10 Best Note Taking Apps for iPad (Free and Paid)
Dec. 8, 2021The iPad is an excellent tablet for students, professionals, and everyone else. Thanks to the beautiful displays, and the Apple Pencil (and Apple Pencil Pro), the iPad also doubles up nicely as a note taking device, and it’s very handy both in lectures, and in office meetings. So, if you’re wondering how to make the most out of your iPad’s note taking abilities, here are the 10 best note taking apps for iPad that you should check out.
1. Goodnotes 6
The latest verison of Goodnotes brings a lot of amazing features for note taking. For starters, you get support for notebooks to easily organise your notes, and you can fully customise these notebooks complete with multiple cover options, and page styles to suit your needs.
Once you’ve set up your notebook, you can start taking notes with your Apple Pencil — there arethree types of Pen tools in the app, and each one comes with its own settings to customise the writing experience. There’s also apencil tool which is great for sketching, and it supports the tilt functionality as well, so you can shade in your sketches too.
You also get Sticky Notes, a ruler, and an audio recording functionality directly inside your notebook so you can record your lectures or meetings while taking notes. Plus, theapp supports Math Notes,which means you can write equations within your notes and Goodnotes 6 can solve them for you.
For students, the app alsofeatures Study Sets, which are basically flash cards, where you can write questions and answers and then practice them to learn and remember important information from your classes.
Notability is yet another excellent note taking app for iPad that you can consider. It comes with a simpler interface that might be to your liking if you simply want something that looks organized without having too many UI items straight on your home screen.
Notability comes with a bunch of features, including pretty much everything you can do with Goodnotes. You get support for creating“subjects” to categorize and organize your notes. You can create new notes easily, and use the Apple Pencil to start jotting down stuff with the Pen tool, or the Pencil tool. There’s also the highlighter, which works really well, along with an eraser tool, a text tool (for typing support), and more.
One of the standout features of Notability is definitely theaudio recordings which are synced with your writing. So, when you play back the recording, Notability will highlight what you were writing at that moment, and you can also tap on a particular part of your note to see what was being said at that moment. This is great for adding little bookmarks to your notes’ audio recording so you can get back to it quickly when you’re revising or simply revisiting your notes.
You also get support for adding stickers (including your own custom stickers), images, PDFs, and even GIFs to your notes to make things more interesting and pretty.
Plus, if you’re using an iPad with Apple Pencil Pro, you cansqueeze and hold your Apple Pencil to start erasing itemsin your notes. Once you stop squeezing, Notability will automatically revert back to the tool you were using. I personally really like this feature, because it’s easier than double tapping to switch to the eraser and then double tapping again to switch back to your original writing tool.
The built-in Notes app on the iPad is also very powerful and excellent for jotting down notes and adding sketches etc. It also comes with plenty ofcollaboration featuresfor working with a team, and if you just want to share your notes with someone else.
Obviously, it comes with Apple Pencil support baked in, and you can use all the PencilKit tools to write notes, highlight them, and do everything else. Plus, you canswitch between handwriting and typing on the flyif you want to.
The stock Notes app also does a decent job of organization — you can create folders to separate notes into different categories, and you can use iCloud to sync your notes across all your Apple devices.
One of the main drawbacks of the Apple Notes app is that itcan drain the batterya tad too much when you’re taking longer handwritten notes. Plus, people have reported that with very long handwritten notes, the app starts to lag — however, I haven’t observed any such issues in my usage of the app.
Basically, I would recommend that you start off by using the stock Notes app on your iPad, and if there are any features that you need for your note taking that aren’t available in the app, you can consider switching over to one of the other apps on this list.ProsConsBuilt-in appCan be heavy on the batteryFull Apple Pencil Pro supportNot as feature-packed as some other options on this listEasy to use
If you’re looking for an iPad note taking appfocused on typing instead of handwriting, you should definitely check out Obsidian. This is a free app, that brings all the features you can want for taking notes on your iPad.
Obsidian does not support handwriting, which can be a deal breaker for some, but it makes up for it by bringing in a lot of extremely powerful features, all of which are available completely free. Itsupports markdownformatting, so you can quickly and easily format your documents.
One of the coolest things about Obisidian is itslink management and graph view, which lets you link notes to each other and easily visualise the various relationships between your notes in a nice graph style. This is perfect for when you’re taking notes on a subject and want to link it to other notes in your Obsidian vault, creating something of aknowledge graph on your iPad.
You can easily click through these links to open the related notes, andin the graph view, you can see how all your notes are linked to each other. Plus, you can also create links to notes that don’t exist yet, to highlight information you want to get back to and take a deeper dive into when you get the time.
You also get support for adding attachments to your obsidian files. Overall, Obsidian is a greatsecond-brain app for your iPadthat can let you create detailed notes, with backlinks and embeds to create a proper knowledge graph on your tablet. The app is completely free to use, but you can subscribe to add sync or publishing features as add-ons.ProsConsLinking notes and graph-view is very usefulSync feature is a paid add-onMarkdown format makes exporting easyNo handwriting supportCompletely free to use
Another app that you should check out for jotting down notes during lectures and meetings, Noteful brings all the necessary features that you will need. It comes with a clean UI, with a decent amount of categorization options to ensure your notes are properly organized within the app. You can create new notebooks complete with cover designs, and paper styles, and then just start taking notes.
You don’t get quite as many writing tools as you do with something like Goodnotes or Notability, but you getthree very versatile pensto write with, which proved more than enough for most of my needs. Plus, you get other useful tools like ahighlighter, eraser, lasso, laser pointer, and more. You also get stickers, and the ability to add tags, images, shapes, stickers, and more to your notes.
Also, similar to Notability, you get anaudio recording feature here that syncs your writingwith the recorded audio, which means you can play back audio and see exactly what was being said when you made a particular note. This also comes in handy for quickly bookmarking sections in the audio recording — just draw a symbol when you hear something important that you want to get back to, and you can later just tap on the symbol to jump directly to that section in the recording.
While Noteful can be used for free without too much of a hassle, I would recommend that you upgrade to Noteful Pro if the app seems good for your needs. It’s a one time purchase of $4.99 and brings unlimited notebooks, unlimited layers, outlines, bookmarks, image cropping, and a lot more that can really take your note taking experience to the next level.ProsConsFree version is perfectly usableOnly three pen tools to use in the free versionAudio sync with writing is usefulReasonable one-time payment for unlocking full version
Bear is a simple, beautiful looking note taking app for iPad that supports markdown, which means you can quickly and easily start taking notes on your iPad complete witheasy formatting optionsand more.
The app also brings support for additional things, such as the ability to embed a whiteboard where you canscribble with the Apple Pencil, adding images, links,and more to your notes in-line.
Bear alsosupports adding PDFs directly within the noteitself, and you can even annotate these once they’ve been added to your note. The free version of the app is probably going to be enough for most users, since it comes with most of the required features. However, if you want things like iCloud syncing, themes, and the ability to password protect your notes, you will have to subscribe to Bear Pro.
If you’re looking for a note taking app that is primarily focused on typing but will also let you add some scribbles and sketches in between, you can check out Evernote as well. The app comes with a clean-ish UI, though it’s not as good as some of the other options on this list.
You do get the ability tocreate multiple notebookshere to organize information easily, and each notebook can contain multiple notes. Within these notes you can obviously type anything you want to, but Evernote also bringssupport for adding scribbles on a whiteboardof sorts that can be embedded directly inside your note. You can also transcribe your scribbled information if you want to, which can come in handy while searching through notes.
Apart from that Evernote supports addingcode blocks, inserting images, links, tables, checklists, and even a table of contentsfor longer notes with multiple sections.
You can also easily style your text using the formatting options, and there is a highlight tool as well to mark important information. Evernote also has anaudio recordingfeature which is nice, but do note that it doesn’t sync your writing with the audio so it’s not as versatile as something like Notability or Noteful’s audio recording.ProsSupports multiple types of content within notesUI isn’t as neat as some competitorsAI Cleanup can make notes cleaner
I don’t think there’s a single productivity use-case for which Google doesn’t have an app of some sort and note taking is no different. If you’re deep into the Google ecosystem of software and services, Google Keep might just be what you need for jotting down notes.
This isn’t a very feature packed note taking app, and you get a very barebones set of tools, but it’s perfectly fine fortaking quick notes, especially if they are not too long. You get a clean UI where you can create new notes and start typing at once. Plus, the search bar within the app can let yousearch through your notesas well, and it works very fast.
There’s also an option toadd drawingsto your notes, and while it does support the Apple Pencil, you only get to choose from a couple of tools within the app, and there doesn’t seem to be any PencilKit support. You can alsoadd images and audio recordingsto your note, which can also come in handy.
As far as organization goes, Google Keep is definitely not as good as something like Goodnotes, but you do get Labels here which you can use to categorize your notes into separate categories. However, this isbest used for basic note taking workflowsand won’t really do the job if you’re looking for something to take and organize university notes or office meetings on.ProsConsCompletely freeNot feature richGood for basic note takingNo PencilKit support
For starters, you get abunch of pen toolsto write with even in the free version, along with multiple color options and even a color palette for a custom color if you need it. You can alsoquickly draw shapeswith the pen and the app will automatically convert it into a proper shape so you can easily make arrows, circles, and other common shapes.
Apart from that, you get ahighlighter tool, lasso, text box, stickers, and more. You can also add images to your notes. Plus, if you get the Pro version of Collanote, you getsupport for adding graphs, and you unlock stabilisation settings for the pen tools, which can help you write better.
The app also supports ahandwriting calculatoralong with a scientific calculator, so all your mathematical needs are sorted as well. You can also import PDFs into the app and annotate them or fill them out.
Personally, I feel that writing in the free version of the app is slightly difficult since the default stabilisation setting doesn’t help much in fixing your handwriting. In the Pro version, however, you will be able to adjust this along with a bunch of other settings for your tools, which can definitely come in handy.
Apart from that, Collanote alsosupports flashcardswhich are useful for revision and for learning key topics and concepts, and you can create multiple folders to easily organize your notes as well.ProsConsFree version has plenty of featuresDefault stabilisation is not goodHandwriting calculatorUI looks datedGraph supportFlashcard support
If you’re looking for acompletely free note taking appfor iPad that is more feature packed than Google Keep, you should check out Simple Note. As the name suggests, this app is aimed at taking simple notes, whether they are for your lectures, meetings, or for personal work.
Simple Note does not support handwritten notes and is aimed at typed notes only. However, you can scribble with the Apple Pencil and the app will automatically convert your scribbled text into typed characters. Apart from that, the appsupports markdown editing, you caninterlink notesto each other by copying their internal links, and you can evenpublish your notesto share them as web-links.
The app also comes with acollaboration option, so multiple people can work on the same note, and there’s ahistory feature as well, which lets you view changes made to the note over time, and also lets you restore the note to a previous version without any hassle.
As for categorization, just as Google Keep uses labels, Simple Note uses tags, and you can add multiple tags to a single note as well to organize information better.
Overall, Simple Note is a good iPad notes app that gets the job done without tying you up with its bells and whistles.ProsConsSimple to useNot many featuresHistory feature is usefulOrganization options are lacking
Well, those were the 10 best note taking apps for iPad that you should check out. I have tried to include apps that suit the needs of various kinds of use-cases, including casual users, university and college students, personal usage, and more. Hopefully, you were able to find an app that best suits your needs. If you have any questions or queries, or you think I should include another app in this list, let me know in the comments.
