Digital Notes, Adonit, LiveScribe, Apple Pencil

[MilleDav01]

I was thinking about getting and iPad Air 3 (When It Comes Out) and if it doesn't include the Pencil, which I feel like it won't; however, does anyone have experience with the Adonis Jot Touch, either good or bad? I was also looking at not getting a stylus and getting the LiveScribe solution. I think my only problem with both is that I prefer writing with a pencil in general, but If I want digital notes I can't be a picky person.

Yes, theres the iPad pro, but personally as nice as it is, I don't see the attraction besides the bigger screen, if it had more pro features (I.E. had an OS X variant that made it more Pro). But I guess I'd consider it. I have a nice $400 best buy gift card that I got from trading in my old iPhone 6 Plus and about $50.00 in reward certificates.

My only other option I guess would be to look at the Surface line of tablets, but I'd prefer to stay in the Apple Ecosystem, not that I have a lot media wise, but I like that everything is linked and I don't need to have to worry about passwords and notes being everywhere.

Any input would be great, Also any suggestions that I have not thought of would be fantastic.

 

[hovscorpion12]

The Adonis Jot Touch is a great stylus to use. I use it with my iPhone and used it with my iPad Air 2. 2,000 pressure and fine point. I have the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil and to me, it's the best stylus second to Samsung's S-Pen. Extremmely accurate precision writing or drawing.

 

[Krevnik]

I'm not a fan of the fine tipped styluses on the Air 2 because of how poorly they work in most apps. Stuff like the Jot Touch with an SDK can kinda sidestep it, but I just use a Jot Pro at this point because it just works with whatever app I am using. I haven't tried Livescribe because of the price you wind up investing. Since you need special marked paper for the tech to work, it means having their stuff on hand to take notes, and added bulk. You do get hard copies of the notes though.

For notes themselves, I'm partial to Evernote, OneNote or Paper (currently digging Paper since I tend to map ideas, and it scratches a good itch there). Evernote and OneNote's key bits are around organization, embedded content, and the like. Very powerful, but also require some management. There are also apps that replicate the notebook style which I don't fully care for, but exist (Notability and Notes Plus being ones I've tried). Paper tries to be a blank canvas but doesn't try to replicate physical notebooks either, so it is the most intuitive for me. I use it even more now that you can throw in an image for annotation and have text notes. I think the main thing I miss from Evernote and OneNote is web clipping. I'd love the ability to have an Instapaper/Pocket like view of an article available from my spaces. But in general, the more something tries to replicate physical notebooks, the less I like it in practice, despite being heavy on being able to sketch and hand write my notes.

I should add that you can look at Carbo, Evernote and OneNote for a particular feature: Take photos of your paper notes and convert them into digital notes you can organize. This may be one way to go if you simply want digital copies and have no real desire to wean yourself off paper notebooks. It is also a lot cheaper than Livescribe.

 

[sracer]

I have 3 different styli that I use with my iPad Air 2.

Bargains Depot Rubber tip stylus - This stylus has a nice weight, longer than most, and a smaller rubber tip. I use this for quick sketching and diagramming. Cheap enough to have a few in various places for easy access.

Adonit Jot Mini/Classic - This stylus offers a nice fine point, and I use it primarily for detailed notes and diagramming.

DotPen - This is a fine-tipped powered capacitive pen. Nice feel, nice weight. Easy to use, no pairing required. I use this for handwriting, more serious drawing/illustrating.

Notes:

• None of these styli support pressure sensitivity nor palm rejection.
• All of these work with all apps in iOS. I like the freedom of being able to use ANY app, not just those that support a particular pen.
• Instead of relying on palm-rejection, I use a simple cotton glove with the thumb, index, and middle fingers cut off as an "artist glove" when I want to be able to rest my hand on the iPad.

 

[zhenya]

Honestly if stylus support is a key factor to you, buy the iPad Pro. No stylus comes even close on the older devices. Or buy a Microsoft Surface.

(I've owned nearly every Adonit stylus, iPad 4, Air, Air 2, and a couple of Surface devices).

 

[ddoyle777]

Honestly if stylus support is a key factor to you, buy the iPad Pro. No stylus comes even close on the older devices. Or buy a Microsoft Surface.

(I've owned nearly every Adonit stylus, iPad 4, Air, Air 2, and a couple of Surface devices).

Agreed.

 

[nalbagli]

I feel that if note taking is important to you just stick to the Pro or I would look to the Suface Line, my main reason to use an iPad as a student is note taking and I tried most of Adonit and other good styluses, and even though they where pretty decent for taking ocassional notes, it's not even close to the Pencil or the Surface expierence.

 

[mjs402]

I was thinking about getting and iPad Air 3 (When It Comes Out) and if it doesn't include the Pencil, which I feel like it won't; however, does anyone have experience with the Adonis Jot Touch, either good or bad? I was also looking at not getting a stylus and getting the LiveScribe solution. I think my only problem with both is that I prefer writing with a pencil in general, but If I want digital notes I can't be a picky person.

Yes, theres the iPad pro, but personally as nice as it is, I don't see the attraction besides the bigger screen, if it had more pro features (I.E. had an OS X variant that made it more Pro). But I guess I'd consider it. I have a nice $400 best buy gift card that I got from trading in my old iPhone 6 Plus and about $50.00 in reward certificates.

My only other option I guess would be to look at the Surface line of tablets, but I'd prefer to stay in the Apple Ecosystem, not that I have a lot media wise, but I like that everything is linked and I don't need to have to worry about passwords and notes being everywhere.

Any input would be great, Also any suggestions that I have not thought of would be fantastic.

I use Notability with iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

 

[sjleworthy]

DotPen - This is a fine-tipped powered capacitive pen. Nice feel, nice weight. Easy to use, no pairing required. I use this for handwriting, more serious drawing/illustrating.

That dotpen looks the ****

Will definitely buy one of those. How does it perform next to the Pencil, with regards to general note writing and navigation/general scrolling about?

 

[sracer]

That dotpen looks the ****

Will definitely buy one of those. How does it perform next to the Pencil, with regards to general note writing and navigation/general scrolling about?

Please keep in mind that any capacitive stylus is going to be inferior to an active stylus like the Apple Pencil. Given the choice, if the Air 2 supported the Apple Pencil, I'd buy THAT.

The DotPen offers no pressure sensitivity nor palm rejection. It works wonderfully for navigation and general scrolling. It is fine for general note taking (keeping in mind the lack of palm rejection).

 

[mrex]

You cant say anything about bt styluses and how well they will work with air3... Until air3 is out.

Last time apple changed the screen technology in air2 to save the battery (the screen in air2 is in the standby state more often than other ipads) which destroyed the functionality of all existence bt styluses causing skipping and curvy lines. While they worked fine with air they were working poorly with air2.

Im using only Pencil by fiftythree because apps i use support it (e.g. Noteshelf, Paper, Procreate..). It can be used also as a dumb stylus when app doesnt support it. It is not a fine tip stylus, but it doesnt matter with apps like Noteshelf. I havent found any well working fine tip stylus for air2 so i keep using Pencil 53. Dumb stuluses work as a good as unsupported bt styluses - unless even better.

If and when you buy a bt stylus, better to be sure that the app supports it. The odder the pen is the more unlikely it is supported.

 

[mrex]

The Adonis Jot Touch is a great stylus to use. I use it with my iPhone and used it with my iPad Air 2.

does it really work well with air2 nowadays? no wavy lines? there are two versions of it, the older version and the new one (that you can get only ordering it from adonit?) - which one have you?

 

[hovscorpion12]

does it really work well with air2 nowadays? no wavy lines? there are two versions of it, the older version and the new one (that you can get only ordering it from adonit?) - which one have you?

I bought the new one from adonit. It defiantly feels nice in the hands, no lag on screen. Accurate but not as accurate as the Apple Pencil. From a third party stylus this is by far the most accurate and precise.

 

[sjleworthy]

Please keep in mind that any capacitive stylus is going to be inferior to an active stylus like the Apple Pencil. Given the choice, if the Air 2 supported the Apple Pencil, I'd buy THAT.

The DotPen offers no pressure sensitivity nor palm rejection. It works wonderfully for navigation and general scrolling. It is fine for general note taking (keeping in mind the lack of palm rejection).

Appreciated

Trouble is, in the UK, we have this -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ReGearTM-Pr...ie=UTF8&qid=1454257230&sr=1-1&keywords=Dotpen

Looks the same, but named different. Also, in pic 7, look ar point 7 - not ipad pro compatible. Thats off putting.

 

[sracer]

Appreciated

Trouble is, in the UK, we have this -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ReGearTM-Pr...ie=UTF8&qid=1454257230&sr=1-1&keywords=Dotpen

Looks the same, but named different. Also, in pic 7, look ar point 7 - not ipad pro compatible. Thats off putting.

That's odd. I've read that the manufacturer that actually makes the pens makes them for both DotPen and ReGear. I'd recommend trying the ReGear out in spite of what they say PROVIDED THAT YOU CAN EASILY RETURN IT if it doesn't work.

The DotPen works perfectly on my Air 2. I see no reason why the ReGear wouldn't work on the iPad Pro (obviously as a capacitive stylus only)

 

[sjleworthy]

That's odd. I've read that the manufacturer that actually makes the pens makes them for both DotPen and ReGear. I'd recommend trying the ReGear out in spite of what they say PROVIDED THAT YOU CAN EASILY RETURN IT if it doesn't work.

The DotPen works perfectly on my Air 2. I see no reason why the ReGear wouldn't work on the iPad Pro (obviously as a capacitive stylus only)

Thanks mate. Yes, looks like their statements are a bit missleading. But, if the next official ios has general Pencil navigation dissabled i'll most certainly be road testing the DotPen.

I can certainly live without it, but Apple have wet our appetites in recent times and the Pencil nav is a superb option i'd like to retain if possible.

 

[hubieonekanubie]

I have had all the adonit stylus' and currently own the dash which I don't use much. I also have owned all Livescribe products except the echo, and currently use the Livescribe 3 as well as own the Sky but the OLED screen died so it's not very useful to me anymore as I like to be discreet and mute the beeps, plus Livescribe won't fix it because it's discontinued and out of warranty, which I expected. I also have the Apple Pencil, which is by far the best stylus experience I've ever had but because it's limited to my iPad Pro, it's not as convenient in all settings. I tried and tried to use it exclusively for note taking but it just didn't work for that, at least for me in a lot of situations. Honestly it has not gotten much use as of late. I've reverted back to using my Livescribe 3 with a Moleskine notebook as those are my favorite notebooks. I have it set-up to automatically upload to Evernote so if I have my notebook with me or not, my notes are accessible as long as I've synced the pen. The only drawback is you have to have the Livescribe app open in order for it to connect to Bluetooth and get your notes off of your pen and into the digital world. The good news is it stores the notes on the pen so they will still all get there and after awhile I now regularly remember to sync it with the app at least a few times a day. The recording feature is what I really like although I preferred the Livescribe pulse and sky with the recordings stored on the pen rather than on my phone but it still works well and is nice to be able to go back and actuall hear the conversation at the same point you were writing the note, assuming you were writing something down when the words were said. I can focus on my meetings rather than worry about getting detailed notes. My $.02. I'm still searching for the perfect solution and the Livescribe has been the best so far, excited to see what they come up with next.

 

[MilleDav01]

I appreciate all of the suggestions. I want the iPad pro, but I just don't know if I could justify spending that much money on the iPad pro simply because all I will use it for it note taking even though I completely agree that the pencil feels amazing. We will see! I like how the pencil feels. I would hope that the iPad Air 3 might have better integrated stylus support or Apple Pencil support, I'm sure that will be a long shot.

Even though I love my apple ecosystem and how passwords and pretty much everything travel between my devices, I might go for a Surface 3 (or 4, NOT PRO) if it comes out by May. I recently had a friend lend me there LiveScribe for a week and I love how it works, but I'm very physiologically picky (Aka nuts) when It comes to what I write with, and the pen is just too fat for my liking, but I realize the reason for that, the sensors, tech, etc.

Right now I use a legal pad (Front of paper only), highlighters and pencil/pen, and I just wanted to consolidate but I guess thats not happening right at this moment.

 

[bensisko]

You cant say anything about bt styluses and how well they will work with air3... Until air3 is out.

Last time apple changed the screen technology in air2 to save the battery (the screen in air2 is in the standby state more often than other ipads) which destroyed the functionality of all existence bt styluses causing skipping and curvy lines. While they worked fine with air they were working poorly with air2.

Im using only Pencil by fiftythree because apps i use support it (e.g. Noteshelf, Paper, Procreate..). It can be used also as a dumb stylus when app doesnt support it. It is not a fine tip stylus, but it doesnt matter with apps like Noteshelf. I havent found any well working fine tip stylus for air2 so i keep using Pencil 53. Dumb stuluses work as a good as unsupported bt styluses - unless even better.

If and when you buy a bt stylus, better to be sure that the app supports it. The odder the pen is the more unlikely it is supported.

Interesting... I didn't notice any difference in pen functionality between the Air and the Air 2 (Adobe Ink, Pencil by 53, Wacom Creative and Wacom fineline).

 

[sracer]

Interesting... I didn't notice any difference in pen functionality between the Air and the Air 2 (Adobe Ink, Pencil by 53, Wacom Creative and Wacom fineline).

There have been numerous reports of issues using particular styli in the Air 2 that didn't exist on the Air. My firsthand experience with both active and passive capacitive styli on the Air 2 has been that they work flawlessly.