iPad Note Taking as good as surface pro?

[nixiemaiden]

I am 39 and taking marketing classes. I am old school, I took my iPad once and trust me.... nothing better than taking note on a real note book with a real pen. I still have my notebook with me in a drawer. When you have things into digital they get deleted and lost.

Take a notebook, improve your writing, improve your drawing, it will help you in the future big time and it cost a few dollars, do not brake and worry less.

I mean, if we had iPads in the 80's and notebooks today, notebooks would be the most efficient and fun way to take notes. iPads brake, get stolen, battery issues... buah!

For me, it really depends on the format of the class on how I prefer to take notes. Just as an example, a majority of my professors would create power point presentations for the lecture notes and what I would end up doing is printing them out 4 to a page, 3 hole punching them, and sticking them in a binder and taking notes directly on the slides. This resulted in me walking around sometimes with multiple 3 inch binders on days where I had back to back classes with no time to go to my car in between...and it sucked. Now a days, you can take notes and sync them to the cloud. If you are worried about them deleting, sync them to multiple places.

Don't get me wrong for classes like math and physics, I preferred the good old fashion notebooks. But most of my computer science professors went the route of power point or pdfs and for those classes...it sucked.

 

[rei101]

For me, it really depends on the format of the class on how I prefer to take notes. Just as an example, a majority of my professors would create power point presentations for the lecture notes and what I would end up doing is printing them out 4 to a page, 3 hole punching them, and sticking them in a binder and taking notes directly on the slides. This resulted in me walking around sometimes with multiple 3 inch binders on days where I had back to back classes with no time to go to my car in between...and it sucked. Now a days, you can take notes and sync them to the cloud. If you are worried about them deleting, sync them to multiple places.

Don't get me wrong for classes like math and physics, I preferred the good old fashion notebooks. But most of my computer science professors went the route of power point or pdfs and for those classes...it sucked.

I rather carry stuff, I am from the 80's/90's so I am used to. As long everything stick into your brain... good. There is where the information need to be, in that cloud.

 

[iChe]

My favorite app for note-taking is also GoodNotes. It got even better recently, because it now supports handwriting recognition. I made a small video to show this, in case you're curious. Check out the video description for a sample of an actual conversion from handwritten notes.

 

[Mr. Buzzcut]

The important thing is for you to learn. You could take notes on paper and then translate the lecture into graphics and that way you will learn twice. Compare your notes with the book while creating a clean version on your iPad.

I am telling you because when I was studying multimedia back in 1998 I had a Powerbook 5200 and a Powermac 9600, the top of the line back then and I ended up being a technician more than a multimedia artist.

Today some of my friends were head of design at Nike, many other with Grammys and so on, and I am stuck doing renders in an small office at 39 years old. Still, I am taking marketing classes today again and iTook my iPad but by the second class I took my notebook and took note for real.

Do not get stuck into the technology, focus in what you are learning. be awesome with a pencil! and artist and a professional need no tool. Focus in yourself and be friends of your teachers and talk to them after class and after school and you will learn way more. No iPad required.

Isn't that the whole point? For the tech to step out of the way? Why not let me write hand written notes on my ipad in a manner mostly like pen and paper?

Folks need to stop throwing up examples of current stylli that are half ass at best. A Wacom type pen is completely different and allows you to write quickly and accurately without zooming, scrolling, or otherwise fussing about the special tricks other stylli require to be useful.

I also have the opposite opinion of digital data. If you have a decent backup plan your data will be safe through many events which physical media would not such as fire or flood.

Agree with the points about education itself.

 

[pragmatous]

Honestly the surface pro 3 is pretty awesome. I want to buy one but I have no use for it. I keep thinking of ways I'd use it but I can use my mac for that which is just as light as the surface pro 3.

The surface pro 3 is a laptop replacement. Not a tablet in the true sense of the word.

So if you get the surface pro 3 you'll probably find yourself either using your current laptop or replacing it with the surface pro 3.

The surface pro 3 is pretty awesome and if that's what you want to do go for it.

I tried taking notes for a period of time on my iPad. I used the basic third party stylus and tried most of the top rated note taking apps, but after a while I returned to my non-digital notebooks because I was never pleased with this way of doing it.

I played with the new Surface Pro 3 after reading about it's handwritten note-taking ability. I really liked what I saw, but I don't know if I want to purchase the device and switch eco systems just for the note taking.

Has there been real improvements in iPad hand written note taking?

Thanks!

 

[negroswamy]

My favorite app for note-taking is also GoodNotes. It got even better recently, because it now supports handwriting recognition. I made a small video to show this, in case you're curious. Check out the video description for a sample of an actual conversion from handwritten notes.

Hey man I've actually watched ur videos and have been a goodnotes user even before I found your videos - fell in love with it 5 minutes after using the free trial old version w blue logo (I rarely ever buy apps so that is really saying something). I actually even made a video and linked one of ur jot script videos in the description!

What do u think abt goodnotes for the iPhone 6+? Is it doable? It's the only app I use everyday and I make almost all of my decisions based on whether I can use that app the same. For instance I use the ipad 3 and a cheap fiber mesh stylus (tried jot script & didn't like it - do u think the new jot pen is a major improvement?). I have tried goodnotes on my friends iPad mini & it works great! I will maybe get the iPad mini when they update it & donate my ipad 3. If goodnotes can work just as good on the iPhone 6+ then I will not even get the iPad mini & just use the iPhone 6+ for everything!

Any suggestions?

 

[iChe]

Hey man I've actually watched ur videos and have been a goodnotes user even before I found your videos - fell in love with it 5 minutes after using the free trial old version w blue logo (I rarely ever buy apps so that is really saying something). I actually even made a video and linked one of ur jot script videos in the description!

What do u think abt goodnotes for the iPhone 6+? Is it doable? It's the only app I use everyday and I make almost all of my decisions based on whether I can use that app the same. For instance I use the ipad 3 and a cheap fiber mesh stylus (tried jot script & didn't like it - do u think the new jot pen is a major improvement?). I have tried goodnotes on my friends iPad mini & it works great! I will maybe get the iPad mini when they update it & donate my ipad 3. If goodnotes can work just as good on the iPhone 6+ then I will not even get the iPad mini & just use the iPhone 6+ for everything!

Any suggestions?

Honestly, I don't know. I still have a hard time imagining how big the 6 Plus is. I will only buy an iPhone 6 but I will definitely go to the Apple Store and have a look at the other ones. I might be able to get GoodNotes on it and try.

For me, I still need an iPad. I want to have something resembling a paper page, it's better to read an annotate PDFs, and to take pages of notes. I never take notes “on the go”. But we'll see about this 6 Plus! I'll get back to you on this.

 

[RCGMac]

The hard thing is that this response serves two purposes.

1. Microsoft's handwriting recognition is the best around as far as I can tell. But it's still garbage. I've tried it in many different scenarios and my name "Charles R******" still comes up as something along the lines of "Can O Toole". I wouldn't trust this system for any kid of production based note taking. Frankly, you will get better accuracy typing on the screen of most devices then handwriting recognition. I can type about 50 WPM on the screen of an iPad. The larger screen on the surface pro I bet would get me closer to physical keyboard.

I think it depends on what your needs are. If you need your handwriting translated into text then all handwriting recognition is garbage, but getting better, regardless of the platform. If you need just a digital notebook the Surface Pro and Note lines are great. I have an SP and use it as a digital notebook and a place to store all of my electronic notes as I got tried of losing sheets of paper and remembering which legal pad I wrote something down on. The Wacom in the SP and the Note makes writing almost as close as writing on physical paper. If Apple ever made an iPad, maybe iPad Pro??? with Wacom it would be fantastic, expensive as hell but fantastic!

 

[vmflapem]

I've been using surface pro 3 for 4 days now and I absolutely love it.
Compared to an iPad, you can do more productive things on an SP3 as a student.
Also, note taking is much better on surface pro than ipad, which is understandable because ipads were not meant for note taking.
So I think it depends on your personal usage. I needed a tablet that I can take with me to school every day and take notes in lectures, and for my usage, SP3 was ideal

 

[masterpace]

Surface Pro 3 - the best for handwriting

I've been using surface pro 3 for 4 days now and I absolutely love it.
Compared to an iPad, you can do more productive things on an SP3 as a student.
Also, note taking is much better on surface pro than ipad, which is understandable because ipads were not meant for note taking.
So I think it depends on your personal usage. I needed a tablet that I can take with me to school every day and take notes in lectures, and for my usage, SP3 was ideal

I second that. I own a Surface Pro 3 since its release (back in June). I attend some part-time graduate courses in management. We have a lot of Power Points, PDF's to annote, lots of team work. Handwriting with OneNote is very accurate and feels very natural. PDF annotation just works. Also, I can share my notes (in PDF format) with my buddies. I'm very happy for what the Surface Pro 3 is.

However, I would not pick the Surface Pro 3 if handwiring is not a requirement.. As a sole "laptop replacement" or "tablet", Surface Pro 3 lacks. A MBP 13 retina combined with an iPad Air remains the best combo.

 

[ratsg]

I'll tell you what I did that worked for me, I purchased the lightning->USB adapter (AKA camera kit) and then plugged in my favorite USB keyboard. It works great.

There are plenty of bluetooth mini-keyboards out there, if you are OK going that way. Plenty of people do, I have never seen one that I could actually do any typing on.

 

[Carlanga]

I'll tell you what I did that worked for me, I purchased the lightning->USB adapter (AKA camera kit) and then plugged in my favorite USB keyboard. It works great.

There are plenty of bluetooth mini-keyboards out there, if you are OK going that way. Plenty of people do, I have never seen one that I could actually do any typing on.

this thread is about note taking w pen like input not keyboards