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Note talking + Stylus on your iPad

Jedi5

Jedi5

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 16, 2009
575
34
North Burbs, IL
For those of you who use a note talking app on your iPad...

Do you still carry around a paper notebook as well or did the Ipad note taking app pretty much replace the notebook for you?
I'm looking into some note taking apps but I'd like to hear some feedback
as to whether paper is still needed. I guess you iPad can always act up where paper comes in.

As for the stylus, how well do they work?
Are they pretty spot on and follow the motion of your hand in writing?

How easy would it be to either break the stylus or your iPad screen using one?
This question is more towards kids. Lot of kid apps out there where a child can practice their penmanship but using their finger. I'd like to get a stylus which my son can also use to practice his writing but I'm weary of how easy it would be to ruin the screen.

Thoughts?
 
For not taking I use Note Taker HD and a griffin stylus. I hate the pogostick it's a horrible sponge at the end of a stick where the griffin is rounded and smooth.

I have switched completely from paper to these tools. Although I feel douchie sometimes for using them in meetings.

I've tried other apps, but I think that note taker HD wins with the precise editing options
 
I use a combination of Notes+ and PDF Expert.

I use notes+ to take written notes, draw diagrams, etc. There is a lot of power and flexibility in this app with shape recognition and vector drawings, the developer is very responsive. This app drops to 1.99 once a week. Stay on his tweets. www.notesplusapp.com

PDF Expert is a high-end PDF annotation app (as the 9.99 price indicates). All annotations are preserved when moving the file to your computer (which can't be said of other apps which either destroy annotations or make them permanent and non-editable when transferred to a computer). www.readdle.com

Both apps let you draw (with a stylus) or type (with the iPad keyboard). PDF Expert has some great syncing features with dropbox and several other online services. Notes+ is getting that in an upcoming update.

Edit: Oh and I use the Acase/Targus/Boxwave stylus (they are all the exact same stylus, but with different logos on them for the respective company).
 
I have tried Note Taker HD, Notes+, Penultimate, and Noteshelf.

I actually bought Penultimate before I bought the iPad. I wanted to have some software ready to go when I bought the iPad, you see. It is a good, simple app, but its feature set was too limited to start out with. It has since added several features, but I still think of it more as a non-serious doodling app.

Note Taker HD was my second handwriting app. It is powerful, but has a bit of a clunky interface, and the drawing/writing is not as smooth as some of the other apps. Still a very good app, though. It actually allowed me to do away with paper notebooks. I love the magnified writing portion of the screen, and they did the "auto-advance" in this portion of the screen right. This app is the baseline against which I judge other handwriting apps.

Notes+ is an app that I never quite got into. I was intrigued by all the stuff it could do aside from handwriting, especially the audio recording. But it wasn't as good at handwriting as Note Taker HD, so I stopped using it pretty quickly. In particular, it lacks (lacked?) a "magnified writing area" at the bottom of the screen. That worked for me, and as Notes+ lacks (lacked?) it, I gradually drifted back to Note Taker HD. Lately I have wanted to try it again, though, to see if anything has changed.

Then I found Noteshelf, and I was really pleased with it. I thought its "magnified writing area" was good enough, even though it wasn't as well-executed as Note Taker HD's. It was prettier, too, plus it had the ability to export notebooks to Evernote and Dropbox directly.

So, currently, I use Noteshelf, but I could be convinced to switch again if I needed to.


EDIT: I actually think I misremembered. Notes+ has had a "close-up writing mode" that nevertheless rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. I think I will have to go try it again to see if it is any better.
 
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College Student

I use my iPad with Note Taker HD and a Targas Stylus. It works perfectly for my note taking needs as a college student. Have tried/bought Penultimate and Notes Plus, but although penultimate looked the prettiest, I could only write 6 or so lines a page which isn't ideal. Notes Plus I tried and pretty much just hated as it's edit mode didn't work for me being left handed (same problem with penultimate) and it's delete function or rather the incredibly frustrating back-and-forth-line-drawing-over-something-to-delete-it function assured I wouldn't try that again for a long, long time. While it does have audio notes, I didn't have any use for them as I can read my notes way faster than attempt to listen to a professor. If you're left handed especially, but even if you're not I highly recommend trying Note Taker HD first, the other two were for my purposes a waste of money because I couldn't use them. That said all of them seem to take several hours to get used to/fast with (including Note Taker HD). Good luck
 
I'm a college student and have been using my iPad to take notes in class for about a semester and a half now. I have a pogo sketch and have used it for as long as i have had the iPad. It works but not that well and I will have to replace it soon because the foam tip is falling apart.

Last semester I used smartnote to take notes on and it had some nice features but the lack of a zoom box made it difficult to use and the recordings were not all in one list no matter what notebook you were in. That made it hard to find the one you were looking for.

This semester I'm using Notes+. I like the zoom box for writing and the way recordings are assigned to each page which makes them easier to find and read with the notes. However the handwriting is not very smooth.

I have yet to hear of an app that everyone loves everything about. You just have to look at what is most important to you and what will bother you the least. This may take a few tries to find out but once you do you'll most likely not have to take paper with you.
 
Thanks all for your responses.

I wasn't asking so much for a top rated note taking app...

I want to know if your note taking app replaced your need to carry a paper notebook as well.
Do you take notes on a paper as well as your iPad or is paper no longer needed for your needs?
 
Erkenntnis said:
I have tried Note Taker HD, Notes+, Penultimate, and Noteshelf.

I actually bought Penultimate before I bought the iPad. I wanted to have some software ready to go when I bought the iPad, you see. It is a good, simple app, but its feature set was too limited to start out with. It has since added several features, but I still think of it more as a non-serious doodling app.

Note Taker HD was my second handwriting app. It is powerful, but has a bit of a clunky interface, and the drawing/writing is not as smooth as some of the other apps. Still a very good app, though. It actually allowed me to do away with paper notebooks. I love the magnified writing portion of the screen, and they did the "auto-advance" in this portion of the screen right. This app is the baseline against which I judge other handwriting apps.

Notes+ is an app that I never quite got into. I was intrigued by all the stuff it could do aside from handwriting, especially the audio recording. But it wasn't as good at handwriting as Note Taker HD, so I stopped using it pretty quickly. In particular, it lacks (lacked?) a "magnified writing area" at the bottom of the screen. That worked for me, and as Notes+ lacks (lacked?) it, I gradually drifted back to Note Taker HD. Lately I have wanted to try it again, though, to see if anything has changed.

Then I found Noteshelf, and I was really pleased with it. I thought its "magnified writing area" was good enough, even though it wasn't as well-executed as Note Taker HD's. It was prettier, too, plus it had the ability to export notebooks to Evernote and Dropbox directly.

So, currently, I use Noteshelf, but I could be convinced to switch again if I needed to.


EDIT: I actually think I misremembered. Notes+ has had a "close-up writing mode" that nevertheless rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. I think I will have to go try it again to see if it is any better.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. I've decided to take a look at Note Taker HD and Noteshelf after reading your post.
 
I've tried nearly all of them, but I've gravitated towards to noteshelf due to the ways you can sync the notes, i.e., dropbox, itunes, etc.
 
contacted said:
Has anybody tried Noterize?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyQoAw-sQr4

Don't see any reviews in youtube...
Click to expand...

Yep, I've tried them all. Noterize isn't bad, has really good sync/share options, but with no zoom feature, the page content is limited and the actual inking isn't very smooth.

Notes Plus isn't bad also, but it updated its zoom interface not long ago resulting in cutting the screen in half. Also, rendering pages is pretty slow.

I like Noteshelf, it has lots of great features, especially in sync/share, but it's zoom function and inking isn't as good as Notetaker HD.

IMHO, Notetaker is the most functional and robust. It lacks only in the area of cloud sync/share. But, in reality, you can export in jpg or pdf by email or open as pdf in any supported app on the iPad (goodreader, evernote, etc). Overall, this is the best app for me.

Jedi5 said:
Thanks all for your responses.

I wasn't asking so much for a top rated note taking app...

I want to know if your note taking app replaced your need to carry a paper notebook as well.
Do you take notes on a paper as well as your iPad or is paper no longer needed for your needs?
Click to expand...

To answer your exact question, I don't use paper notebooks anymore. I combine Notetaker HD with Evernote to sync between my iPad, iPhone and Macbook. I am always within arms reach of one of them.
 
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Has anyone seen details on....

Has anyone heard of any enhancements to Evernote that would add this functionality. It feel like this is one option that may entice me to paying the fee for a premium account. It seems like I could use evernote in conjuction with Notetaker HD and jsut save the PDF in evernote (I think)
 
seajay96 said:
Yep, I've tried them all. Noterize isn't bad, has really good sync/share options, but with no zoom feature, the page content is limited and the actual inking isn't very smooth.

Notes Plus isn't bad also, but it updated its zoom interface not long ago resulting in cutting the screen in half. Also, rendering pages is pretty slow.

I like Noteshelf, it has lots of great features, especially in sync/share, but it's zoom function and inking isn't as good as Notetaker HD.

IMHO, Notetaker is the most functional and robust. It lacks only in the area of cloud sync/share. But, in reality, you can export in jpg or pdf by email or open as pdf in any supported app on the iPad (goodreader, evernote, etc). Overall, this is the best app for me.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your response. 1 function that's important to me is audio recording, if that's the case would you recommend Notes Plus?
 
Jedi5 said:
Thanks all for your responses.

I wasn't asking so much for a top rated note taking app...

I want to know if your note taking app replaced your need to carry a paper notebook as well.
Do you take notes on a paper as well as your iPad or is paper no longer needed for your needs?
Click to expand...

I work in education, and I replaced paper notebooks for an entire semester with Note Taker HD.

I won't say that I never took notes with pen and paper. Pen and paper is quick and instantly ready for action in a way that an iPad app isn't, because pen and paper don't need to be launched, or have their notebooks named, and so forth. So sometimes, I used pen and paper. But for when I knew that I was going to be handwriting notes, I used my iPad for the most part. And I did reduce the amount of paper notes I took greatly.
 
Mcookky said:
Has anyone heard of any enhancements to Evernote that would add this functionality. It feel like this is one option that may entice me to paying the fee for a premium account. It seems like I could use evernote in conjuction with Notetaker HD and jsut save the PDF in evernote (I think)
Click to expand...

You could email your handwritten notes from Note Taker HD to your Evernote account, sure. But you don't need a premium account to save PDFs. I drop PDFs into Evernote all the time and I'm not a Premium user.
 
I just tried notehself and it is really good, i am wondering if there are any PDF programs like noteshelf? Meaning the flexibility of annotations, I'd like to make some notes and stuff while my professor is going over a PDF file in class. iAnnotate is OK, but I want something more like noteshelf, or if there is anyway to load a PDF onto noteshelf?

Thanks,
 
How natural is handwriting on an IPad? Do you guys have to hover your hand above the screen when writing? I've heard some apps have "wrist protection". Is it any good?
 
For the last two....I generally hover over the screen and not use the wrist protection. Takes a little getting used to, but it's better than the wrist protection, IMHO, but I'm a lefty.

Writing with styli on the iPad is fairly natural, but it depends on the stylus and whether you have a screen protector or not. I really didn't like the skinny Pogo Sketch, but the Boxwave (Targus and others are exactly the same) stylus is much closer to an actual pen. Also, the rubber bubble tip is much more durable than the sponge. In terms of smoothness, I've found it very smooth on a matte screen protector, whereas on the naked glass, there is a little more friction.

Ultimately, it's up to your taste.
 
Jedi5 said:
For those of you who use a note talking app on your iPad...

Do you still carry around a paper notebook as well or did the Ipad note taking app pretty much replace the notebook for you?
Click to expand...
The iPad has a few wonderful apps but I still prefer paper for scribbling notes. When I had an android phone I'd take paper notes, photograph them with the autofocus camera and then upload it to evernote for future reference. It was a very convenient system but we're still waiting to see if the 1MP iPad camera will be good enough for actual productiivty or autofocus scanning.
 
Works okay. I've been trying to use it on my iPad for a while. It like learning to wear glasses when you really don't have to. Ironically, I'm in that line of work too :)
 
I just tried Noteshelf after reading this thread, and I love wrist protection mode. You can rest your hand on the screen as you write and it feels really natural and comfortable. Cant wait to get my stylus from Amazon.
 
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