What do you use the Pencil for?

[jamesrick80]

For note takers, I highly recommend Goodnotes 4, for the following reasons:
- it completely disables touch and only accepts pen as writing input, you use touch for zooming and erasing;
- it allows you to pick "ball pen" which ignore the pressure variation. This make writing looks a lot better;
- it has a Mac desktop version, which allows you to drop files (to sen to iPad) and pull files (to archive files on Mac).

There are two disadvantages, 1. the apps are not free and 2. it changes the file format to .gootnote. When you export the file to PDF. All annotations become permanently etched onto the documents and you lost the ability to ever modify them.

Exact reason why I use Microsoft onenote instead..........

 

[friedmud]

I use it for taking notes in class and it's awesome. I use Notability and it's working really well. I also like the integration with the OS X app so I can have my notes all all of my computers (it syncs over iCloud).

Here is a page of notes I took about a month ago (the terrible handwriting is because I have terrible handwriting, not because of the Pencil!)

Also, my wife and I used the Pigment app to color this in over Christmas. We're not artists, but it's fun to use an "electronic colored pencil"

I wasn't sure I wanted an iPad pro until I used the Pencil for the first time... then I instantly knew it was a game changer and bought the iPad Pro in the spot!

 

[ackmondual]

2. it changes the file format to .gootnote. When you export the file to PDF. All annotations become permanently etched onto the documents and you lost the ability to ever modify them.

I've worked with image editors which use their own file formats, and when you save a common format version (JPG, PNG, etc.), it does strip away layers, and other such features. Is this such a bad thing as long as you retain the original .goodnote file?

 

[silverblack]

I've worked with image editors which use their own file formats, and when you save a common format version (JPG, PNG, etc.), it does strip away layers, and other such features. Is this such a bad thing as long as you retain the original .goodnote file?

Not a big deal. But I still want to point it out, as there are pdf annotation apps that retain the .pdf format after the annotations. But there are limitations to such approach; for example, the hand writing is treated as individual objects, which could only be deleted as one whole object. That is, after you write a sentence, the whole thing becomes one object, can could only be moved or deleted as a whole. You could NOT go back and change one part of it.

Goodnotes, on the other hand, retain fully editing functions. You could erase one letter out of the sentence any time in the future. Hand written text also is searchable, as it is treated as vectors. So this is definitely an advantage of modifying the file format to .goodnotes, with the only downside of no longer could expect everyone to open such file.

 

[appledefenceforce]

This is so funny and the problem with consumerism, especially Apple fan boi'ism. The original poster doesn't even know why he bought the darn thing, all he knew is that he wanted one. Now, after the purchase was made and he succumbed to the marketing hype he's left wondering, "What do I do with this thing?".

Funny because I've seen fanboys of other platforms doing the same thing. Hell I've seen so many Samsung fanboys buying Samsung flagships all year round and yet you feel the need to single out Apple fanboys.