When I was still a student in university, I found that using an iPad was an absolute life-saver and that I was able to get all my work done on just this small, 11-inch device while I was on campus. Although I always prefer using laptops, I find that having an iPad is great because I can handwrite, type, watch videos, read books, and do pretty much anything all in one device. I also spent quite a lot of time trying to find the best apps for note-taking on the iPad and if you’re a student, you’re probably wondering this question as well. Here is a list of the best note taking apps on the iPad that you can use for school, work, planning, fun, or anything else you happen to need notes for.
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Notability
First up is Notability, which is one of the most popular note-taking apps on the iPad and has been for years now. It’s been trusted by lots of people and it’s had a loyal following for a long time.
Notability allows for you to take notes with multimedia tools and includes a recording feature so you can record a lecture while you’re taking notes and follow along. You can also insert textbooks, documents, lecture slides, assignments and more and add notes onto them to keep all your important papers in once place so you’re not lugging around textbooks everywhere.
Furthermore, the compatibility with the Apple Pencil and the app is really good and it’s very life-like and feels as though you’re writing on paper. On top of this, you can multi-task and have two notes open, allowing you to drag and drop, type text, and more between the notes.
Notability does have a free plan, but it’s quite limited and you can’t get access to all the fun features that are available in the full, premium version of the app called Notability Plus.
Notability Plus is $14.99 per year and is available on the iPad, iPhone, and Mac products.
Goodnotes
I personally used Goodnotes throughout a few years of university and I still do use it occasionally but I had it when it was still Goodnotes 5. Goodnotes 6 is a bit different from 5 and comes with quite a lot of extra features compared to when I first started using this app.
Goodnotes is quite similar to Notability in its functionality and it has the ability to backup notes to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and you can use iCloud to sync across your Apple devices. It has a lot of great things like customizable paper templates, the ability to import PDF tables of contents, combine handwriting and typing text on a single page and more.
Goodnotes has a lot of solutions for students, planners, professionals and more. It has tools to make your notes look more aesthetic, different pen types for different writing styles, and you can also record audio notes that are synced with when you’re writing in the actual digital notebook. You can also annotate textbooks, documents, lectures and more straight in the app like Notability does.
Goodnotes 6 also has new AI Math Assistance to help catch mistakes, so when you’re solving your math problems, it’ll be able to actually help you out. It’s also really great for organization, as you can sort things into notebooks, into folders, and stack these things so that you can open a folder and find anything relevant only within that folder. It’s a great system.
Goodnotes has a limited free plan available. You can purchase it one time for $29.99 or pay a subscription of $9.99 per year.
OneNote
OneNote is Microsoft’s free note-taking app that is honestly probably one of the best out there if you’re looking for something with lots of premium features and a free price tag. Many people love OneNote and the versatility that it includes. Although OneNote is more made for typing up notes, its handwriting feature is actually great. It’s probably one of the better ones out there in an app that isn’t tailored specifically for handwritten notes.
OneNote has one pen style that you can change the size and color of and there’s a ton of great color options including some weird and unique ones like marble and galaxy. There is also the Math Assistant feature and the ability to audio record.
I think the nice thing about OneNote is that it basically works on most platforms that you may have like Windows and Apple products alike.
OneNote is free to use but if you want to increase your storage (which you likely will not need to do anytime soon), you can get 100GB of storage for $1.99 per month or just purchase Microsoft 365 Personal and get 1TB of storage and everything in the office suite for $6.99 per month.
Check out this post for tablet recommendations!
Apple Notes
This might not seem like everyone’s first pick, but Apple Notes is honestly a great app if you take the time to work with it. Plus, with iOS 18 coming out soon for the iPad, the Notes app is going to be getting a TON of changes that is making it basically a contender against Goodnotes and Notability.
Firstly, Apple Notes has the capacity to allow you to create tables and interactive checklists, which is honestly a great thing that I didn’t find in other note taking apps. It makes things like taking notes a bit easier if you have a lot of info that you want to turn into a table.
You can also take Quick Notes which is basically just something you jot down on the side as you’re watching something or doing some sort of task. The note comes up from the corner and you jot the information down and then it’s saved in its own file and you can then see it in the Notes app when you want to.
You can also create folders in the Notes app so that you can sort your notes out by whatever you want to sort them by. There are also formatting options like adding headers and you can take pictures on your iPad and insert them into the note without having to leave the app.
However, there are some limitations like being unable to add in textbooks and taking notes on them. You’ll have to do that in another app basically. It’s just not as flexible or robust as some other apps out there, but it’s basically what I’d consider Ol’ Reliable when it comes to notes on the iPad.
Apple Notes is completely free.
Evernote
I used to use Evernote waaaaay back when it came out on a little Android tablet and at the time, I was a huge fan of it. Evernote is an old contender in the ring and it’s another really trusty option. It’s a perfect option for people who prefer note taking apps for productivity purposes first since it includes sections for to-do lists specifically on top of notes.
If you have Evernote Premium, you get a fully customizable home dashboard and can organize information in a way that works for you and is best for your work style. Additionally, there are over fifty templates for taking notes and you have categories where you can search based off of work, school, and personal.
Evernote is a bit more rigid because it’s structured more like a Word document or Google Docs, so you can’t really free-mix handwriting with typing like you can with Notability. You have to enter Sketch Mode to pretty much do all of this and then once you’re done, Evernote turns your handwritten work into a picture and adds it to the notes. This is unfortunately quite a negative aspect to this app.
You can also connect your preferred Calendar and add reminders to your tasks list so that you can keep track of things within Evernote. However, this is a premium feature.
There is a limited free plan and then there are two pricing structures: $14.99 per month or $129.99 per year for the personal plan. There are professional plans as well for enterprises. This definitely makes Evernote one of the more expensive options on this list.
CollaNote
CollaNote is one of the newer contenders to the ring and it may not be as polished as some of the other ones, but it’s still a solid choice for people who want a note taking app that will benefit them in many ways.
The look is simple and the interface includes lots of pens and brush types to give you a different experience when it comes to actually writing information with your Apple Pencil. It also has pressure sensitivity, changing the size of the text based on how hard you are pressing against the screen.
CollaNote is unique compared to some of the other apps because it features lots of unique pens and brushes like vector pens, art pens, 3D brushes and more.
You can create flashcards for studying, collaborate with other users who have a CollaNote account, and more. You can import PDFs and mark them up and you can also insert images and other things into a note to mark them up as well, so you still have those kinds of features.
There is a free version available for CollaNote and there is a Premium version that is a one-time purchase of $11.90. Honestly, that’s great because a lot of note taking apps are switching to this sort of subscription model service and I find that to be a bit annoying when it’s just a note taking app on the iPad.
Where to Buy an iPad and Apple Pencil
You can buy an iPad over at Amazon and there are quite a few options like the iPad Air or the iPad Pro. You can also buy the Apple Pencil over at Amazon.
Conclusion
There are quite a lot of apps for the iPad that are great for taking notes and some apps are more advanced and robust than others, but all of them on this list ultimately serve the purpose of existing for note taking. If you’re more of an artistic note taker, then an app like Notability or Goodnotes is perfect for you. If you prefer simplistic notes and don’t care for the bells and whistles, then Apple Notes is probably substantial enough for you!
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