Description
"The note-taking app you've been waiting for" - Mac|Life Magazine, January 2011
"This app brings an amazing experience to the iPad" - Appolicious.com.
"Measured against the real world of note-taking apps on the iPad, Notes Plus is a winner." - AppCraver.com, scored 9/10.
Notes Plus is a powerful note-taking tool that supports handwriting, typing and audio recording. It offers close-up writing mode for small text, stroke smoothing, vector shape auto-detection, palm handling, complete folder structure, PDF annotation, images, PDF exporting, emailing, and more.
*** IMPORTANT: Before you buy, I invite you to visit the developer website to learn more about Notes Plus. If you have questions, please email me before purchasing the app. Notes Plus has so many features it is impossible to include all details on this summary page. Questions asked in comments here cannot be answered, but I try to answer support questions within 24 hours. I want you to be happy with Notes Plus, and enjoy providing you with the support you need. Thank you for your interest! ***
Notes Plus benefits include:
1. CLOSE-UP HANDWRITING
Hand write comfortably with your big finger, your text will show up as fine as with pen and paper. Auto-advance feature let you write even with your eyes closed. Advanced stroke smoothing algorithm makes your writing look as good as ever; the faster you write, the better it looks.
2. PALM HANDLING
Lay your palm comfortably down with Palm Pad.
3. TYPED TEXT MIXING
Let you insert keyboard text anywhere on the page with many type faces, font sizes, and colors.
4. SHAPE AUTO-DETECT
Let you draw a basic shape (ellipse, rectangle, line, polygon, ...) with your finger, auto-detect and insert the perfect vector shape, then let you edit it.
5. VOICE RECORDING
Let you record audio while jotting down the note. Perfect for meetings, classes, or conferences. Recordings are linked with pages to provide easy playback.
6. EASY EDITING
Let you select handwriting text by just circling around it, then erase or re-arrange it. Erasing a writing is as easy as drawing a line over it. No awkward switching between erase tool, selection tool, and draw tool.
7. EASY ORGANIZING
Provide a complete folder structure. Private folders can be password-protected. A folder can have many notebooks; a notebook can have many pages. Pages are listing with thumbnails. Provide ability to move, copy, duplicate and delete notebooks or individual pages.
8. RECOVERING FROM YOUR MISTAKES
Full undo/redo support. Yes, it does have REDO function; touch and hold undo button to reveal the undo/redo action sheet. Also let you recover your deleted notebooks or pages.
9. CUSTOMIZING TO YOUR TASTE
Many options are provided including: stroke color, thickness, transparency; text font, size, color; paper background, etc.
10. (LAST AND MOST IMPORTANT) CLEAN & NATURAL USER INTERFACE
As you can see from the screenshots below, this app stands out for its clean interface. A great effort was put in to hide controls so that it would not cluster the interface. You should be able to start without a tutorial.
*** Again, please visit http://notesplusapp.com ***
What's New in Version 3.0.3
Demo video: http://notesplusapp.com
- Improvements on Dropbox automatic backup
- Performance improvement for iPad 1
- Bug fixes.
iPad Screenshots
Customer Reviews
Better than Notability & NotetakerHD
Notes Plus, simply put, is the best note-taking application on the iPad. In this review, I focus on the major differences between Notes Plus and its competitors, which I hope will explain why this app is better than the rest.
**Selection Gestures**
Notes Plus allows you to select text, diagrams and pictures by making a circle around it without having to change tools in the app. You can then move, copy, or delete the selected text. There is no other app that allows you to select text so easily and in as few stroke gestures as Notes Plus does. The closest app is Notability, but you have to tap the selection tool and then circle the text/picture/diagram. You then have to tap the pen tool in order to start writing again. This adds two extra steps compared to Notes Plus, which overall slows down workflow for Notability. NotetakerHD is even worse, you have to tap the selection tool, and instead of circling the text/picture/diagram, you have to fit a rectangular box over it which is awkward. The selection gestures offered by Notes Plus is by far one of its most useful features and makes the app leagues ahead of its competitors.
**Export to PDF**
Notes Plus allows you to export your notes in PDF format via email, Dropbox and iTunes. There is even an “Open in” function that allows you to export the PDF to iBooks, Goodreader, or any other application that can accept PDFs. Exported PDFs will display your notes with the entire 8.5 x 11 space, ensuring your notes utilize as much real estate as possible. In Notability, when you export your notes to PDF, there is a fixed 1” margin on all sides of the notes, which I find to be annoying since it shrinks everything. Notability also restricts the size of PDFs you can export via email. I couldn’t export a 12-page notebook because the file size was too big for Notability. I’ve exported 20+ page notebooks for Notes Plus without any trouble.
**Auto Advance**
The auto advance feature for Notes Plus is by far the most intuitive and user friendly. As your writing approaches the edge of the iPad’s writable surface, a shaded box will appear on the left that mirrors what you’ve just written. All you need to do is continue writing in the shaded region where your strokes left off and the box will auto advance. With Notability, your handwriting has to reach a certain point in the close-up box, and the box will auto advance once you’ve reached it. This isn’t as nice of a feature because there is no shaded box to mirror your strokes like in Notes Plus. NotetakerHD is the worst, there is no auto advance feature; you have to physically tap a right arrow button to move the close-up box.
**Close Up Box**
To access the close-up box in Notes Plus, you just have to long-press anywhere on the screen, and the close-up box will appear. With Notability and NotetakerHD, you have to select the close-up box tool, which adds an extra step. Also, the close-up box in Note Plus has a down arrow, which neither Notability nor NotetakerHD have. I find this function quite useful when I want to move the close-up box down, but I don’t want to hit the enter key since that will move my box down and to the left margin. Most importantly, Notes Plus has a customizable “favorites” palette in the close-up box, which enables you to switch between three pen presets with a simple tap. The three presets I find useful are: black pen, red pen, and yellow highlighter. Neither Notability nor NotetakerHD have this function. Notability doesn’t even have an eraser function on its close-up box.
**Dual Panes**
With Notes Plus, you can access two panes, one for notes, and the other for web browsing, PDF reading, etc. I find this function useful when I want to browse the web or view PDFs, but don’t want to switch apps. I can do everything without having to exit Notes Plus. Neither Notability nor NotetakerHD have this function.
**Automatic Shape Detection**
If I want to draw a perfect circle, or a polygon, I just need to draw the shape and Notes Plus will detect it. If I want to edit this shape, I just need to circle it with my stylus and move the shape’s edges. For Notability and NotetakerHD, I have to make multiple taps in order to select the shape I want. Once again, Notes Plus wins in making workflow as least interruptive as possible.
**Hand Writing Recognition**
If your handwriting is legible enough, there is a pretty useful function in Notes Plus that allows you to convert handwritten text into typed text, which is then searchable. This function does require an in-app purchase though. Neither Notability nor NotetakerHD have this ability.
**The Bad Parts about Notes Plus**
I find that Notes Plus often gets negative reviews because of its stability. App crashes and lost notes are very frustrating and very interruptive to workflow. While the stability of 3.0.3 is much better than its predecessors, and lost notes are a thing of the past, it still isn’t as stable compared to its competitors. Notes Plus also isn’t as fast as Notability and NotetakerHD since it is more memory intensive. Given these setbacks (which I’m confident will only improve as times goes on), Notes Plus is still the best app out there because of all the features listed above.
I hope you found this review helpful. I didn’t focus on some things like Dropbox support and audio recording because I don’t find these functions any better in Notes Plus compared to its competitors. The customer support at Notes Plus is solid and they have an active user forum where Viet, the primary developer, is often found responding to inquiries. In today’s world, the apps that do the best are the ones that continually get updated. Rest assured, the development team at Notes Plus is always hard at work to fix bugs and add features.
Far to slow.
The developers should have focused more on performance.
I bought an iPad 3 and the first app I tested was Notes Plus. I have no protector. iPad straight out of the box.
The performance is bad. Writing just doesn't happen sometimes, and the application falls behind. Even with the close up feature it's slow to respond.
Then I tested Note Taker HD. I didn't have the problem with performance.
Notes Plus is a disappointment.
Best for me
I tried many handwriting applications and Notes Plus was the best for me. I love how fluid and natural the zoomed writing mode is. It makes using Notes Plus as a paper notebook replacement a breeze. I wish the inking were on par with something like Bamboo Paper but it's not far off. Some handwriting letters seem problematic, ex: i, r, as the short strokes don't always get picked up. (Update: I zoomed in more to provide for longer strokes and it's easier now to write these letters) I'm looking forward to automatic PDF uploads to Dropbox. All and all, I think it's the best app right now if you're looking to ditch the notebook/legal pads of life. I find it to be stable despite recent reviews (iPad 2, iOS 5.1).
- $7.99
- Category: Productivity
- Updated: Mar 30, 2012
- Version: 3.0.3
- Size: 22.1 MB
- Language: English
- Seller: Viet Tran
- © Viet Tran
Requirements: Compatible with iPad.Requires iOS 4.2 or later.
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