Different strokes for different folks, as they say.
Exactly but many people seem to be forgetting this. There are still a lot of issues that we need to resolve before everyone will be back to handwriting again. And that's another issue: people are moving away from handwriting, they have started typing (American and British education programmes are now more aimed at learning kids to type than to write for example). That means to have to (re)learn how to write. Handwriting requires practice, if you don't write that much your handwriting will decline (ask any of the older generation that went from handwriting to typing).
Regarding small writing, if left to my own devices I'll write so small that I have a hard time reading it back; with Notability (and other apps, I'm sure) there's a "magnifying box" for writing.
That wasn't what I meant. This has to do with sensitivity of the screen and the tip of the pen/pencil (these tools are not styli as they are more complex than just a stick). Displays expect an object the size of a fingertip, not the size of a nib or ballpoint tip. Side effect of this is that it won't recognise small tips or small movements. If you write really small that's where the problem is: most of the strokes won't be recognised as they are too small to be detected. This improves with the current bluetooth pens though.
To give you an idea: my writing is so small that I cannot write with anything larger than an F nib (=fine nib). On both the iPad Air 2 and my Surface Pro 2 I have to write as if I'm writing with a B nib (= broad nib) which is the same thing I had to do when I was using a Palm PDA. It's like switching from writing on paper to writing on a whiteboard in class. It's fine with small amounts of text but extremely annoying when note taking. It usually means I won't be able to keep up. There are several topics on The Fountain Pen Network forums about nib sizes that show I am definitely not the only one; there are many like me. Another thing to note: the average ballpoint pen is like an F nib (F used to be a normal size but nowadays this is M (medium)).
The benefit was that I still had small writing on the page, but I could actually read it, because I had been forced to make larger, more legible strokes in the first place.
Yep and having to force write something is unpleasant and fatiguing to do. It's fine for small amounts but not larger amounts. In that case you are better off with the keyboard, especially if you lack in writing skills (like when you haven't done it all that much lately).
If you want to copy and paste or highlight then you need to change "tools," it's true, but that'd be the same with paper.
The app needs to support it and you need to use a pen. If you use a keyboard (physical or the built-in one) it becomes really cumbersome. That's why we need proper pen support and that's why the Apple Pencil is so important.
Regarding writing on a smooth surface, I prefer little to no resistance when I write. People who borrow my pens have noted how fluidly they write and seem to like it, so I can only assume most others feel similarly... regardless, have you tried writing with the iPad Pro and the Pencil?
As you put it: "Different strokes for different folks, as they say. ". I don't like writing on Rhodia paper all that much as it is too smooth. Compared to glass that paper is like sanding paper. I have tried various pens and nibs on various devices and none I liked because they are too smooth. Rubber on glass is evenly unpleasant as there is too much resistance. Writing on the Wacom tablet can be scratchy at times. I'm eager to try if the Pencil is different from all of those.
Again, app-dependent. In Notability (and probably others) you have multiple choices with the Pencil tool; aside from color and line thickness, there's line variation.
No, this is not app-dependent as no app supports it. Line variation and colour is as far as it goes. What I'm talking about are things like how ink dries up (there can be a huge difference between the wet ink and after it dried, some inks change colour over time) but also how the ink flows. Normal ink clogs up at certain spaces so you'll have a large concentration of ink. This causes the colour to become darker. The areas where there is less ink are lighter. This difference is called shading and some inks do this more than others. It's like a two tone effect. There are some calligraphers who hate this behaviour, they want the colour to be consistent. Those are the ones who benefit from digital, the others don't. The kind of paper also affects this behaviour. On some papers it is rather easy to get shading, on others it is nearly impossible. The same with nibs. The only thing that comes close to the above is the brush tool (with water colouring) in most of the apps but it requires more effort (you have to go over it a few times just like you would when painting).
There is just far more to it than line thickness, colour and line variation that nearly all of the current apps offer but we're not seeing it anywhere. I'm sure that'll change in the future when people get back to writing again.
When it comes down to it, writing on a device like the iPad will never be as intuitive as uncapping a pen and writing on a piece of paper. If you can overcome the little things that get in the way, then I think you'll find that going digital offers many benefits over pen/pencil and paper.
People are forgetting one big problem: people stopped writing and started typing. Education is being altered to favour typing instead of writing. This leads to more kids being unable to write properly. Why would you use something like a pen if you can't use it or if you dislike using it? That's the biggest danger to digital note taking: lack of handwriting skills. The response you get from most people is that their handwriting looks so terrible that they rather type. When they see someone with nice handwriting they do get jealous. They are not aware of the fact that they can get nice handwriting if they put some effort into it.
