In a world where digitality takes precedence, note-taking has evolved far beyond the pen-and-paper method. It’s a world that now favors apps that keep us organized, help us remember details, and even sync across our devices.
But with so many note-taking apps available, it’s hard to decide which one is the best fit for your unique needs. That’s why we’ve taken it upon ourselves to sift through the digital clutter and curate a list of the best note-taking apps, each offering distinct features and benefits.
Whether you’re a student capturing lecture notes, a professional brainstorming ideas, or simply someone who enjoys jotting down thoughts, these note taking apps for iPad are designed to boost your productivity and streamline your life.
Related: Best apps for researchers and graduate students
Evernote
With Evernote, you can write, collect, and capture ideas as searchable notes, notebooks, or to-do lists. It also supports clipping articles, web pages, and adding various content to your notes like text, docs, PDFs, sketches, photos, audio, and web clippings. You can even use your camera to scan and organize paper documents, business cards, and handwritten notes.
Evernote is designed to boost your organization skills. With the Tasks feature, manage your to-do list efficiently by setting due dates and reminders. You can also connect your Google Calendar to have your schedule and notes in one place. With Evernote’s robust search, finding anything, even text in images and handwritten notes, becomes effortless.
Evernote is designed for accessibility, syncing your notes and notebooks automatically across all devices. This means you can begin your work on one device and continue on another without any disruption.
Microsoft OneNote
Microsoft OneNote serves as a digital notepad to capture thoughts, ideas, and plans. Users can write memos, sketch digitally, and save notes on their phone. One of its key features is the ability to sync notes across devices via OneDrive, ensuring accessibility anywhere.
Organizational tools within OneNote allow for efficient note management, and a search function is available for finding notes quickly. Added security measures include password protection and touch ID access.
The app also includes a unique sticky notes feature that can be synced across devices, as well as collaboration options for shared notebooks. Furthermore, OneNote offers a robust drawing and handwriting function, particularly on iPad, where users can create detailed notes and drawings with a variety of pen settings and a “Convert to Shapes” mode for precision. OneNote is free on iPhone and many other devices, requiring a Microsoft account for usage.
Simplenote
Simplenote is a straightforward note-taking app with a minimalistic design. Its primary features include creating notes, to-do lists, and the ability to tag and pin notes for organization. A useful search function allows users to quickly find their notes. The app also syncs across different devices, ensuring notes are accessible from anywhere.
Collaborative features are present but limited, including the ability to share notes or lists with others. Users can also publish notes directly to a WordPress site if they have an account. However, beyond basic text, formatting options are limited to markdown usage. There is a provision to protect notes with a passcode lock, adding an extra layer of security.
Bear
Bear is a note-taking application known for its focus on flexibility and organization. Its core features include writing in portable Markdown, creating nested tags for note organization, and adding sketches. Bear also offers the ability to encrypt notes for added privacy. There’s a broad range of export options available, though some require a Bear Pro subscription.
Bear supports sketching and drawing and has an app extension for grabbing images, text, and files from web pages. There’s an option to create tasks within notes, and notes can be archived for better management.
Sharing is quite versatile, with the ability to export in multiple formats and share notes to third-party apps. Its search functionality is enhanced with keyword highlights and search triggers.
Bear provides a syncing service through the Bear Pro subscription, which utilizes iCloud to sync notes across Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch. The subscription is device-wide, working across all your compatible devices with a single in-app purchase.
Penultimate
Penultimate is an iPad application that pairs the experience of natural handwriting and sketching with the synchronizing and searching capabilities of Evernote. It is designed to mimic the feeling of ink and paper, with a distraction-free interface that makes taking notes, journaling thoughts, or outlining ideas more productive.
In the app, notes and drawings can be done in black or colored ink, with inking technology designed to produce natural-looking pen strokes. It also features Wrist Protection to prevent stray marks. Users can customize their writing space with different paper styles or by importing an image to create personalized paper.
Penultimate also includes a ‘Drift’ feature for a seamless writing experience, allowing the page to automatically move at the user’s pace. The app syncs with Evernote, meaning that notes can be organized into notebooks by topic, project, or category and are accessible across devices.
The app has a search function for handwritten text, and users can easily manage their work within notebooks, including inserting, deleting, duplicating, and reorganizing pages. Penultimate is free to download and use, with an option for an Evernote Premium or Evernote Plus subscription for additional upload capacity and features.
