edit to add highlights, different colors or annotations. You just hope to type as fast as you can, or make quick drawings, as you record.
As demonstrated here: http://soundpaperapp.com/
What do you guys (with experience from either Evernote or Noterize... or even both) think?

EDIT: WOW... nevermind. Noterize blows it away. Downside: It's not as tailored to the audio/text sync as SoundPaper, which perfectly syncs words with audio, but you can scrub through the audio for Noterize... so SoundPaper becomes unnecessary at this point. This is definitely true.

Noterize > Evernote & SoundPaper

EDIT 2: Yup.
Noterize 3.0

- Record an entire lecture and Noterize will auto-split the audio and assign the various parts to the relevant pages. The app also has bookmark functionality to help you keep track of all the different topics within a course.
Click to expand...
 
Gosh I hope you're right lol

I've bought almost every major note taking app to use for the same purpose as you seem to be. A few days ago I bought Noterize and of course received the update today. I'm about to do some study and will be using it for the first time. I have CourseNotes, but one of the biggest let downs for me is the small image spec it has allowed.
 
iLuvMyMacToo said:
Gosh I hope you're right lol

I've bought almost every major note taking app to use for the same purpose as you seem to be. A few days ago I bought Noterize and of course received the update today. I'm about to do some study and will be using it for the first time. I have CourseNotes, but one of the biggest let downs for me is the small image spec it has allowed.
Click to expand...

I agree... I do have CourseNotes though, and I don't find it useful for lectures because there is no way to simultaneously record. That's a biggie for me... not sure how important it is for you, but Noterize is pretty feature-packed, one downside from the move from CourseNotes to Noterize is perhaps... a less graphical interface experience. Noterize just doesn't look as nice, but it's far superior in terms of the content it comes with.
 
I like Note Taker HD because it shrinks the writing to fit. Do the other programs do this? That is the killer feature for me, otherwise I can't write small enough with my finger to make more than a bunch of words fit on the page. Note Taker would be perfect if it added sound. What are your thoughts on this program?
 
Well, for me the perfect note-taking app should allow me to write equations and draw graphs conveniently, but I haven't found something satisfactory yet...
 
lillumultipass said:
Well, for me the perfect note-taking app should allow me to write equations and draw graphs conveniently, but I haven't found something satisfactory yet...
Click to expand...

Have you watched the video for the newest version of smartNote 1.4?

http://mysmartnote.net/

I picked it up for 99 cents last week - it was supposed to go up when 1.4 got approved though. The widgets that have math symbols can be placed at the top and might be helpful to you. Although, i don't see equation type of symbols on there when i just checked. You can get graphs to fill in on there - and you can save custom paper to use as templates in the new version.

However, for true writing i think that Note Taker HD is the way to go, but i obviously haven't used it in a math class!

ETA: found the math toolbar, the only thing is that the symbols are really really small. I'll play with it some more later.
 
Thanks for the recommendation. I bought it and think it's really good but it is missing a couple of small things. Offering .doc support would be nice. If it can handle PDFs, why not doc files? This is a bit annoying.

Overall this app is solid and for the price of $2.99 I'd buy it again. I plan on using this when taking meeting minutes for work.
 
Thanks for posting this, I have been looking for a good note taking app and had settled for Pages, but this is much more versatile!

I also agree with a previous poster regarding the Bullet/Tabbing, as a developer I like to tab and this app doesn't seem to do that very well.
 
Glad some of you guys like the app! The dev is really awesome, emailed him about an annoying qualm I had with the app and he replied to me within 20 minutes...says it can be fixed easily and quickly (font presets that get changed and lost between pages in a note set, but it will be fixed, no worries. :))

Really committed fellow, the app really has come a long way since version 1.0, judging by the changelog and past reviews.
 
@DaLurker

I may have found the perfect app for me, DocumentsToGo Premium. It does tabs, it does bullets, it even syncs with Dropbox. Woohoo!
 
Audio time code? Undo, Redo?

How is the audio time code? Like, when the audio is recording and you type, does it make a note of where in the audio track that note was taken?

Also, one of the big frustrations I have found is support for undo. Some good programs have had POOR undo support. And, why can't we have multi-undo, or better yet, undo, redo. I am so frustrated with Undo undoing to much...and then it is too late to redo, or undo the undo! Argh!!
 
The one thing keeping me from buying Noterize is that exporting PDF's with annotations, flattens the PDF so it isn't searchable, according to AppAdvice.com

I really like NoteTaker HD, but I wish the handwritting looked smoother. I wish I could zoom in Penultimate.

I have quite a few of the notes apps, and while each one has nice features, none are all in one app. From what I've seen/read, Noterize is really close, but I would need the PDF's to remain searchable when I export them after making notations.
 
Noterize looks great. I will give it a go as I have been searching for a way to keep my random thoughts organized. Thanks.
 
Noterize falls short in one important area, it is unable to set font for specific text. Instead if you change the font it changes for all text on a page. Not sure if this is a bug but it's annoying.
 
I suggest you guys email the dev your suggestions...he's very responsive and receptive to comments! :)

The Noterize website has a contact section.
 
My problem with Notarize is the flattening of PDFs. I want my annotations and highlighting to be integrated into the PDF (see iAnnotate PDF and the latest version Readdle Docs) so that they are accessible as annotations from other PDF readers without rasterizing the text.
 
Noterize=bloated and sucks. Runs like ass on my iPad when dealing with PDFs. Don't waste your money people.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back