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Best Note Talking App for iPad Pro and Apple Pencil?

zaneliu said:
Quick question guys. How do these apps organize your notes? If I'm taking notes for college courses and I'd like to folder them by date and category like separate notebook styles, do these apps do that? I guess I could even do this straight in the notes app with new folders.
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That's why I loved Noteshelf. One can create different notebooks for different classes and add/remove pages ad nauseum. There are other apps I am sure, but I loved Noteshelf best. Unfortunately, the dev hasn't updated it for the iPad Pro + Pencil. :/
 
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zaneliu said:
Quick question guys. How do these apps organize your notes? If I'm taking notes for college courses and I'd like to folder them by date and category like separate notebook styles, do these apps do that? I guess I could even do this straight in the notes app with new folders.
Click to expand...

I find Notability organization very intuitive. You can create folders / dividers, etc. but the nice thing is the speed in flipping through them, very fast. Good Notes organized by "Subject Book" also, but each one is separate so you have to navigate in and out which is a little more time consuming. You can probably do it with the stock Notes app, but I prefer the lined paper options that the others have. OneNote also has a lot of organization options and can also sync to your desktop (they have a free PC version).
 
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timdafweak said:
That's why I loved Noteshelf. One can create different notebooks for different classes and add/remove pages ad nauseum. There are other apps I am sure, but I loved Noteshelf best. Unfortunately, the dev hasn't updated it for the iPad Pro + Pencil. :/
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This is what does it for me, if the app has already incorporated support for the IPP + Pencil, it tells me a lot about future support for the app as well. I probably wouldn't consider any others at this point as the current ones will now just be getting better.
 
kevroc said:
This is what does it for me, if the app has already incorporated support for the IPP + Pencil, it tells me a lot about future support for the app as well. I probably wouldn't consider any others at this point as the current ones will now just be getting better.
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Which is why I stay away from notability.

It they can't update the pencil support like GoodNotes already has (treating it as a smart stylus), - no thanks.
 
I use several apps depending on what I am doing:

Notability - PDF / document organization, management, and markup. I sometimes also just use the new built-in PDF markup feature of the Mail app.
Goodnotes - Handwritten note-taking using the Apple Pencil. I particularly like that you can text search on your handwritten notes, and that they are organized in 'books'.
Evernote - Typed notes for work. I have a work Evernote account that syncs automatically with my work desktop machine. I take my iPad into meetings.
Notes - Personal typed notes / non-critical information that I want to refer to, like shopping lists, todos, quick sketches, and similar.
1Password Notes - Secure encrypted notes of confidential information.

They each have their strengths.
 
biosci said:
Wait, doesn't Notability support the iPP? I see full resolution there.
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Yep, they support it.

But they don't support the pencil as a "smart stylus," which goodnotes does.

With goodnotes, only the pencil will make a pencil mark - your finger or inadvertent touch will not.

With notability, if you lower your hand on the screen and your pinky touches the screen first - it makes a pencil mark.
 
David58117 said:
Yep, they support it.

But they don't support the pencil as a "smart stylus," which goodnotes does.

With goodnotes, only the pencil will make a pencil mark - your finger or inadvertent touch will not.

With notability, if you lower your hand on the screen and your pinky touches the screen first - it makes a pencil mark.
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Gotcha. I hope they update it soon though. It's sorta a pain to be jumping between so many note taking apps! I love testing them but I'd prefer to stay dominant on one.

But I guess either way for me, they all eventually wind up in Evernote.
 
biosci said:
Gotcha. I hope they update it soon though. It's sorta a pain to be jumping between so many note taking apps! I love testing them but I'd prefer to stay dominant on one.

But I guess either way for me, they all eventually wind up in Evernote.
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From the Notability Q&A on their web site:

"Notability currently includes automatic palm detection and variable width ink. These features work great with any type of stylus including your finger. Because of this, we do not have immediate plans to integrate with any bluetooth stylus."

So that's not looking good.
 
But the fact that they even HAVE a Mac OS app still has me hoping they still back the community fully! 🙂 So let's hope that GoodNotes plans the same thing!
 
i like the organization in goodnotes and the ability to search for written words is kind of killer. but compared to notability there is a little delay or something I can't really describe. When i quickly write a word it seems like goodnotes automatically makes some adjustments. That's driving me nuts... Anyone else notice that?
 
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iToph said:
i like the organization in goodnotes and the ability to search for written words is kind of killer. but compared to notability there is a little delay or something I can't really describe. When i quickly write a word it seems like goodnotes automatically makes some adjustments. That's driving me nuts... Anyone else notice that?
Click to expand...
What you may be seeing is the strokes on screen being updated as predictive curve data is replaced with actual curve data. You can see this happen in Apple's Notes app if you pay close attention.
 
ZombiePete said:
I also have taken to using OneNote after trying several of the others; the organization of notebooks and syncing to OneDrive along with making my handwritten notes searchable really put it over the top for me. Your caveat about the inserted images/documents is true, though, and one annoyance that I'm having to learn to live with, though that's not something I do often enough for it to be a deal-breaker.

I like it a lot, though.
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I really like onenote too, but I can not get onenote to search and find my handwritten notes I wrote with the apple pencil; does this work for you? Did you have to do any additional steps to get it working?
 
Dan1970 said:
I really like onenote too, but I can not get onenote to search and find my handwritten notes I wrote with the apple pencil; does this work for you? Did you have to do any additional steps to get it working?
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So my understanding is that you have to sync your notebook to OneDrive in order for the handwriting search to work; I guess they must analyze it when it's online periodically.
 
Yes my notebooks are on Onedrive; I can use them on the ipad and laptop. If I draw some words on the laptop with the mouse, I can search them and even convert to text works.

If I use apple pencil to write in onenote on the ipad, it's not searchable and can not convert to text.

Does this work for you though?
 
I'm now using Notability for meeting notes at work & Paper 53 for leisure use. Apple Notes app is fine, but I'm already using that for other general stuff & I'd prefer to have a go-to app dedicated for work use.

Notability ticks my boxes as:

- can switch between typing & writing / drawing very easily
- lots of pen/typing options, but not too many
- good selection of ruled / margin / grid templates to write on (missing from Apple Notes?)
- I've not had any issues with non-Pencil marks, seems pretty good to me on palm/finger rejection
- the filing / category organisation works for me, all notes easily visible whilst filed into folders
- lots of sync options, I'm syncing via iCloud and backing up to Google Drive
- Mac OSX app, iPad and iPhone all in sync, I always have at least one of those with me

I'd not heard of GoodNotes, albeit without a desktop app, but I like the idea of being able to search my notes, will look at that now - thanks.
 
Picked up Goodnotes yesterday. I now have Notability, Noteshelf and Goodnotes. Will try to put together a comparison soon if there is interest.
 
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Dan1970 said:
Yes my notebooks are on OneDrive; I can use them on the ipad and laptop. If I draw some words on the laptop with the mouse, I can search them and even convert to text works.

If I use apple pencil to write in onenote on the ipad, it's not searchable and can not convert to text.

Does this work for you though?
Click to expand...
Converting handwriting to text is not an available feature on the iOS version of OneNote; however writing with my Pencil and then syncing my notebook to OneDrive would then make my handwritten notes searchable. TBH, I actually stopped using OneNote once I realized that MS was analyzing my handwritten notes like that; not because I fear anything nefarious per se but because I simply don't want a third-party accessing my notes like that. I've switched to Notability even though I can't search my handwritten notes with them. :/
 
ZombiePete said:
Converting handwriting to text is not an available feature on the iOS version of OneNote; however writing with my Pencil and then syncing my notebook to OneDrive would then make my handwritten notes searchable. TBH, I actually stopped using OneNote once I realized that MS was analyzing my handwritten notes like that; not because I fear anything nefarious per se but because I simply don't want a third-party accessing my notes like that. I've switched to Notability even though I can't search my handwritten notes with them. :/
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Yes I know it's not available on iOS but it is on the Windows version on my laptop.

Strange that my handwritten notes are not searchable; can't seem to find any other report of it neither.
 
Dan1970 said:
Yes I know it's not available on iOS but it is on the Windows version on my laptop.

Strange that my handwritten notes are not searchable; can't seem to find any other report of it neither.
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Maybe your handwriting is just too bad. 😉

Seriously though, I can't explain the discrepancy between our experiences. It was working well for me; it even recognized words that I thought wouldn't be due to my often fairly poor handwriting.
 
ZombiePete said:
Maybe your handwriting is just too bad. 😉

Seriously though, I can't explain the discrepancy between our experiences. It was working well for me; it even recognized words that I thought wouldn't be due to my often fairly poor handwriting.
Click to expand...
So I have figured it out now...It does work initially when I create a new notebook on my ipad, but when I then open the same notebook on my windows laptop it breaks; I can not search the handwritten text after that anymore. Not on the ipad and not on the laptop. Nice.
 
I think OneNote and Notability is a good choice for other ipads or supported pens...but not having a full support AP in no go for me. Main problem is the palm rejection and constant accidental marks....so Goodnotes is best for now using Pencil and what I need it for.
 
cshk9574 said:
I think OneNote and Notability is a good choice for other ipads or supported pens...but not having a full support AP in no go for me. Main problem is the palm rejection and constant accidental marks....so Goodnotes is best for now using Pencil and what I need it for.
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Same here. I've settled on GoodNotes for now. I like that it can ignore everything but the Pencil, and that I can search my notes.

I'm hoping for an Evernote-friendly solution, though.
 
I use NotesPlus. So far they have not released an update for the iPad pro and pencil, but the apple pencil works very will with the existing app. I'll sit tight and wait for their update, but it is still a very good note taking app in its current state.
 
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