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iAnnotate vs UPad on the iPad

richimages

richimages

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 20, 2008
128
4
Southeastern US
I have not bought iAnnotate ... but I hear nothing but good things about it. I'm considering making this purchase.

However, I am HIGHLY impressed with UPAD! And, to my surprise, it has three modes of operation: Regular Handwritting Docs, PDF Editing, and Writing on Photos.

After trying several handwriting apps, ( NoteTaker HD, HW Mail, Penultimate Etc ... ) I am very impressed with UPad! It solves the problem of resting your hand on the display PERFECTLY! It also allows great magnification window handwriting, BUT, the engine to smooth and follow intended strokes is so good, that you really do not need the magnification tool, even when trying to write small. IT allows text to be typed, and has transparent HighLighter pens as well. The UI is fantastic, very easy to follow (much better than NoteTaker HD IMHO ).

But the fact that it can be used to annotate PDFs is no small "add in". It's very intuitive, controlled, and functional.

It's offered for free (UPAD Lite) for one to try before you buy. I was curious to see if heavy iAnnotate users would try this app ... and make comments towards the subject of PDF annotation between them.

Thanks,

Richard


I look forward to following this thread ... thanks again if you decide to contribute.
 
richimages said:
I have not bought iAnnotate ... but I hear nothing but good things about it. I'm considering making this purchase.

However, I am HIGHLY impressed with UPAD! And, to my surprise, it has three modes of operation: Regular Handwritting Docs, PDF Editing, and Writing on Photos.

After trying several handwriting apps, ( NoteTaker HD, HW Mail, Penultimate Etc ... ) I am very impressed with UPad! It solves the problem of resting your hand on the display PERFECTLY! It also allows great magnification window handwriting, BUT, the engine to smooth and follow intended strokes is so good, that you really do not need the magnification tool, even when trying to write small. IT allows text to be typed, and has transparent HighLighter pens as well. The UI is fantastic, very easy to follow (much better than NoteTaker HD IMHO ).

But the fact that it can be used to annotate PDFs is no small "add in". It's very intuitive, controlled, and functional.

It's offered for free (UPAD Lite) for one to try before you buy. I was curious to see if heavy iAnnotate users would try this app ... and make comments towards the subject of PDF annotation between them.

Thanks,

Richard


I look forward to following this thread ... thanks again if you decide to contribute.
Click to expand...

i agree, it is (almost) perfect... it is missing a search feature, however, which makes me second guess getting the full version.. this might be a dealbreaker for a lot of people..
 
Same here, I love the annotation possibilities of UPad, but the lack of a search feature and the lack of à good file system are dealbreakers for me.

As far as I know,the only way to get your annotated files on your desktop, is sending by e-mail.

If anyone knows a better way, I 'd love to hear about it!
 
LisaNewbie said:
Same here, I love the annotation possibilities of UPad, but the lack of a search feature and the lack of à good file system are dealbreakers for me.

As far as I know,the only way to get your annotated files on your desktop, is sending by e-mail.

If anyone knows a better way, I 'd love to hear about it!
Click to expand...

Dropbox.
 
I understand how to get a file from dropbox into uPad, but once i 'm done editing the file in upad, how can i get it back in dropbox?
 
i am looking for more of an annotation of pdf document app and iannotate seems to be the best. however i do have a question. majority of my pdf are just scanned documents so the text is not detectable (its just an image), wondering if iannotate allows me to highlight manually over these or do highlighting only works over OCR?
 
upoor

I've been testing upad out at work and I'm not very thrilled with the performance. It seems to lag behind when I'm writing in the Zoom mode and I hit the red area (to move the line forward). Not only that, but its crashed on me several times (esp. when I've done a lot of writing) and it doesn't save prior to the crashes.

I can't honestly say why but the performance is pretty poor at my work and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the wireless networks (I'm in the IT industry).
 
i agree, reading pdf documents on the upad lite edition takes a little while to load when scrolling up and down (on ipad 2).

does anyone know what happened to the Aji iRead app which is like a free version of iAnnotate? seems to be reviews of it but can't find it now
 
I haven't tried iAnnotate. But I have UPad, Noteshelf and Notetaker HD. Noteshelf just works. Intuitively.
 
boodyup said:
I've been testing upad out at work and I'm not very thrilled with the performance. It seems to lag behind when I'm writing in the Zoom mode and I hit the red area (to move the line forward). Not only that, but its crashed on me several times (esp. when I've done a lot of writing) and it doesn't save prior to the crashes.

I can't honestly say why but the performance is pretty poor at my work and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the wireless networks (I'm in the IT industry).
Click to expand...

Humm ... I haven't noticed crashes ... but it sounds like you're using it heaver that I am.

I am curious to know how much of a lag is it when you hit the red area? I like a little delay so I can dot an i or cross a t before it scoots forward. I find it's performance good ... I have an iPad original.

Thanks for sharing.
 
I haven't noticed any delay at all in UPad - however, data corruption along with crashes if I try to email the affected file happens occasionally. I've reported it and they are working on it. This is the only thing keeping me from unrestricted use of UPad.

Mark
 
mctheriot said:
I haven't noticed any delay at all in UPad - however, data corruption along with crashes if I try to email the affected file happens occasionally. I've reported it and they are working on it. This is the only thing keeping me from unrestricted use of UPad.

Mark
Click to expand...

Interesting ... hopefully they can make it reliable in that area.
 
Yep, just ran into data corruption today. Two pages of notes gone and it keeps opening the wrong files when I click on notebooks. Lame. I really liked uPad.
 
mojohojo said:
i am looking for more of an annotation of pdf document app and iannotate seems to be the best. however i do have a question. majority of my pdf are just scanned documents so the text is not detectable (its just an image), wondering if iannotate allows me to highlight manually over these or do highlighting only works over OCR?
Click to expand...

You might look at PDF Expert for iPad from Readdle. It will allow you to manual highlight, annotate your pdf files. Moreover, it has unique features such as PDF Forms fill in, signature support, stamps, etc.

http://readdle.com/products/pdf_expert_ipad/

Should you have any questions, feel free to ask.
 
Okay ... I broke down and bought iAnnotate.

Wow! Tons of function, customizing stuff, wonderful for keeping a complete directory structure synchronized with your PC.

Great app.

Still, UPad, although it does not do nearly as much, what it does do, it does well. I have MUCH better control in writing on the PDF, and I like it's highlight freedom more ... ( I find myself taking a highlighter and providing a "stand-out" background for me to write a note here and there.

Glad I have both, but for the basics of handwritten notes, UPad is far superior with the ability to write smaller, neater, with control ... iAnnotate will wind up having more chicken scratch ... it's good for large ONE words with a large arrow; something like "LOOK HERE" **arrow pointing**

With UPad I feel comfortable writing something like: "This is an interesting thought, I can see this working for me"

I wish iAnnotate had the control that UPad did , or that UPad added a few more core basics ( PDF text search, writing annotated PDF out back to DropBox, etc ).

Other thoughts?
 
boodyup said:
I've been testing upad out at work and I'm not very thrilled with the performance. It seems to lag behind when I'm writing in the Zoom mode and I hit the red area (to move the line forward). Not only that, but its crashed on me several times (esp. when I've done a lot of writing) and it doesn't save prior to the crashes.

I can't honestly say why but the performance is pretty poor at my work and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the wireless networks (I'm in the IT industry).
Click to expand...

I've had the same issues. (I'm using the free version right now, btw, don't know if the paid is better.) The lag when you hit the red is just enough to interrupt my flow of writing, plus occasionally it feels long enough that I go ahead and try to write another letter, but it moves right then and my letter winds up an inch away from whatever I was just writing. Maybe I'll get used to the timing, though.

And I have had crashes, as well, even though I really haven't used it all that much. Although I haven't lost any data in the crashes, luckily.

Another minor annoyance - I wanted to use one of the calendar pages it comes with in a notebook, so I put it in photos but then realized that all pages in the notebook have to have the same background. I couldn't use the calendar as a background on one page and just have regular lined paper on the next page. Anyone know a way around this? Is there a way to just insert the calendar as a picture on the page and write on it there?

This was my first time actually getting to use UPad for real work, and it seems pretty good but there definitely could be improvements. Next time I need to do something I'll be trying out Notes Plus for comparison.
 
Same here, I have used both app of UPad and iAnnotate but they all have the problems to me.

UPad: the lack of a search feature and the lack of à good file system
lag behind when writing in the Zoom mode

iAnnotate: unable to highlight pdfs
doesn't have patial deletion of annotations.

Now I use PDF Reader iPad edition for my iPad. It's cheap and useful on my iPad. First, I have no idea how it works so I use its lite version. I am very impressed with it. It allows me annotating pdfs and provides search function, bookmark, dropbox and.....lots of.

It's offered for free (PDF reader Lite-iPad Edition) for one to try before you buy. Everyone can download the free version and give it a try.

I look forward to hearing more topics about the same app on iPad.
I 'd love to hear some more!
 
doreme said:
Same here, I have used both app of UPad and iAnnotate but they all have the problems to me.

UPad: the lack of a search feature and the lack of à good file system
lag behind when writing in the Zoom mode

iAnnotate: unable to highlight pdfs
doesn't have patial deletion of annotations.
Click to expand...

iannotate can't highlight pdfs..?
 
iloveapp said:
I haven't tried these two apps, but I've bought PDF Reader -iPad edition. I also can use it to annotate my docs with sticky notes, arrows, squares, circles, and freehand drawing! It's really worthy to buy with only 0.99.:)
Click to expand...

Can you share with us how good the handwriting works? Lots of apps are Abe to allow handwriting. Few are very good with precise control of intended strokes and smoothing out noisy jitters when magnifying. UPad is one of the best handwriting apps I've tried so far in respect to these two areas.

Thanks for sharing.
 
uPad crashed on me and I lost all my notes. Emailed developer just to see if a fix/update is in the works and no response yet. As well as the top tool bar has disappeared on me, so the app is not even functional, all I did was keep using this thing, one day its fine next day its toast.
 
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