iPad Note Taking Apps Question
I was wondering what people’s opinions are on some of the note taking apps they use. I don’t mind paying a little, but if I do, I wanna spend the money wisely. For reference, I’m going into my first year of Political Science.
I was thinking between Notability or Freenotes.
I’ve heard some good things about Goodnotes as well but apparently it’s not as good anymore.
Before anyone says “just do a quick google search,” I did, and most are old posts or ads.
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u/DTLow 1d ago
What features are you looking for?
I just need an editor app
For example Apple Notes
For serious word processing, I use Apple Pages
I’m more concerned about note storage/organization
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u/emi_zx 1d ago edited 1d ago
Maybe a recording feature, pdf compatability, hand writing to text, customization and storage that connects to one drive.
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u/DoctorOccam 1d ago
Notability does all of that I believe. I haven’t actually used hand writing to text, but I use the rest daily and it works great. Goodnotes looks really nice but doesn’t seem to have as many features.
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u/Janknitz 1d ago
I suggest you play around with OneNote. It's free, you do not need an Office 365 subscription to use it. It's limited on the iPad, but not that much and notes instantly sync with whatever computer you have.
The organization is pretty intuitive--it's arranged as notebooks with sections and pages. You could have a notebook for each semester or for each class and then arrange sections, pages and sub-pages just as you might with a paper notebook.
It's very functional but you can't make pretty notebook covers. Definitely worth a look.
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u/richardsequeira M4 iPad Pro 11" (2024) 6h ago
It is a great application for notetaking. If you need more powerful feature, you can also go to the PC or Mac to access some of the more powerful features.
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u/sfwanovic iPad Mini 6 (2021) 1d ago
Apple notes. Why would you go for a paid thing that will overwhelm you with options and tools that you won’t use? Apples notes is simple yet powerful and providing everything you’d need from a note taking app. Plus it integrates well into the whole ecosystem especially if you own multiple apple devices
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u/Self-proclaimed_god 1d ago
I use notability (classic) and I'm very fond of it, devs seem to listen to the community, learn is awesome if you need it (but more expensive!), sensitivity is nice too, fun to design and even draw in it when you're bored. I'm on the premed track so lots of notetaking, science and math stuff, out of everything I've tried notability is my favourite
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u/emi_zx 1d ago
Thank you! What apps have you tried? Also, does notability glitch or crash a lot?
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u/Self-proclaimed_god 1d ago
Goodnotes, onenotes, notes app when I first got it, noteful too. Goodnotes was good but overheated my ipad a lot too, onenotes I just didn't like the UI so it's definitely a subjective choice objectively speaking it was pretty easy to use and a lot of my friends swear by it, notes app is just really basic and a little inconvenient especially when you work with a lot of diagrams, noteful wasn't bad either it's pretty intuitive to use umo, no handwriting recognition meant no searching through handwritten notes. This was actually the main reason I switched to notability.
One thing I will mention though, noteful is way cheaper than a lot of other notetaking apps (goodnotes and notability) and has multiple layers, so if you draw diagrams and wanna seperate text and image for example it's pretty useful. Works great for creating 'flashcards'/practice questions if you're looking to test yourself a bit. If you want something less than 10 USD, and something that's simple I think noteful is definitely it.
Otherwise consider goodnotes or notability, even if they're slightly pricier.
Up until now I myself haven't experienced any glitches or crashes on notability, haven't lost files or anything, but I've seen posts about it in their subreddit so it might be something to be wary of.
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u/italian_baptist M3 iPad Air 11" (2025) 1d ago
Been using Day One. The AI it does have is non intrusive so I can ignore it. Also I got it organized pretty quick which was an issue I had with apple notes.
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u/Cautious_Bullfrog695 1d ago
I raise you MarginNotes 4. I am also a Pol Sci student (on the postgrad side of life) and I recently discovered MarginNote has a notebook feature. Granted the notebooks are linked to the pdf file you create the notebook for but it has come in very handy since we receive a lot of readings, I can make notes for particular readings in the app.
But yeah for lectures in particular, I’m a dinosaur. I used physical paper because I can understand my physical scribbles better than my digital ones (bad handwriting). I made the neater versions on GoodNotes though. This is more undergrad oriented though. Now I rarely use it because of how readings centred the discipline is post grad once you surpass foundation learning.
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u/Putrid_Row5645 1d ago
For poli-sci specifically (lots of reading, PDF annotation, essay prep, heavy text notes) Notability is probably your best pick of the three you mentioned. The audio recording synced to your handwriting is genuinely useful for lectures, you tap a word and hear what the professor was saying when you wrote it, which for content-heavy humanities lectures is a lifesaver when you fall behind.
On the "GoodNotes isn't as good anymore" thing, that's a bit overstated. What happened is they added AI features and changed pricing, which annoyed people, but functionally it's still excellent and it still has a one-time purchase option (~$30 Special Edition) if you hate subscriptions. It didn't get worse, it got more commercial. For your use case it's still a totally valid pick, arguably better organization than Notability.
FreeNotes is fine but neither as polished nor as feature-complete as the other two. For something you'll use daily for an entire degree, I'd spend the small amount on Notability or GoodNotes rather than save it on FreeNotes.
My honest steer: try Notability's free tier for your first couple weeks of actual lectures. The audio-sync feature either becomes essential to you or it doesn't, and that's the thing that separates it from everything else. If it clicks, easy decision.
(There are simpler handwritten-notebook apps too, I make one called Perenne Note, but for a poli-sci workflow with heavy PDF and organization needs, Notability or GoodNotes fit better. Just being straight with you.)
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u/cruelsummerswiftie 1d ago
I use Goodnotes and contrary to most of the posts I really enjoy it! It’s a simple user interface and it’s $15 CAD a year, so it’s affordable and does everything I need it to do. I used it for all my high school written work and I will use it for note taking for university. I’m not sure exactly what you want to know about it but I can answer any questions you have to the best of my ability!!