All iPads Any Other Disappointed Notability Users?

[SnowCrocodile]

I have been using Notability since 2019. My iPad Mini 5, which I still own, is grandfathered, since I had orignally purchased Notability before it changed to a subscription model. I have since bought an iPad Air, which for that device, I pay a $20 annual subscription. The grandfathered version only works with the single device. I don't consider $20 a year an unreasonable fee for what I get. However, if they started to jack up the subscription price or force me into a monthly subscription payment, I probably would get rid of Notability and move to a different app, probably one discussed in this forum thread. I am an Engineer who is NOT an artist. I use Notability to hand-write notes on my iPad that I keep forever, but it primary usage is to Mark up PDF's with my Pencil (Air) or Crayon (Mini). It is great for that use, and very simple and intuitive. FYI, for a Civil Engineer in the transportation infrastructure business, PDF plan sheets and report documents have almost completely replaced paper or printing, at least at the designer level.

I am also in engineering and find that the best app for me is OneNote. I not only have to mark up drawings, but also take photos and field notes.

Apple Notes is good for short to medium size notes, but chokes when you try to export a note with many photos and handwriting.

Notability and Goodnotes take longer to add photos and resize them and put them in the desired place in the note. The workflow is just better in OneNote.

Also helps that we use O365 at work and OneNote seamlessly syncs with desktop.

For personal use, I primarily stick with Apple Notes. Simple enough and free.

Between Goodnotes and Notability.... well they both now suck in their own ways.

Notability handled its initial transition to subscription in an extremely bad way, taking away license from paid users who updated to the new version. They did relent later, after the massive criticism, but it for ever soured me on them. However, they are the more rounded app, with not only handwriting but also a decent typed text functionality and checkmarks.

At the same time Goodnotes jumped at the opportunity to get Notability users by promoting itself as "no subscription" app only to introduce subscription model later. But they did learn from Notability's mistake and handled it a lot better. The problem for me is, GN is a handwriting-first app. Its typed text feature is very basic. I also don't like a notebook based system, I mostly take quick notes.

 

[philosopherdog]

this big tech playbook is so tedious.

 

[saudor]

I've kept my IPA file for 9.2.6 (2019 version) and it's still working fine on iOS18. I do still have the last version of 10.x archived but haven't tried it yet. Been using it since 2012 and other than iOS13 turning into a crash fest on an Air2, it's been rock stable since iOS14.

might be worth a downgrade if you bought it before they went to sub