If you’re searching for the best note taking apps for iPad, look no further than OneNote . The app lets you jot down notes, create checklists, insert images, record audio and more. Microsoft’s OneNote is free to download on your iPad, but there are plenty of free note-taking apps for iPad that provide similar features. Depending on which one you pick, entry may go digital or stick to plain old pen and paper. Either way, the result is the same: more notes are created with fewer headaches.
Without a doubt, the iPad is the most versatile and powerful tablet to hit the market in years, and it offers a wealth of ways to take handwritten notes and drawings and display and share them. Unfortunately, Apple didn’t include an easy way to take notes with the iPad. That’s where apps come in to play.
Microsoft OneNote
OneNote is like the Microsoft version of the Apple Notes app, though users say it fits so well into Apple’s ecosystem that you’d never guess it’s not a native Apple app. It’s still a mostly basic notes app, where you can quickly scribble down what’s on your mind on a digital sheet of paper.
However, OneNote does beat out Apple Notes on a few key features – namely, Microsoft Office integration and easy collaboration features, plus a few extra pencil formatting options.
- Cost: Free
- App store user rating: 4.7 stars
- Layout options: The infinite canvas allows you to endlessly scroll out to widen the frame. You can also use traditional lined “paper” if you’d prefer.
- Organization: The app lays your notes out like a binder so they can be easily organized by topic.
- Multimedia integration: Yes
- Bonus features: Collaboration/sharing via Microsoft accounts, PDF annotation
- OneNote lets you combine photos, text, and annotations.
Apple Notes
We couldn’t discuss iPad note-taking apps without mentioning Apple Notes. The app comes free with macOS/iOS devices, and it does a great job of letting you type or take notes by hand. The app’s drawing features are also solid, making it easy to add sketches and illustrations to your notes.
Aside from being free, the biggest advantage of Apple Notes is its deep integration with iOS. If you use iCloud and other Apple devices, you can effortlessly switch between taking notes on your iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
Plus, everything you create is automatically backed up to iCloud, and you can even create voice notes using Siri while you’re on the go.
Price: Free
GoodNotes 5
GoodNotes 5 , like Notability, also has an Editor’s Choice Award on the Apple App Store, and it functions quite similarly to Notability, with just a few distinct differences. It’s not quite as smooth when writing or sketching, but it does have a more robust framework for organizing things.
GoodNotes seems to think of itself less as a single notebook or binder for multiple ideas, and more as a bookshelf for organizing different notebooks that do different things – like, for example, a day planner, a traditional notebook, a sketchbook, or a folder full of marked-up PDFs on a certain subject.
- Cost: $7.99
- App store user rating: 4.8 stars
- Layout options: Limitless – GoodNotes provides several templates for you to choose from, but you can also create or upload your own.
- Organization: Like your computer, GoodNotes organizes your notes in folders and subfolders. The app also allows you to choose different covers for each note or notebook.
- Multimedia integration: Yes
- Bonus features: searchable text, Presentation Mode using AirPlay or HDMI, adjustable pen sensitivity, PDF annotation, magnify text to jot notes in margins
You can get really creative with the GoodNotes 5 app.
Penultimate
Developed by Evernote, Penultimate is designed to be the go-to note-taking app for Evernote users. It has all the standard note-taking features you want, including a variety of layouts and the ability to search your handwritten notes with optical character recognition.
If you already use Evernote, then you can seamlessly add Penultimate to your workflow. Once you sign into the app with your Evernote account, all your notes will automatically sync to the Evernote notebook of your choice.
While the additional writing features of Noteshelf still make it our preferred note-taking app to use with Evernote, Penultimate remains a solid choice (especially if you’re looking for a free app).
Whink
Whink touts itself as the “gel pen” app – along with the standard writing tools, Whink also boasts a pen that writes just like a gel pen on the surface of the page. The gel pen comes in unlimited colors for those who like to get creative with their notes. It also has vector ink so notes don’t get grainy when you zoom in to write in the margins.
Other than that, the app is pretty bare bones – and most of its users consider that a positive. Whink is the perfect note-taking app for minimalists who still want something a little more versatile than the free apps, without having to pay for extra features.
- Cost: $4.99
- App store user rating: 4.1
- Layout options: Notes can be taken on lined or unlined paper.
- Organization: Notes are organized into distinct notebooks with different covers.
- Multimedia integration: Photos and audio recordings only
- Bonus features: Multitasking ability, zoom in to write in margins, PDF markup, supports diagrams
The Whink app has a fairly minimal interface.
Evernote
Note-taking app with cross-platform support
REASONS TO BUY
+Free version+Lots of features+Also supports Android
REASONS TO AVOID
-Need premium version for collaboration
For those looking for a note-taking platform that works with their iPad Pro, but also Android devices, Evernote straddles the two mobile platforms with ease.
Evernote is a great app to collect multiple inputs, including images, text notes, recorded messages, and clippings of web pages – all in one file for storage and collaboration. They can then be accessed via the iPad Pro, Android, or a PC though the web browser interface for ease of workflow. Also, a further boon is that the notes are searchable.
The iOS app is free, and offers in-app purchases. However, the free product is restricted to syncing only two devices, and uploads are limited to just 60MB per month. Step up to the Premium tier to sync all your devices, gain a more generous 10GB of uploads in a month, as well as the additional features of live chat support, and offline access to your notes. Alternatively, for collaborations, there’s a business plan with increased limits and additional features.
Noteshelf
Noteshelf was our favorite note-taking app for the iPad before we discovered Notability, and it’s still a superb option.
It has many of the features we love in Notability, including the option to annotate PDFs and multitask with the iPad’s split screen. You can also record voice notes to go along with your handwritten notes, which is perfect for recapping a lecture or meeting at a later date.
If you speak/write multiple languages, you’ll also be pleased to know that Noteshelf can recognize handwriting in 65 different languages. This makes it a powerful tool whether you’re taking a language class or learning a language on your own.
Finally, Noteshelf lets you export your notes to iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Evernote. The option to export to Evernote is noticeably missing from Notability, making Noteshelf our top pick for serious Evernote users.
Apple Watch users will also benefit from the app’s ability to record voice notes using the Noteshelf Apple Watch app.
Price: $9.99
Nebo
The advanced note-taking app
REASONS TO BUY
+Affordable price +Handles more complex documents+Exports to multiple formats
REASONS TO AVOID
-Requires an official Apple Pencil
For note-takers with needs that go beyond the basic, Nebo can handle the challenge. While plenty of note-taking apps allow text to be entered, Nebo can also easily structure notes, allowing you to add paragraphs, titles and bullet lists for organization.
It also handles ‘rich content,’ such as diagrams, sketches (with different colors and pen widths), flow charts, and formulas, letting you integrate them into the document. Once completed, documents can be exported in a variety of formats, including Word, PDF, and even HTML.
Nebo is available for multiple platforms, including Windows 10, Android, and of course iOS.
Notepad+
REASONS TO BUY
+Type or use handwriting+Color and image options+Works with multiple file formats
Notepad+ provides a digital notepad for you to do pretty much anything you’d like to that you would in a normal blank notepad. There’s the ability to type notes, of course, as well as make lists, but you can also use it for sketching as well as adding images.
There are also additional features, not least for annotating other files, such as PDF files, as well as files from Excel, Keynote, and Numbers. A drag-and-drop function allows images from other apps to be copied into your notes, regardless of the file format used.
There are a wide range of formatting options that take Notepad+ away from standard note-taking software, with the ability to use different fonts, colors, and highlighting, as well as support for handwriting.
Icons and smileys can also be added to notes, and you can add text next to them. A zoom feature allows you to change perspective if you need to move in closer or further away, which can be especially useful when using images.
Notepad+ is available in 12 different languages.
Conclusion
When deciding which note-taking app to use on your iPad, you should first consider what you’re using it for – that will help you choose the features that are most important to you. For example, if you want to use the app to take notes for a class, you may consider an app with binder or bookshelf organization style. If you’re a messy note taker, you might want an app that has some kind of infinite canvas available, so you never run out of space. If you’re an artist, you’ll likely want to base your decision on versatility of pen styles, or how smoothly the pen writes. Ultimately, the perfect note-taking app for your needs is going to be the one that feels like it would adapt to you – not the other way around.