First of all thanks for the comments! The more feedback I get the more ideas I'll have to work with!
Just a few first impressions:
1.
The main screen is quite nice looking.
I remember the wood pattern tile from being a popular wallpaper a while ago, so it's not original but it works. I'm not a fan of skeuomorphism, but I can live with this app.
The book covers look good, and the overall colour combination (complementary orange/blue) is what makes for a pleasing introduction to your notes.
The shelf has a one-point center perspective, but the books don't. To me, this looks a bit awkward - and I'd prefer a book icon that follows the frontal look of the shelf.
What I really miss in the main screen, is an Edit button to perform some basic actions on the books. Rename, delete to name a few. Rename could be a tap-and-hold on the book's name, but in order to delete a book at this moment, you need to open it (unless I miss the obvious).
There is a planned edit button which will belong in the bookshelf itself. However, it seemed pointless to me to add it at the moment as it is not really offering anything extra.
I have a working version of an edit button in the bookshelf, but will be adding it in a future update along with a search bar.
The design is something I've spent literally weeks and even months on, meticulously trying to get the look and feel right. I understand your point about the perspective mismatch between the books and the shelf. It's something that I'm working on improving.
To me skeuomorphism is logical. I prefer the look of it and to me it makes sense that if we program objectively, then we should design in this way too, and to me, skeuomorphism is the best approach (as it currently stands).
2.
The book screen (with this, I mean the view after opening a book from the main screen) offers a very minimalistic environment, which to me is simply great for writing. I really love the out-of-the way light gray buttons to add a note or a section, as I do the (animated) "X" glyphs to clear the Chapter or Section name fields.
The Edit button is a bit strange, because all it seems to do is make a second button appear (Delete). The Done button, to me, should be placed top left (but that's personal preference).
Now, about the book approach... You start with a chapter, that has sections to add... notes. Now if the latter would be paragraphs, it would make sense if the app was about writing a novel.
Personally, I'd rather see pages instead of chapters, issues instead of sections, and notes.
That way, taking notes would be a faster process all together.
Also, right now, sections are obligatory in order to make notes - I'd make it an option rather.
The main idea behind taking notes is that it should be as easy as possible, giving the minimal input from the user, but still having that control over note data (this is important in the future for an idea I have).
In the same way iTunes manages music instead of using folders of songs, Notable is designed to be able to give the user the same ratio of minimal effort and maximum quality of use.
3.
The real working screen being so inviting, I was a bit disappointed to type in the "Add Note" popup box. Personally, I'd appreciate typing directly onto the white area, the input box now feels a bit cramped compared to the big white space you offer.
I couldn't find a way to edit an existing note, probably missing the obvious.
My first several test apps all created a new row in which a user could add a new note. However, there were many issues with scrolling, it was also hard to design in a way that a user could know which row they were typing in. Maybe in the future I will go back to trying to implement this feature but for now this seems the best approach to adding notes, this also works in the iPhone version I am creating. (More about that below).
There is no current way to edit notes. But it is a basic feature I would naturally expect people to want and is just as basic to implement. It's also another good reason why having the popup window in which to add notes is better over controlling the table of notes, but as I say, maybe in the future I will figure a better way of doing this.
4.
The timetable struck me as an original addition to a note taking app, but after playing with it, I'm afraid I don't understand the concept. First of all, there are no dates, just a Monday-to-Friday week. Secondly, the entries don't seem to have an alarm (seems logical, because there's no real life time schedule involved).
Again, I couldn't find a way to edit an existing timetable entry. Tapping it opens a blank note sheet. If it would also work the other way around: tapping a note allowing me to link it to a day, maybe I'd understand what your aim is. For now, the timetable isn't clear to me.
The timetable was the original idea I had for the application. As a student, I wanted a note taking app that would fit better around me as I couldn't find one I liked and the basic iPad one is too basic for sorting and formatting.
Later I came up with notebooks, and although I'm not saying I plan to remove the timetable, I can't see it lasting throughout the lifespan of the application.
5.
You've made a good choice in font: type, style, colour are very soothing to work with. I can imagine some users might appreciate a choice in font though, but I'm fine with it now.
Notable is still in its early stages and I'm sure fonts (and maybe styles) are going to be added in the future, where colours are concerned thats probably a no though.
6.
Evidently, an iPhone version and syncing would be nice to have.
An iPhone version is in development, I first decided to target the iPad because of its larger screen and the fact that as a productivity tool it precedence the iPhone.
The reason its taken a little while is the building in of iCloud to sync between them. I thought if I'm going to create an iPhone version its best if users can sync their data.
Thanks for all the feedback! It's made me think a lot about what might or will be added in the future!
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Dang. Can't use on iPad 1..
Sorry, it's targeted at iOS 6 and above...
