How good does a stylus work on an Ipad? I wrote a thread a week ago on whether or not I should get an Ipad or a macbook air. Most people said get the MBA; however, if I can take great notes using an Ipad with a stylus I might lean toward the ipad. I will be in medical school and will need to take a ton of notes using whatever apps are available. How efficient is a stylus? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thank you!
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Stylus on Ipad
- Thread starter necodaak8
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It's not bad. Personally, I prefer the Bluetooth keyboard for most of my note taking. I've yet to find a stylist that I love.
It works okay. Not as good as an actual pen and paper (I'm talking about the speed/legibility of the writing itself, not the digital convenience factor of having your notes stored on the iPad). I use a Boxwave stylus and the Penultimate app as a point of reference. YMMV depending on the equipment/tools you choose.
Answer: Neither
Neither the iPad nor the MBA is a good note-taking device.
iPad: Using a finger to write does not produce good results. Using a stylus along with a note-taking app is marginally better. The problems are: 1) the lag between moving the stylus and the line showing up on the iPad; 2) the lack of a tactile-feedback keyboard (so you can look at the lecturer and type simultaneously); 3) the small amount of information you can fit on one page.
MBA: You need to use a keyboard to take notes. It's difficult to move around on the page. It's difficult to insert comments in earlier notes. It's difficult to draw diagrams.
All of the above problems are surmountable, but why put those obstacles in your way?
My advice? Get a spiral notebook.
Neither the iPad nor the MBA is a good note-taking device.
iPad: Using a finger to write does not produce good results. Using a stylus along with a note-taking app is marginally better. The problems are: 1) the lag between moving the stylus and the line showing up on the iPad; 2) the lack of a tactile-feedback keyboard (so you can look at the lecturer and type simultaneously); 3) the small amount of information you can fit on one page.
MBA: You need to use a keyboard to take notes. It's difficult to move around on the page. It's difficult to insert comments in earlier notes. It's difficult to draw diagrams.
All of the above problems are surmountable, but why put those obstacles in your way?
My advice? Get a spiral notebook.
For me I love my stylus! I will admit that it does take a bit of a learning curve to adapt your handwriting to the iPad. But its doable in an afternoon. I also love to do quick napkin sketches with the stylus. I purchased the kensington one with a ball point pen on the other side. I also use penultimate
I use the Wacom Bamboo Stylus and i'm quite happy with it. I'm not writing many many notes with it, but I do use it when I have to calculate something quickly (not a calculator fan!), need to write down some numbers from previous calculations or when it's just short information that I want to forward to Evernote. Sometimes I also draw organs or cells with it, since I usually don't carry around lots of different colors and it usually ends up looking like crap when i draw it on my notepad.
I'm in med school as well and we have so so so many pdf's for our lectures and the iPad is perfect for that since I really hate dragging my laptop with me too lectures since it's just too heavy and takes up too much space in my bag.
I'm in med school as well and we have so so so many pdf's for our lectures and the iPad is perfect for that since I really hate dragging my laptop with me too lectures since it's just too heavy and takes up too much space in my bag.
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I'm about to start med school and will be using an iPad 2 with a Wacom Bamboo stylus to annotate PDFs and slides. Seems like a great setup, but I can't decide which note app to use. I have several and I'm still working with each to get the right feel. Which app are the other med students here using?
I've been experimenting with note taking apps and have used both my finger and a stylus. I prefer the stylus because my writing is better, it is not fatiguing and it is clear to other people that you are taking notes. When I took notes with my finger at a couple of meetings, some people (who didn't know me well) thought I was just playing around with my iPad 
. It also made my finger sore .
At this point, I'm still not ready to take on a three-day conference with an iPad and a stylus. Perhaps that time will come, but for now I would take notes in a paper notebook. In the classrooms I visit, paper is also the way to go simply because the kids invariably make off with my iPad to check out my games and playlists.
. It also made my finger sore . At this point, I'm still not ready to take on a three-day conference with an iPad and a stylus. Perhaps that time will come, but for now I would take notes in a paper notebook. In the classrooms I visit, paper is also the way to go simply because the kids invariably make off with my iPad to check out my games and playlists.
I haven't downloaded any yet. How's iAnnotate PDF? It's the highest grossing PDF annotating app.
I have a targus(/griffin/boxwave) stylus and love it for notetaking. However, I think the quality depends a lot more on the app than the stylus - for example, I love Notes Plus but find UPad a bit frustrating to write in.
Iannotate
This is the best I have used so far. Not as good as a windows version from grahl but much more intuitive than most of the others I have found. For the students here there are a couple of great threads on work processes but no clear landing on note taking program. I am going to try mobilenoter cause u can sync to one note which great is a really useful program.
I am really keen on the stylus idea which is how I found this tread. I have little feeling in my finger tips which makes touch screens challenging. Common trait in the family ;
Undecided yet whether to go cheaper- pogo or just bit the bullet and try the bamboo
Keen to hear from others who are using with annotation programs with a stylus. Most of the research discuss stylus and drawing.
This is the best I have used so far. Not as good as a windows version from grahl but much more intuitive than most of the others I have found. For the students here there are a couple of great threads on work processes but no clear landing on note taking program. I am going to try mobilenoter cause u can sync to one note which great is a really useful program.
I am really keen on the stylus idea which is how I found this tread. I have little feeling in my finger tips which makes touch screens challenging. Common trait in the family ;
Undecided yet whether to go cheaper- pogo or just bit the bullet and try the bamboo
Keen to hear from others who are using with annotation programs with a stylus. Most of the research discuss stylus and drawing.
I just got my Bamboo yesterday and it is by far the best IMO. I had a Pogo and a Griffin previously and this is now my default stylus. Deff worth checking out. Also Wacom released Bamboo Notes and its free for the next few weeks, snag a copy from the App store.
I got the Bamboo a few days ago. Before that I was using a Pogo which didn't last very long - the tip got worn and it was hard to use after that. So far I'm happy with the Bamboo and hopefully it will last much longer. I use it mostly for navigation so I can't speak for it's drawing or writing capabilities.
I use a Kensington stylus/pen combo that works really well. I've used it (or previously a Boxwave) almost daily for the last year to take notes.
I could easily type the notes with either the on screen or an external keyboard, but I find I retain the information more if I handwrite my notes.
I've tried almost every note taking app in the store. My personal favorites are NotetakerHD and WritePad. Notetaker has the smoothest zoom to write function (write large in a box at the bottom of the page and it's written small on your file) and I use it when I know I'll need a combination of text and graphics. You can then email a PDF to Evernote for organization.
WritePad has the best handwriting recognition feature. WritePad also just incorporated full 2-way Evernote sync, making it a great tool for taking text only notes.
EDIT: when looking at styli, don't be disturbed by the "giant" rubber tip, the iPad is looking for a larger contact point and any good writing or drawing app will let you control the pen size. However, one thing I've noticed is that not all rubber tipped styli are equal...some don't glide across the naked iPad screen, some are too bulbous and just fold over in a way that the metal shaft can run across your screen, etc. Boxwave, Kensington and Griffin are all pretty good quality.
I could easily type the notes with either the on screen or an external keyboard, but I find I retain the information more if I handwrite my notes.
I've tried almost every note taking app in the store. My personal favorites are NotetakerHD and WritePad. Notetaker has the smoothest zoom to write function (write large in a box at the bottom of the page and it's written small on your file) and I use it when I know I'll need a combination of text and graphics. You can then email a PDF to Evernote for organization.
WritePad has the best handwriting recognition feature. WritePad also just incorporated full 2-way Evernote sync, making it a great tool for taking text only notes.
EDIT: when looking at styli, don't be disturbed by the "giant" rubber tip, the iPad is looking for a larger contact point and any good writing or drawing app will let you control the pen size. However, one thing I've noticed is that not all rubber tipped styli are equal...some don't glide across the naked iPad screen, some are too bulbous and just fold over in a way that the metal shaft can run across your screen, etc. Boxwave, Kensington and Griffin are all pretty good quality.
Seems like there are several med students on here. I just graduated from med school and recently got an iPad for handling PDF books and EMR access during residency.
So far I've been playing around with iannotate and PDF expert apps and they both seem to be strong apps.
For note taking I installed notetaker HD and penultimate to play with but haven't really used them much.
My go to app is and has been good reader (previously used it on iPhone). It handles large PDFs well and it's the main way I get documents in and out of the iPad since it can interface with many different online services (dropbox, gmail, FTP, sugar sync, etc...)
Good luck with school! As you go along you may find that you actually don't take a whole lot of notes during the first couple years of med school. There's soo much info that's it's sometimes not real efficient to take much of your own notes besides highlighting and annotating review books, outlines, or power points.
I use the Boxwave stylus but I think the tip is a bit too big and would like one with a thin tip.
I saw this one on kickstarter which looks like it could be a pretty good stylus.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mgeyster/the-artistree-a-dual-ended-stylus-for-touch-screen
I saw this one on kickstarter which looks like it could be a pretty good stylus.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mgeyster/the-artistree-a-dual-ended-stylus-for-touch-screen
I've been pretty happy with the Griffin stylus and Note Taker HD. The Griffin is very comfortable for me. No problems with it being a bit thicker than a normal pen. Note takers Edit 2 function (the big box to write in fills in a smaller box above) works great. I wish it would sync with evernote or dropbox tho.
Overall very happy with my choices.
Overall very happy with my choices.
