Notes Plus vs. Note Taker HD

[mkitchen]

I am looking for people who have actually used both and can say which they prefer. I am also considering Noteshelf and UPad.

I mainly need to use it to write down and sketch out ideas. I do flow charts and some minor wire framing of websites and know both of these have shape support that should be helpful.

I like the zoom to write feature. It looks like Note Taker HD's ink lag's behind the stylus from what I have seen of videos. Is this true?

Notes Plus reviews talked a lot about crashes and losing data, anyone experience this?

The only one I can try before I buy is UPad which I think the writing is fantastic, but there are no shapes. The zoom in and out is very slow, and there were some complaints about crashes losing data in the reviews.

Once again, this is mostly for getting my ideas down on paper, not keeping up with a professor so I have no interest in paper and pen, i'm getting rid of that.

Thanks for any thoughts!

 

[mkitchen]

no one?

 

[AlxRymnd914]

I don't own both, but this is something I wrote about note taker hd somewhere else.

"I can't believe they didn't mention Note Taker HD. I bought it on launch day when I got my iPad 2. I also got the targus stylus from best buy. I've since been using the combo everyday to take notes in college. I use this for my classes varying between notes in the format of English, calculus 3, digital logic, and computer science. I am able to accurately take notes for all of these subjects and can even upload a sample if anyone wishes.
Here is a video made by the creator of the app. He starts out by explaining the basic functionality and then progressing to the more advanced features that improve the experience. This program also handles importing PDFs and annotating them. You can add text boxes, shapes, graphs and more to any open file.
I think anyone who is serious about productivity on ipad should take a look at this app."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qZdK6xXIzY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I use the shapes regularly and they work great and are customizable. Also, I don't notice any lag while taking notes.

 

[reputationZed]

I've been playing around with Note Taker HD, NotesPlus, Penultimate, and Upad for about a week, and started playing around with NoteShelf last night. I haven't settled on one yet but Note Taker HD and Note Shelf seem to be taking the lead. I really like UPad but it's crashed on me several times. Notes Plus is a great looking app but I don't like the way it handles erasing. Between Note Taker HD and Note Shelf I would have to say that Note Shelf if the better looking app, but Note Taker HD seems to be have an in terms of how smoothly features are implemented, despite a somewhat clunky interface.

 

[mkitchen]

I've been playing around with Note Taker HD, NotesPlus, Penultimate, and Upad for about a week, and started playing around with NoteShelf last night. I haven't settled on one yet but Note Taker HD and Note Shelf seem to be taking the lead. I really like UPad but it's crashed on me several times. Notes Plus is a great looking app but I don't like the way it handles erasing. Between Note Taker HD and Note Shelf I would have to say that Note Shelf if the better looking app, but Note Taker HD seems to be have an in terms of how smoothly features are implemented, despite a somewhat clunky interface.

Thanks for responding back. The developer for notes plus said their should be a normal eraser in an update by the end of the week. Did you find that slight lag in Note Taker HD annoying at all?

 

[reputationZed]

Thanks for responding back. The developer for notes plus said their should be a normal eraser in an update by the end of the week. Did you find that slight lag in Note Taker HD annoying at all?

I hadn't really noticed it lagging any more than any of the other apps.

 

[Maaz]

I use notability.

 

[mkitchen]

I use notability.

Thanks for the rec, but i am looking for the apps primary purpose to be handwriting notes.

 

[apollostern]

Upad is good

I've been using Upad since I got my iPad2. The zomm feature is really great and I really like that it can import .PDF. Unfortunately, it does not support Dropbox or iDisk. Is there any note taking app that does?

 

[Treebark]

I have switched between Notes Plus and Note Taker HD since both have come out. For awhile Notes Plus was the one I used because it had some extra features but since then Note Taker HD got those features and then some.

Between the user interface I consider NThd better, and its ink seems smoother to me. Plus I like supporting buying from the programmer (if you don't know, he pretty much invented the spreadsheet but since they didn't patent software back then, he didn't make much off of it...obviously Microsoft made tons off of Excel). NP just seems a little clunky in comparison and I did have some crashing. I have not noticed NThd lagging in ink any.

Though I personally don't find NThd's shapes all that intuitive or useful, they are there and nice. I guess I have used lines quite a bit, and text along a line. But not so much circles and such.

For wire diagraming or flow charts I think NThd's shapes wold be too slow, but maybe once you use them it would go faster. iThoughts HD is a good flow charting app.

Havent' used noteshelf or upad. I will say the have the necessary feature (for my uses or note taking on the ipad) of the zoom box that shrinks your ink on the screen. I can't see using penultimate and the others (which I have) for anything too serious.

For me NThd is what I will use unless something comes along and is better of course.

 

[mkitchen]

Thanks Treebark, that helps a lot!

 

[porcupine8]

FYI, Notes Plus is on sale for $1.99 today only. At that price I'm definitely going to try it out! So far I've only tried the free version of UPad and neu.Notes, though I haven't really had a chance to give either a good workout.

 

[Mad Mac Maniac]

there are some good insights here
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1104681/

 

[porcupine8]

Ok, I'm trying out notes plus and I feel like I must be missing something. Is the palm pad supposed to disappear every time you go into closeup mode? I can't figure out how to keep it there, and the app isn't very useful if you can't use both at the same time.

 

[El3ctronics]

Ok, I'm trying out notes plus and I feel like I must be missing something. Is the palm pad supposed to disappear every time you go into closeup mode? I can't figure out how to keep it there, and the app isn't very useful if you can't use both at the same time.

You can't write below the closeup mode so it's basically like a big wrist protection below it.

 

[porcupine8]

You can't write below the closeup mode so it's basically like a big wrist protection below it.

For some reason it's not working that way for me. My wrist winds up making all sorts of marks, and triggering other multitouch gestures and things. Maybe I should email the devs if that's not how it's supposed to work.

 

[ksmith80209]

I've tried Note Taker HD, Notes Plus, and NoteShelf. Note Taker's UI is unintuitive (for me) and feels very much like it was created by an engineer - feature heavy and design light. Notes Plus is nice, but I found the vector-based ink to slow down and get laggy with lots on the screen. I never used the shapes or recording much, so those were non-factors for me. NoteShelf is the one I've been using regularly. I love the UI - clean and easy to use - and the app never slows down. I also find the manual zoom box advance/carriage return to be faster than the auto version on Notes Plus and Note Taker HD. Although those are automated, I found the time I spent hunting for where to start my next letter ate into any time I saved.

Update: here's a quick blog post I wrote about my notes experiences. Humbly submitted for your review... http://www.rkccc.com/rkccc/2011/4/6/notes-on-notes.html

 

[Evgenyy]

For some reason it's not working that way for me. My wrist winds up making all sorts of marks, and triggering other multitouch gestures and things. Maybe I should email the devs if that's not how it's supposed to work.

Sounds like you have multitasking gestures enabled and they interfere with the wrist protection area. Once I switched those off, I don't have any problems anymore.

 

[Evgenyy]

I've tried Note Taker HD, Notes Plus, and NoteShelf. Note Taker's UI is unintuitive (for me) and feels very much like it was created by an engineer - feature heavy and design light. Notes Plus is nice, but I found the vector-based ink to slow down and get laggy with lots on the screen. I never used the shapes or recording much, so those were non-factors for me. NoteShelf is the one I've been using regularly. I love the UI - clean and easy to use - and the app never slows down. I also find the manual zoom box advance/carriage return to be faster than the auto version on Notes Plus and Note Taker HD. Although those are automated, I found the time I spent hunting for where to start my next letter ate into any time I saved.

I agree with the above, although, I've started using UPAD instead and so far it has been fantastic. Zoom area is also much better implemented than other note taking apps IMO.

 

[ksmith80209]

Hmm... Just downloaded UPAD — it looks pretty nice. Smooth pen, zoomed mode, easy note management. Cool.

 

[ksmith80209]

Hmm... Just downloaded UPAD — it looks pretty nice. Smooth pen, zoomed mode, easy note management. Cool.

Strange — UPAD seems to "skip" or miss the stroke I'm making a lot. Back to NoteShelf.

 

[ksmith80209]

You might also want to give "eNote Taker" a try... It's kind of like Penultimate but with zoom. Seems like a promising start.

 

[reputationZed]

I've tried Note Taker HD, Notes Plus, and NoteShelf. Note Taker's UI is unintuitive (for me) and feels very much like it was created by an engineer - feature heavy and design light. Notes Plus is nice, but I found the vector-based ink to slow down and get laggy with lots on the screen. I never used the shapes or recording much, so those were non-factors for me. NoteShelf is the one I've been using regularly. I love the UI - clean and easy to use - and the app never slows down. I also find the manual zoom box advance/carriage return to be faster than the auto version on Notes Plus and Note Taker HD. Although those are automated, I found the time I spent hunting for where to start my next letter ate into any time I saved.

Update: here's a quick blog post I wrote about my notes experiences. Humbly submitted for your review... http://www.rkccc.com/rkccc/2011/4/6/notes-on-notes.html

Nice review of Note Taking apps on the blog. Are there any plans to review bagpipe apps?

 

[ksmith80209]

Nice review of Note Taking apps on the blog. Are there any plans to review bagpipe apps?

I've been working on a post about bagpiping apps for quite some time now. It's really moved beyond the concept of "post" and more on to "compendium". Hopefully it will be ready soon after they release the "John Madden Bagpipes 2011" app later this year.

 

[Ipadtraveler]

Notetaker HD v Noteshelf

Noteshelf is a great app and I have been using it successfully for a while. However over the last week, I have switched to Notetaker HD. The newest update contains many features that I am finding useful ( I.e. templates and custom backgrounds). Also the inclusion of "shapes" is great ( ex timestamp, calendar and schedule template) that can be filled in by writing by hand or with stylus or typing in the information. Noteshelf has better integration with Evernote, but overall I think Notetaker HD is the better App for the moment. . I have no doubt that Noteshelf will improve in it's next update. I look forward to improvements of each product. As I save (file) my completed notes as pdfs in Notebooks or Goodreader (two other must have apps) and on my laptop, I am not wedded to any particular handwriting note app.