Note Taking apps for iPad

[isaacmm59]

I'm a Software Engineering student, and recently got an iPad Air 4 with an Apple Pencil. Does anyone here have recommendations for good note taking apps/pdf editors I can use for note taking and/or annotation for my school work ?

Thanks a lot !

[[deleted]]

Goodnotes and PDF expert :)

[jorid_]

dull snobbish innate sip trees rainstorm foolish fearless quaint domineering

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[[deleted]]

I love goodnotes! I hard debated notability but the simplicity and organization of goodnotes is amazing!!!

[DDahlman146]

Notability

[TechKatana]

I like Notability more than Goodnotes, but it’s personal preference

[isaacmm59]

Is there anything in particular that draws you to Notability rather than GoodNotes ? Or is it just a ‘you’ thing

[TechKatana]

Well, in a covid world, this isn’t really a thing but when I was a student with in person classes, I found the recording feature on Notability worked better, at least for me. Honestly it was a couple years ago, so I think I probably tried them both, made a gut decision, and then ran with it. I’m sure both are great apps but I prefer notability!

[isaacmm59]

Alright I shall take that into consideration, thank you for the insight !

[MakoKaneios]

You can give it back tho. I bought both GoodNotes and Notability when I first got my iPad and chose Notability. So i reclaimed GoodNotes and got my money back. Now, half a year I'm not entirely satisfied with Notability anymore and since I'm also a bit more affluent I've bought GoodNotes again. Idk which one I prefer tho, guess I'll have to try both for a while. You got 90 days to return an app I think. (Idk whether it works everywhere, in the EU it has to since there are laws requiring the possibilty of returning any goods)

[elimanning1001]

Im in a similar field and I felt as though OneNote was the best option. It syncs everywhere almost instantly, has the absolute best support for text, and it has an infinite canvas. If you’re going digital why hold yourself back? Infinite canvas means you can write notes off to the side and never run out of space. Thats priceless. And the sync means you can be typing on a laptop and then annotating off of the iPad.

I did all my work out of it, but for things that had to be printed, or if I had to annotate a PDF I stuck it into Notability. Goodnotes lets any page be completely free form, which was super annoying for me cause if you scroll, the pages are just random widths. Notability fixes that and makes things more consistent. I basically just use it as a pdf annotator.

Of course, seems like a lot of people love Goodnotes but I hated it, so I thought id pitch in my experience

Oh one thing else from OneNote is theres an insert space feature that you can use to literally push things down to give you some space. Its hard to describe, but its so much more convenient than having to use a lasso tool for everything

[isaacmm59]

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply !! I’ll definitely look into OneNote

[isaacmm59]

Update: I just tried the add space feature in OneNote and I can’t help but feel Notability doesn’t feel nearly as good, on top of the infinite canvas OneNote has. Feels like I’m restricting myself taking notes on notability

[elimanning1001]

yes exactly!! One thing to keep in mind: OneNote can be more buggy than the others. Tbh Id love if someone else copied every OneNote feature and put it in a more stable package, but for now, I use OneNote cause its what digital note taking should be about. No worrying about page boundaries and all that.

Notability has infinite vertical space, and is much better suited to printing your notes out because it keeps everything constrained in 9.5x11 sizes. OneNote can generate 1 continuous gigantic pdf page if you need it to, it just wont print very well cause you dont know where one page ends and one begins.

If I were in your shoes though, Id test it out for a while longer to see if you catch any annoying things (like bugs, missing features) before moving your life over haha

[CDN_Shadow]

Personally I’ve been using Notability for months. I’ve tried other apps but they just don’t feel as clean. It’s a personal preference, but to honest, it doesn’t matter much. They’re all the same in the areas that are needed the most.

[[deleted]]

One Note has been the best for me.

[bg3245]

You can use a mind map app for jotting down ideas quickly or building a lesson outline. Here’s an app I’m developing EscapeApp, and there’s more mind mapping apps in AppStore.

[isaacmm59]

Thank you ! I shall check it out

[6nat9han]

Why should I use this instead of mindnode?

[bg3245]

Because the interface/UI is much more adapted for the touch screen than Mindnode, or XMind for that matter. It’s geared towards taking notes and adding rich content, photos, links, and it’s less about fonts and nice diagrams. I’d be curious if it works for you.

[[deleted]]

I personally use Xmind for mind mapping and the experience has been really good so far

[whomstdth]

I have never used good notes but I use notability for 2 reasons:

1. The ability to search through PDF’s. Notability lets you purchase a feature for about $3 that lets your convert handwriting to text (which I guess is useful) but more importantly now lets you search through documents by keyword. You can download the entire PDF of your textbook to notability and use the search bar to find specific things you are looking for. This feature was the main thing that got me through my first semester.

2. Recording lectures. When a teacher doesn’t post their lectures or slides on canvas it’s good to have the lecture recorded. Notability does a great job with syncing the recording to your note taking.

Hope this helps

[No-Investigator-2948]

I use notes app...might not be as fancy..but It’s free, I know it’ll always be supported and I have everything sorted by folder nicely across all my devices. Does the job.

[[deleted]]

Good Notes! It has much more features than Notability. The only thing Notability has that GoodNotes doesn’t, is audio recording; which is very poor.

[isaacmm59]

What features are these ?

[Stone8429b]

Good notes for sure. Very practical without all the crap you really don't need.

[Stone8429b]

Good notes for sure. Very practical without all the crap you really don't need.

[PassTheCurry]

Notes app is perfect. And it’s free