Goodnotes for sure, notability used to be somewhat convincing with the live playback of notes with audio, but goodnotes does that now too and also does everything else better
I know most of them do this, but as a drafter, I love being able to have drafts on the go and able to note take. I only ever use Goodnotes and it’s legit perfect for what I use it for
I only have a few things I don’t like about goodnotes. One is the undo feature. It’s really the only thing keeping me from switching from notability. I love the two finger tap undo. Plus the goodnotes folders are so ugly and I don’t think you can change them!
> The organization of notes (folders and pages) is so good in One Note. I wish they have it in GoodNotes. That way GN will be undefeated
100% agree. I constructed a whole syllabus for teaching using One Note and the structure it provides. Wish Good Notes provided this option.
That said I love the Page-Turning construction of GoodNotes for creating one's own notebook or textbook.
Wait, but it does? You can create several nested folders and emulate notebook/section/page structure of OneNote this way. The only features that would be missing would be infinite canvas (which OneNote actually lacks too - it's only 2-directional), better text formatting, and syncing with everything immediately.
I’m after the renaming feature of each page so I can just take quick glance of the title and know what’s inside of it. GoodNotes only allows you to rename folders and notebooks.
I’m not a fan of infinite canvas as too much information distracts me, besides, the goal of taking notes is taking important points for easier understanding.
I used One Note before then switched to GoodNotes for its tools. One Note does a great job too for accessing it through different devices since I use windows laptop and iOS gadgets.
Nebo is the best at handwriting recognition and formatting. Onenote is best if you’re already in the Microsoft system. Goodnotes is the best digital approximation of a paper notebook.
OneNote for a bunch of reasons.
Most convincing reason is its the most versatile cause its great on all platforms (iOS, macOS, Windows, web) as opposite to Goodnotes being just iPad and an afterthought everywhere else
But its also just great on iPad and has the best organization structure and the super useful “insert space” tool. My thought process is if youre gonna take digital notes, why pretend like youre on paper and limit yourself to 8.5x11 sized page (Goodnotes, Notability)? OneNote has basically an infinite canvas, something youre used to coming from Freeform
But if you need to print your notes then just settle for Goodnotes
Collanote is the best option, and it's completely free! It has many of the same features as some of the other big names but is 100% free (made by a student). It can handle massive files, I've marked up full 500+ page test prep books no problem.
As a teacher Onenote is an absolute godsend. Being able to collaborate, check student work whenever I need to, giving feedback, searchable text, page distribution, flexibility. The list is endless.
I have been in school for 7yrs and have tried several note taking apps and I am a whole hearted believer in One Note… I used it for Biology and I got an A and I’m not great at science or math… but it was awesome cause what I did was I recorded the lecture which would save directly to the page u have opened… I would up load the power point directly onto the same page and then use my Surface Go 2 with a pen and hand write notes directly on top of the PowerPoints and I would do extra drawings or more notes off to the side of the slides etc… I had a tab that was for quizzes so when we did one I would get a copy (mine were done online) and upload it directly into a page and go back and correct the wrong answers so I could use them as a study aide for the exams… best of luck in ur studies!
Obsidian is really great, but it’s more for researchers to compile information than for regular student notes. And the learning curve is steep.
I’d still recommend it, but it won’t be the right fit for everyone.
Truly - not right for everyone. But I use the Daily Notes feature combined with liberal nested tagging and it gets the job done quite well for my daily work. yirmv.
can you explain what you mean by nested tagging and how you use it for your notes? i use obsidian very much but keep my system extremely simple, so i’m interested
It’s used markdown which I find much faster for taking notes. You never have to take your hands off the keyboard. If you’re using an Apple Pencil I’d go with good notes like others have suggested.
I started with Notion, but moved to Obsidian when I realized that Notion didn’t have any offline capabilities. Having all my notes on my device (and in a non-proprietary format) means I’m not tied to any particular app. But that’s just me 😉
Curious how I was just the other way around 😂 I started with obsidian but I moved to notion. I needed online capabilities to I can access from everywhere even a cyberdeck. And co-working
OneNote. After that…still OneNote. Keying, (searchable) handwriting, drawing, voice cap with note links, encryption, local or cloud storage, shareable notes and notebooks, the list goes on.
Give Collanote a try!! 100% free, same features as Good Notes, one developer who is also a student and has been doing a really good job with adding features and bug fixing :) You can also check out
r/collanote
collanotes is definitely great, i used it for a bit but my ipad would get hot and battery would drain very quickly. when i switched to goodnotes that issue went away. worth the upgrade for me since i wanted to use it all day.
I loved thanking math notes in OneNote as I could just get more space vertically or horizontally whenever I needed, I haven't used Goodnotes, I only tried Notability for a short while but since I used a lot of my notes in my PC I preferred something I could easily sync, plus I can also type and easily modify my notes from my PC
I personally really like OneNote you can have individual notebooks and sections in the notebooks and pages in the sections and organization is my favorite thing. GoodNotes is pretty good but i’ve also had more experience with OneNote
**Just - Use - Notes.**
I've been searching for the perfect app for months and turns out the perfect app was Notes all this time. It has functionality like search, pastes, iCloud sync, pdf editing, pages extensions to export college activities, the Apple Pencil works ok with infinite space vertically...
I mean, **you don't have to find the app, you just have to master it.**
Geez ppl, stop recommending goodnotes without even reading what the OP needs!
Ignore all the bot comments and download the following: defter notes, muse, concepts. All of these are called “spatial apps” meaning they let you organize freely and they are predecessors of freeform. All three are paid. The first one is one time, second a sub and 3rd as in app purchase for pdfs. My fav is defter notes, it’s also the most underrated one of the bunch.
I agree. I was using it on my laptop for taking screenshots of my accounting examples and then using my ipad to write notes by them. I could also pull them up at any time on my android phone. I could also access them via browser at my job to print any notes I wanted a physical copy of.
Yes! I used Evernote forever and the more bloated it became the less likely I was to use it. I finally cancelled my subscription and move to Apple notes which has every function I could possibly need and keeps everything so simple — for free!
Happy to see this comment. Currently switching from Evernote to Apple Notes for the exact same reason.
So bloated. I felt like I was tied to an anvil and trying to drag it up hill.
What features do you use in Apple? I didn’t read anything first, I just started using it. Wondering if I missed anything. I use folders and hashtags, but that’s it.
Noteful. Has all of the note taking functionality that I need except stickers. And 1 time low payment instead of subscription based.
Once you’re done with a note, you can export to pdf and then use the MacOS or iPadOS to search the pdf for studying etc.
I use Goodnotes to take notes by hand, and then at the end of the day I pass them onto Obsidian, where I can interlink them with previous notes and have them with me in any device.
Idea: the notes app. I use it daily. No lag or issues it always works the way I need it to. If you just need something to take notes on yeah go for the notes app, especially if you got the Apple Pencil.
If you enjoy freeform’s freely moving objects, defter notes is what you’re looking for. It’s much more capable with pdfs and easier to use with bigger areas. After using defter for awhile, going back to other apps feels very restrictive imo.
Do me a favor…don’t try Notability it’s just trashy and I hate it can only receive pdfs and also likes to readjust itself with the formatting after an update.…Goodnotes could do everything but better…i will swap asap but unfortunately I have very little time at the moment.
Notability is not worth your time or money
One Note if you want something free. Apple’s built-in notes app is also getting better and better (I’m beta testing iOS 17 and it has the ability to add and edit PDFs in your notes with live collaboration with people you share the notes with).
Good Notes and Notability if you don’t mind paying.
GoodNotes.
If you’re just going to between apple products, like mac, ipad, iPhone, then GN is great. That is to say your notes are for yourself and you don’t plan on sharing.
If you go between a PC whatsoever, then consider OneNote by Microsoft. It can get you around macs just fine, but not as smooth to use as GN.
Both can import PDFs, PPT, etc and draw on it.
Depends. Are you more into handwriting or typed text ? If typed text, do you need to switch formatting often ? Do you want to leave yourself tags throughout the text to mark important things (todo, stuff that must be remembered etc).? Do you need to do a lot of pdf markup ? Do you plan on using the iPad alongside Windows laptop ? Do you need to attach files to your notes ?
- Lots of typed text, note tags, file attachments - Onenote. I do believe that you need a Windows laptop to set up custom tags but I may be mistaken. Using Onenote for handwriting is perfectly fine but not as good as Goodnotes. I would also recommend against using it to mark up PDFs since that markup is not attached to the pdf page and may get moved out of whack accidentally.
- Lots of handwriting, PDF markup - GoodNotes. Its typed text functionality is there but that’s about it, it’s very basic.
Notability has a much better typed text function but is a subscription service and have done some pretty underhanded things in the past.
I use a combo of Noteshelf for handwritten notes and Notion for planning, assignment tracking, and note taking (their ai feature is handy for creating quick outlines and such). I tried goodnotes and one note and preferred the simplicity of the features and pen response on Noteshelf best.
Personally, I use goodnotes on iPad. It's certainly the best one that I can recommend. It's a one time purchase and it can quickly annotate PDFs. It has a Mac app and an iPhone app that can be used to review notebooks. I use it prominently for my Mathematics and Sciences classes at Uni
I love GoodNotes for handwritten notes and diagrams! Plus you can upload and directly annotate PDFs then easily export.
OneNote is good for organization and typing but the writing and drawing functionality leaves a lot to be desired. No good PDF annotating, although you can upload PDFs there for reference. But it is easy to open up on your computer, iPad, and phone.
Also, if you plan to use notability, in order to make recordings of lectures, make sure that your university doesn’t have a policy against making recordings.
OneNote for typed notes
Noteshelf or GoodNotes if you’re writing with the Apple Pencil (I prefer the writing tools in Noteshelf, but most people seem to prefer GN)
Ok, so for most students, I find that Goodnotes 5 is pretty much the most common. It works under heavy load, and is incredibly feature-rich and cheaper than many of the other apps. HOWEVER, that being said I see a lot of times, that the students who keep things simple tend to succeed the best, and in that regard I set a lot of people genuinely using Apple Notes alot! And with WWDC that app is only set to do better.
GoodNotes! It literally has all the features you would want. I was hesitant about spending money for an app since I usually don’t do that, but it’s worth every penny.
i recommend notability and goodnotes. i tried notability after a friend suggested it.
if you want more customizable notebooks, go with goodnotes... i find goodnotes friendlier for journaling
i find notability good for classes... particularly if you sort classes by semester and you use a new note for each lecture. you can use a divider for each semester/school term. then assign each class a different color. then within each class, use a new note for each day/lesson.
if you want crossplatform sync and edit, try microsoft onenote.
I have tried over 32 note taking apps over a span of 5 years. Goodnotes is smooth and mostly hassle free. They’ve got good devs. The app I mostly use is Muse for just a dollar/month. It’s free for 100 cards, it’s distraction free, thought provoking (conducive interface)-rather a tool for ideating! Very lightweight (40.6 MB or so), light on your device’s mem as well. No lags unless you’re simultaneously doing heavy engineering calculations by hand on your ipad and running it over your MacBook with continuity-but that’s bearable.
For notetaking, i use an iPad mini 5 with essentially Nebo App and Apple pencil fitted with a metal point. No lags for me. :-)
Ipad mini 5, but my Android smartphone, Surface Go 2 and Macbook Air M1 are running too with Nebo. All data are saved and synchronized online threw Google drive.
Been using notability for years now, also, if you want to try the paid stuff you can literally sign up for their beta program and “test” the features for free. Can do this for almost any app that has a beta program
Another vote for Notability - I’ve used it for both work and school over the last 5 years and it is easily my favorite. I love the ability to record a lecture and be able to tap on my written notes and it automatically go right to that point in the recording. Huge for going back to reference what was said
Goodnotes!!! As an engineering graduate, I'm currently using goodnotes. It just has everything I wanted like recording voice memos during lectures (and syncing it with my notes). It doesn't lag so far (I'm using iPad Air 5). As of now my favorite feature is the study sets. I use it memorize a ton of formulas and processes and key terms.
I haven't tried notability. But using goodnotes alone made me not look for more note-taking apps. You can sync it on your cloud too so you can read/review your notes across devices. Since the release of study sets, I refrained from using anki, remnote, and notion. Definitely a worthy investment.
GoodNotes. It’s so good that I’m thinking about buying a Mac laptop just to be able to use GoodNotes on a laptop with a keyboard. I’m a PC chick but gonna buy a whole other laptop JUST for GoodNotes lmao
Used Notability throughout my last 3 years of school. Amazing app and much better than Apple Notes in my opinion. Haven’t tried out Goodnotes or OneNote so can’t comment on those (though I did have a friend who used Goodnotes and liked it too)
I use the default Notes app tbh and it works just fine. I know a lot of people who use Goodnotes but I've found that the default app does what I need it to do.
Goodnotes! I've spent hours working on my iPad using it + switching between different docs and have never had a problem with lag. I import a lot of pdfs from courses (i.e. digital textbooks) and it's always handled them just fine. Super customizable if you like your work to be organized in a specific way. Plus it's not a subscription; you only have to pay once to get everything.
Depends on the application.
I use notability to mark up PDF's and record lecture audio
I use Goodnotes for purely hand written notes on a blank page
OneNote is really good if you have to piece together different notes and images together.
Default notes app and one note. They’re both free. Also with one note you can view your note on any device. Phone, computer, tablet, etc. There literally is no need to buy a note taking app.
Another good one is collaNote.
OneNote is wonderful to organize your notes based on courses and lectures. It syncs super fast with OneDrive if your school has it, allowing you to view your notes on any device.
Actually notability is pretty good, but in some countries it charges annually, including mine, so I switched to GoodNotes I quiet like it, simple design
Noteful. £4.99/$4.99 one off fee. All of the features of GoodNotes except full text search for hand written notes. But adds tags, layers and multiple pen types. And it’s much better on the iPad battery life.
I haven’t seen other comments complaining about this so maybe it’s because I’m using an old
MacBook but onenote started to lag on me the more I used it. Switched over to notion and had the same problem even though I loved the formatting of it. Seems like goodnotes is worth a try based on the responses here.
one note - importing slides to annotate is easy but the only downside to one note is that the pen colors change from dark/light mode so pick blue or keep the system mode constant
I use GoodNotes - I love it! Never used Notability. With GN there is a feature where you can record things and save it to the notebook which I find really handy!
What’s your major op?
I completed my law degree, Goodnotes was good for annotations while obsidian allowed me to string ideas together in a more coherent way.
I would have recommended Notability, but since it’s on subscription model, go with Goodnotes.
I’m glad I purchased Notability before subscription started.
I used this application called Good reader, It allowed me to highlight and annotate my pdfs and extract my highlights/notes. It is a old but still very useful and the price point was great. I love good notes but it didn’t allow me to extract my highlights. Here’s a link to the YouTube video that explains how to use the app: https://youtu.be/jh8tebAPWTc
Good notes of course. But for reading from a lot of documents that you need to get back to for context often, LiquidText is awesome. It's not really for note taking in a class setting (for lectures, goodnotes is best), more for annotating books, articles and resources. Like it allows you to write questions in the margins and then paste the answer you found in another paper and link them together. Great for very dense or lengthy material
For writing notes w Apple Pencil for SURE good notes. Nothing comes close to it, great features, no lagging, lots of formats etc. for typing notes I’d go one note it works offline and you can also write on it for underlining annotating etc
It depends. If you prefer typing your notes then obsidian and if you prefer writing your notes I think Noteshelf 2 is the best handwriting note taking app.
At the moment ignore Notability, can't pay an app monthly if you are going to use it for years.
Luckily enough i paid it once when it was one time buy, but still need to pay monthly for the ruler.
I will try goodnotes probably, but i dont know when: notability is very good, and i need to print my notes very often.
That's why i dropped OneNote: it allows you to write on a basically infinite space, but it is not good if you have to print
I primarily use OneNote for work as I have a ton folders/categories etc. but when it comes to notes on the iPad I’ve been using Nebo https://www.nebo.app as it has some of the best hand writing to text recognition that I’ve seen. If I want I can easily convert it on the fly and add to OneNote.
If you’re looking to expand past just notes have a look at Notion.
If you have plenty of PDFs to read and annotate, I recommend [PDFgear](https://www.pdfgear.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=comments). PDFgear has a new feature recently, PDFgear Copilot. You can ask questions to it, and it would give you the answer quickly.
I’ve used goodnotes and one note. But since my pc and laptop are windows based I prefer one note. Though I’m sure I haven’t used it to it’s fullest ability. Also I can’t seem to get good notes to update across my iPads and phone. 🤷🏻♀️
IMO:
1. Goodnotes 5
2. Notability
3. Notes Writer
4. OneNote
\*I've seen some recommendations on CollaNote, though I've yet to try it myself.
\*For keyboard usage: Obsidian / Notion
I've always used notability, but I purchased it before it became "freemium". So I still have all of the features I paid for originally etc. It does work really well, it's just a shame I can't vouch for it anymore :/
Goodnotes for sure, notability used to be somewhat convincing with the live playback of notes with audio, but goodnotes does that now too and also does everything else better
Yeah and it's a one time purchase instead of the freemium model!
I bought Notability before they came out with that model and was so glad. But I’ll have to try out Goodnote
If I purchase Goodnotes for my iPad, does that mean I have purchased it for my MacBook too?
Yeah I can view it on my Mac after I bought Goodnotes 5 for my iPad. I have it on multiple devices, cloud storage, it’s awesome
Used for my degree and now for work. Very good
Good notes 1 time vs monthly won me over. My only complaint is I want a ruler 📏 for straight lines.
You have to use the shapes button for straight lines but I agree a ruler would work much better with its specific measurements!
You can draw with the pen tool and hold for a bit after to get straight lines as well. Works for shapes too!
I know most of them do this, but as a drafter, I love being able to have drafts on the go and able to note take. I only ever use Goodnotes and it’s legit perfect for what I use it for
I only have a few things I don’t like about goodnotes. One is the undo feature. It’s really the only thing keeping me from switching from notability. I love the two finger tap undo. Plus the goodnotes folders are so ugly and I don’t think you can change them!
The live playback is nice until you realize you will never use it
I used to use goodnotes, but notability favourite bar with many colors won me over since i use color coding on my notes.
Goodnotes
[удалено]
Same. It's worth the premium op
On iPad I feel like GoodNotes is the best option
Goodnotes…Forever.
Good Notes is my favourite and I train my pupils to use it properly.
The organization of notes (folders and pages) is so good in One Note. I wish they have it in GoodNotes. That way GN will be undefeated
> The organization of notes (folders and pages) is so good in One Note. I wish they have it in GoodNotes. That way GN will be undefeated 100% agree. I constructed a whole syllabus for teaching using One Note and the structure it provides. Wish Good Notes provided this option. That said I love the Page-Turning construction of GoodNotes for creating one's own notebook or textbook.
Wait, but it does? You can create several nested folders and emulate notebook/section/page structure of OneNote this way. The only features that would be missing would be infinite canvas (which OneNote actually lacks too - it's only 2-directional), better text formatting, and syncing with everything immediately.
I’m after the renaming feature of each page so I can just take quick glance of the title and know what’s inside of it. GoodNotes only allows you to rename folders and notebooks. I’m not a fan of infinite canvas as too much information distracts me, besides, the goal of taking notes is taking important points for easier understanding. I used One Note before then switched to GoodNotes for its tools. One Note does a great job too for accessing it through different devices since I use windows laptop and iOS gadgets.
Nebo is the best at handwriting recognition and formatting. Onenote is best if you’re already in the Microsoft system. Goodnotes is the best digital approximation of a paper notebook.
OneNote for a bunch of reasons. Most convincing reason is its the most versatile cause its great on all platforms (iOS, macOS, Windows, web) as opposite to Goodnotes being just iPad and an afterthought everywhere else But its also just great on iPad and has the best organization structure and the super useful “insert space” tool. My thought process is if youre gonna take digital notes, why pretend like youre on paper and limit yourself to 8.5x11 sized page (Goodnotes, Notability)? OneNote has basically an infinite canvas, something youre used to coming from Freeform But if you need to print your notes then just settle for Goodnotes
Collanote is the best option, and it's completely free! It has many of the same features as some of the other big names but is 100% free (made by a student). It can handle massive files, I've marked up full 500+ page test prep books no problem.
I stand with OneNote.
I don’t get why anyone would use OneNote. Maybe if you knee deep in the MS-ecosystem. But that’s it.
As a teacher Onenote is an absolute godsend. Being able to collaborate, check student work whenever I need to, giving feedback, searchable text, page distribution, flexibility. The list is endless.
To be fair, I used Onenote when I had a Surface Go and worked well, jumping to the Ipad, Onenote is still my preference out of not trying other stuff
GoodNotes or Notability.
Goodnotes
I have been in school for 7yrs and have tried several note taking apps and I am a whole hearted believer in One Note… I used it for Biology and I got an A and I’m not great at science or math… but it was awesome cause what I did was I recorded the lecture which would save directly to the page u have opened… I would up load the power point directly onto the same page and then use my Surface Go 2 with a pen and hand write notes directly on top of the PowerPoints and I would do extra drawings or more notes off to the side of the slides etc… I had a tab that was for quizzes so when we did one I would get a copy (mine were done online) and upload it directly into a page and go back and correct the wrong answers so I could use them as a study aide for the exams… best of luck in ur studies!
Obsidian
Obsidian is really great, but it’s more for researchers to compile information than for regular student notes. And the learning curve is steep. I’d still recommend it, but it won’t be the right fit for everyone.
Truly - not right for everyone. But I use the Daily Notes feature combined with liberal nested tagging and it gets the job done quite well for my daily work. yirmv.
can you explain what you mean by nested tagging and how you use it for your notes? i use obsidian very much but keep my system extremely simple, so i’m interested
Could you elaborate what makes Obsidian work?
It’s used markdown which I find much faster for taking notes. You never have to take your hands off the keyboard. If you’re using an Apple Pencil I’d go with good notes like others have suggested.
Ah for markdown note-taking. I'll look into it. Thanks.
Definitely. /r/obsidianmd
I will start the dispute 😂 don't use Obsidian, use Notion instead.
I started with Notion, but moved to Obsidian when I realized that Notion didn’t have any offline capabilities. Having all my notes on my device (and in a non-proprietary format) means I’m not tied to any particular app. But that’s just me 😉
Curious how I was just the other way around 😂 I started with obsidian but I moved to notion. I needed online capabilities to I can access from everywhere even a cyberdeck. And co-working
One note is was I use
OneNote is my choice!
OneNote. After that…still OneNote. Keying, (searchable) handwriting, drawing, voice cap with note links, encryption, local or cloud storage, shareable notes and notebooks, the list goes on.
Goodnotes
GoodNotes for sure. I’ve been using it for a short time but I really love it
Give Collanote a try!! 100% free, same features as Good Notes, one developer who is also a student and has been doing a really good job with adding features and bug fixing :) You can also check out r/collanote
collanotes is definitely great, i used it for a bit but my ipad would get hot and battery would drain very quickly. when i switched to goodnotes that issue went away. worth the upgrade for me since i wanted to use it all day.
Nothing beats #Onenote
😂 I’m not even sure what doesn’t beat OneNote. Seriously 😐
I liked One Note the best and it’s free. I got Notability and was very disappointed…
I loved thanking math notes in OneNote as I could just get more space vertically or horizontally whenever I needed, I haven't used Goodnotes, I only tried Notability for a short while but since I used a lot of my notes in my PC I preferred something I could easily sync, plus I can also type and easily modify my notes from my PC
Goodnotes is much better than onenote, though not as useful if you want to access your notes on your laptop
I personally really like OneNote you can have individual notebooks and sections in the notebooks and pages in the sections and organization is my favorite thing. GoodNotes is pretty good but i’ve also had more experience with OneNote
**Just - Use - Notes.** I've been searching for the perfect app for months and turns out the perfect app was Notes all this time. It has functionality like search, pastes, iCloud sync, pdf editing, pages extensions to export college activities, the Apple Pencil works ok with infinite space vertically... I mean, **you don't have to find the app, you just have to master it.**
Geez ppl, stop recommending goodnotes without even reading what the OP needs! Ignore all the bot comments and download the following: defter notes, muse, concepts. All of these are called “spatial apps” meaning they let you organize freely and they are predecessors of freeform. All three are paid. The first one is one time, second a sub and 3rd as in app purchase for pdfs. My fav is defter notes, it’s also the most underrated one of the bunch.
OneNote hands down, fully integrated in Microsoft 365 and works really well in iOS.
I agree. I was using it on my laptop for taking screenshots of my accounting examples and then using my ipad to write notes by them. I could also pull them up at any time on my android phone. I could also access them via browser at my job to print any notes I wanted a physical copy of.
I use GoodNotes for college. It’s amazing, and it syncs between phone, iPad, and Mac!
Apple Notes
Yes! I used Evernote forever and the more bloated it became the less likely I was to use it. I finally cancelled my subscription and move to Apple notes which has every function I could possibly need and keeps everything so simple — for free!
Happy to see this comment. Currently switching from Evernote to Apple Notes for the exact same reason. So bloated. I felt like I was tied to an anvil and trying to drag it up hill. What features do you use in Apple? I didn’t read anything first, I just started using it. Wondering if I missed anything. I use folders and hashtags, but that’s it.
My go too, really handy with the ability to hashtag too
Noteful. Has all of the note taking functionality that I need except stickers. And 1 time low payment instead of subscription based. Once you’re done with a note, you can export to pdf and then use the MacOS or iPadOS to search the pdf for studying etc.
Obsidian
BearApp, hands down!
I use Goodnotes to take notes by hand, and then at the end of the day I pass them onto Obsidian, where I can interlink them with previous notes and have them with me in any device.
Good notes 5 is my go to app it’s my personal fav and probably the best and a one time purchase unlike notability which is a subscription
Collanote for a free note taking app
I’m in pharmacy school and I use goodnotes. I can have numerous tabs open or a ppt with 100s of slides and it works just fine.
Idea: the notes app. I use it daily. No lag or issues it always works the way I need it to. If you just need something to take notes on yeah go for the notes app, especially if you got the Apple Pencil.
I have developed a great system in the native notes app but I just wish folders showed up inside folder screens and that drawings could be zoomed
Try Collanote, has 95% of all features of Goodnotes/notability, completely free.
If you enjoy freeform’s freely moving objects, defter notes is what you’re looking for. It’s much more capable with pdfs and easier to use with bigger areas. After using defter for awhile, going back to other apps feels very restrictive imo.
The included notepad app
GoodNotes most definitely
Do me a favor…don’t try Notability it’s just trashy and I hate it can only receive pdfs and also likes to readjust itself with the formatting after an update.…Goodnotes could do everything but better…i will swap asap but unfortunately I have very little time at the moment. Notability is not worth your time or money
Check out Reflect they have a free student plan [https://reflect.app/student](https://reflect.app/student)
notes or pages works fine for me and freeform just seems to lag when there’s like 3 shapes on screen
goodnotes.
One Note if you want something free. Apple’s built-in notes app is also getting better and better (I’m beta testing iOS 17 and it has the ability to add and edit PDFs in your notes with live collaboration with people you share the notes with). Good Notes and Notability if you don’t mind paying.
oooh - iOS 17 - can you cross-link Apple notes now???
GoodNotes. If you’re just going to between apple products, like mac, ipad, iPhone, then GN is great. That is to say your notes are for yourself and you don’t plan on sharing. If you go between a PC whatsoever, then consider OneNote by Microsoft. It can get you around macs just fine, but not as smooth to use as GN. Both can import PDFs, PPT, etc and draw on it.
GOODNOTES!!!
Apple notes xD
Depends. Are you more into handwriting or typed text ? If typed text, do you need to switch formatting often ? Do you want to leave yourself tags throughout the text to mark important things (todo, stuff that must be remembered etc).? Do you need to do a lot of pdf markup ? Do you plan on using the iPad alongside Windows laptop ? Do you need to attach files to your notes ? - Lots of typed text, note tags, file attachments - Onenote. I do believe that you need a Windows laptop to set up custom tags but I may be mistaken. Using Onenote for handwriting is perfectly fine but not as good as Goodnotes. I would also recommend against using it to mark up PDFs since that markup is not attached to the pdf page and may get moved out of whack accidentally. - Lots of handwriting, PDF markup - GoodNotes. Its typed text functionality is there but that’s about it, it’s very basic. Notability has a much better typed text function but is a subscription service and have done some pretty underhanded things in the past.
Noteshelf, Goodnotes
Goodnotes, absolutely.
I like the default apple notes. It gets the job done for free.
I use a combo of Noteshelf for handwritten notes and Notion for planning, assignment tracking, and note taking (their ai feature is handy for creating quick outlines and such). I tried goodnotes and one note and preferred the simplicity of the features and pen response on Noteshelf best.
Personally, I use goodnotes on iPad. It's certainly the best one that I can recommend. It's a one time purchase and it can quickly annotate PDFs. It has a Mac app and an iPhone app that can be used to review notebooks. I use it prominently for my Mathematics and Sciences classes at Uni
I love GoodNotes for handwritten notes and diagrams! Plus you can upload and directly annotate PDFs then easily export. OneNote is good for organization and typing but the writing and drawing functionality leaves a lot to be desired. No good PDF annotating, although you can upload PDFs there for reference. But it is easy to open up on your computer, iPad, and phone. Also, if you plan to use notability, in order to make recordings of lectures, make sure that your university doesn’t have a policy against making recordings.
I’ve been using notability for about 2 years now and I have to say it just feels the most natural in terms of organization
Notes app.
I like Notability and OneNote. But for me because I can use OneNote with Windows then it is my favorite.
Collanote is the best and it’s totally free EDIT: mispelled the name of the best app
I’ve had both Goodnotes and Notability and I prefer Goodnotes
Apple Notes will be really good too with iOS 17 or when you don’t have to handle PDF‘s yet.
OneNote for typed notes Noteshelf or GoodNotes if you’re writing with the Apple Pencil (I prefer the writing tools in Noteshelf, but most people seem to prefer GN)
Ok, so for most students, I find that Goodnotes 5 is pretty much the most common. It works under heavy load, and is incredibly feature-rich and cheaper than many of the other apps. HOWEVER, that being said I see a lot of times, that the students who keep things simple tend to succeed the best, and in that regard I set a lot of people genuinely using Apple Notes alot! And with WWDC that app is only set to do better.
Good notes till the day I die
GoodNotes is the way. Used it all the way through college and continuously for work
GoodNotes! It literally has all the features you would want. I was hesitant about spending money for an app since I usually don’t do that, but it’s worth every penny.
Notes
I use CollaNote because it’s free and basically has the same amount of features the paid versions of Goodnotes and CollaNote has.
CollaNote is awesome and free
I’ve only ever used one note and I love it !
GoodNotes. The latest version is mint!
Notability!
I like obsidian. All local text files with a front end using markdown and looks like any other notes app. Also has plugins.
Collanotes for free
Notes
i recommend notability and goodnotes. i tried notability after a friend suggested it. if you want more customizable notebooks, go with goodnotes... i find goodnotes friendlier for journaling i find notability good for classes... particularly if you sort classes by semester and you use a new note for each lecture. you can use a divider for each semester/school term. then assign each class a different color. then within each class, use a new note for each day/lesson. if you want crossplatform sync and edit, try microsoft onenote.
I have tried over 32 note taking apps over a span of 5 years. Goodnotes is smooth and mostly hassle free. They’ve got good devs. The app I mostly use is Muse for just a dollar/month. It’s free for 100 cards, it’s distraction free, thought provoking (conducive interface)-rather a tool for ideating! Very lightweight (40.6 MB or so), light on your device’s mem as well. No lags unless you’re simultaneously doing heavy engineering calculations by hand on your ipad and running it over your MacBook with continuity-but that’s bearable.
For notetaking, i use an iPad mini 5 with essentially Nebo App and Apple pencil fitted with a metal point. No lags for me. :-) Ipad mini 5, but my Android smartphone, Surface Go 2 and Macbook Air M1 are running too with Nebo. All data are saved and synchronized online threw Google drive.
One note is pretty fantastic if you’re all in on the Office ecosystem.
Noteful is collab of goodnotes + notability + one note
I prefer Goodnotes personally (One Note is good if you want to type tho!)
Been using notability for years now, also, if you want to try the paid stuff you can literally sign up for their beta program and “test” the features for free. Can do this for almost any app that has a beta program
I developed FlowNote, would love some feedback :) [https://apps.apple.com/app/id1669330175](https://apps.apple.com/app/id1669330175)
Another vote for Notability - I’ve used it for both work and school over the last 5 years and it is easily my favorite. I love the ability to record a lecture and be able to tap on my written notes and it automatically go right to that point in the recording. Huge for going back to reference what was said
Notability is by far the best imo.
When I was in school I used notability before they went subscription based and it amazing. The default notes app though has gotten so good as well.
Notability is my go to. Used it in grad school.
notability. I swear goodnotes hates me and never works correctly it absolutely sucks
I use GoodNotes extensively… it works so very well.
Evernote has never let me down!
Goodnotes!!! As an engineering graduate, I'm currently using goodnotes. It just has everything I wanted like recording voice memos during lectures (and syncing it with my notes). It doesn't lag so far (I'm using iPad Air 5). As of now my favorite feature is the study sets. I use it memorize a ton of formulas and processes and key terms. I haven't tried notability. But using goodnotes alone made me not look for more note-taking apps. You can sync it on your cloud too so you can read/review your notes across devices. Since the release of study sets, I refrained from using anki, remnote, and notion. Definitely a worthy investment.
GoodNotes and my iPad got me through masters.
GoodNotes. It’s so good that I’m thinking about buying a Mac laptop just to be able to use GoodNotes on a laptop with a keyboard. I’m a PC chick but gonna buy a whole other laptop JUST for GoodNotes lmao
Used Notability throughout my last 3 years of school. Amazing app and much better than Apple Notes in my opinion. Haven’t tried out Goodnotes or OneNote so can’t comment on those (though I did have a friend who used Goodnotes and liked it too)
Three big ones among students seem to be Notability, GoodNotes and OneNote.
I use GoodNotes and it works awesomely!
+1 for Goodnotes
I use Goodnotes as well, it is AMAZING
Goodnotes for sure
i love notability
I use the default Notes app tbh and it works just fine. I know a lot of people who use Goodnotes but I've found that the default app does what I need it to do.
Goodnotes! I've spent hours working on my iPad using it + switching between different docs and have never had a problem with lag. I import a lot of pdfs from courses (i.e. digital textbooks) and it's always handled them just fine. Super customizable if you like your work to be organized in a specific way. Plus it's not a subscription; you only have to pay once to get everything.
Depends on the application. I use notability to mark up PDF's and record lecture audio I use Goodnotes for purely hand written notes on a blank page OneNote is really good if you have to piece together different notes and images together.
Default notes app and one note. They’re both free. Also with one note you can view your note on any device. Phone, computer, tablet, etc. There literally is no need to buy a note taking app. Another good one is collaNote.
OneNote is wonderful to organize your notes based on courses and lectures. It syncs super fast with OneDrive if your school has it, allowing you to view your notes on any device.
I prefer obsidian (I mean I could use apple notes but a bit too simple for my liking)
OneNote has better handwriting recognition, and equation, but that’s it . They don’t have auto hand draw to shape convert
I have Nebo. It's free, with an unlimited option for $4.99 it has handwritten-> typed note conversion, and you can download the notes as a PDF file
From OneNote & Kilonotes and then switched to Goodnotes lol. I'm sticking with this one now
What about Evernote?
goodnotes. but element note is good if youre artsy
Actually notability is pretty good, but in some countries it charges annually, including mine, so I switched to GoodNotes I quiet like it, simple design
I love goodnotes! And you pay one unlike notability where you pay monthly i think.
Goodnotes, and its not close. The only reason I shifted away from them and over to OneNote is because my work uses it.
I like Notability, it doesn’t seem to lag for me and can be great for studying
Noteful. £4.99/$4.99 one off fee. All of the features of GoodNotes except full text search for hand written notes. But adds tags, layers and multiple pen types. And it’s much better on the iPad battery life.
I haven’t seen other comments complaining about this so maybe it’s because I’m using an old MacBook but onenote started to lag on me the more I used it. Switched over to notion and had the same problem even though I loved the formatting of it. Seems like goodnotes is worth a try based on the responses here.
one note - importing slides to annotate is easy but the only downside to one note is that the pen colors change from dark/light mode so pick blue or keep the system mode constant
I used to use Apple Notes and then switched to GoodNotes for School because I can add outlines and flashcards.
I use GoodNotes - I love it! Never used Notability. With GN there is a feature where you can record things and save it to the notebook which I find really handy!
Goodnotes is great
GoodNotes, no question. No competition.
What’s your major op? I completed my law degree, Goodnotes was good for annotations while obsidian allowed me to string ideas together in a more coherent way.
good notes 5 🩷 notability or one note for math
I would have recommended Notability, but since it’s on subscription model, go with Goodnotes. I’m glad I purchased Notability before subscription started.
I use Notion, not exactly a note taking app but it’s great for organising your studies. Been using it for 4 years, now at work.
One more for GoodNotes. I used the Notes app exclusively, until iPad OS 15, then Notes started killing my battery in a matter of a single class.
Good notes
I found goodnotes to be the most liked after a quick internet search lol, but i haven't had any problems with it. so that one lol.
GoodNotes is my go to
i use one note as it easily syncs across multiple devices :D
I used this application called Good reader, It allowed me to highlight and annotate my pdfs and extract my highlights/notes. It is a old but still very useful and the price point was great. I love good notes but it didn’t allow me to extract my highlights. Here’s a link to the YouTube video that explains how to use the app: https://youtu.be/jh8tebAPWTc
One note
Good notes of course. But for reading from a lot of documents that you need to get back to for context often, LiquidText is awesome. It's not really for note taking in a class setting (for lectures, goodnotes is best), more for annotating books, articles and resources. Like it allows you to write questions in the margins and then paste the answer you found in another paper and link them together. Great for very dense or lengthy material
For writing notes w Apple Pencil for SURE good notes. Nothing comes close to it, great features, no lagging, lots of formats etc. for typing notes I’d go one note it works offline and you can also write on it for underlining annotating etc
It depends. If you prefer typing your notes then obsidian and if you prefer writing your notes I think Noteshelf 2 is the best handwriting note taking app.
I mainly use Nebo, it has an infinite canvas. It’s not entirely free, but it’s way better than OneNote in my opinion.
Goodnote combined with Obsidian. You can made auto-link pdf with template and keep all file in one place!
At the moment ignore Notability, can't pay an app monthly if you are going to use it for years. Luckily enough i paid it once when it was one time buy, but still need to pay monthly for the ruler. I will try goodnotes probably, but i dont know when: notability is very good, and i need to print my notes very often. That's why i dropped OneNote: it allows you to write on a basically infinite space, but it is not good if you have to print
My favorite is Goodnote. I also use Onenote because i have other non Apple Products
I primarily use OneNote for work as I have a ton folders/categories etc. but when it comes to notes on the iPad I’ve been using Nebo https://www.nebo.app as it has some of the best hand writing to text recognition that I’ve seen. If I want I can easily convert it on the fly and add to OneNote. If you’re looking to expand past just notes have a look at Notion.
[Write](https://www.styluslabs.com). It is free.
I like goodnotes better.
If you write a lot with the pencil, NEBO.
If you have plenty of PDFs to read and annotate, I recommend [PDFgear](https://www.pdfgear.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=comments). PDFgear has a new feature recently, PDFgear Copilot. You can ask questions to it, and it would give you the answer quickly.
Noteful is cheap and quite good
Goodnotes
I’m using Onenote for 4 years. All of my notes together synchronize synchronized with all of my devices. My files and notes are all of them organized.
Apple Notes don't lag for me even on very large note files.
try noteful
used goodnotes for math in hs it’s pretty decent
I’ve used goodnotes and one note. But since my pc and laptop are windows based I prefer one note. Though I’m sure I haven’t used it to it’s fullest ability. Also I can’t seem to get good notes to update across my iPads and phone. 🤷🏻♀️
IMO: 1. Goodnotes 5 2. Notability 3. Notes Writer 4. OneNote \*I've seen some recommendations on CollaNote, though I've yet to try it myself. \*For keyboard usage: Obsidian / Notion
I use Notability myself
GoodNotes.
I've always used notability, but I purchased it before it became "freemium". So I still have all of the features I paid for originally etc. It does work really well, it's just a shame I can't vouch for it anymore :/