GoodNotes 4 App Reviews

Very good - very easy to write quickly. Love the indenting capability. Only wish you could also record audio synced with your writing - something another very popular app like this does.

I think GoodNotes is better than apples notes app. The only thing this app should support is voice recording. If you add this feature, then I can give you 5 stars.

This is the best note taking app Ive found to work with the Apple Pencil. It has changed the way I take notes and brainstorm ideas. The only reason I cant give 5 stars is the lack of scalable paper that I can dynamically expand as my mind maps become bigger.

Use this at work everyday

Ive been using this for about a week in an engineering program and I love most things about it. However, this very day, I went to export a series of notes which was actually an assignment. To my dismay, I learned the hard way that "Clear Page" is right above "Export." Worse than that, it doesnt require a verification that you do want to clear the page... And it cant be undone! Thats right. Delete this. With no prompt, by accident. And it cant be undone. Unforgivable. Change that, and this app will rock.

I have used this app for a while. I used it with a stylus for a number of years before the Apple Pencil was released and am now using it with the Apple Pencil. With both a stylus and the Apple Pencil (and probably a finger too), it is an excellent note taking app.

This is worth more than the price that you pay. In addition to editing or creating PDFs, filling out and signing documents, you can draw on photos as well (havent tried typing yet). I use this to create my script breakdowns now, and love that I can amend them on set without my laptop.

Best note taking and organization App ever. However recently Ive tried to export pdf via email. It has made both email app in iPad and iPhone crash. Stuck in send mode and crashes email every time I open.

With the Apple Pencil, this app works wonderfully! The tracking is excellent, the tools are quite sufficient. Palm rejection, with the Apple Pencil is superb. This is one of my most used apps with an iPad Pro. Quick sketches, math, diagrams, mind maps, class notes, and almost anything else you can do with a pen can be done with this app. I use it simply as a paper notebook substitute. Excellent app!

Once I discovered that I could create my own templates, I was sold. Im finding I only need a few notebooks. The ability to bookmark pages means that it is easy to find the materials I need even in a large notebook. The question is going to be, how large a notebook can be before I have problems, but at this point, I am quite pleased. Im using the Apple Pencil, so there is no problem with stray marks. Being able to customise highlighter and pen colors is a big plus too. Im also finding that the limitation of typing in text boxes is not too constricting since I handwrite most of my notes. Its a great app.

For me the pros far outweigh the cons and this app has not only become my go-to app for pdf markup but also note-taking and bullet journaling. The inking is so great, it has inspired me to handwrite many things again, and thanks to the ability to search even handwriting, that comes with no limitations. That said, there are still areas that need improvement. Pros: - Inking: I love the inking and the zoom window. I find it to be very smooth and easy to write legibly. The auto-advance in the zoom window works great and I love how you can set page margins. Palm rejection when not using the zoom window seems to work fine, though I rarely use this, so see other reviews if this is important to you. - Search of handwriting: Search of handwriting is amazing. It picks up on even some of my less legible words. - Shape recognition: turn this on, draw a triangle, circle, square, line, etc and it will recognize the shape and make the lines smooth. Great for diagramming! Cons: - iCloud sync: iCloud sync needs some serious work. It takes a long time to sync and I have to leave the category and come back for it to show if the notebook is updated. I dont trust it at all and it doesnt seem to sync in the background. (using iOS 9.3.1) - Search for document: While handwriting search rocks, it doesnt extend to search for particular documents (e.g. finding a notebook that contains notes on a particular topic); This makes it harder to manage large libraries of notebooks and find what youre looking for. Notability does a much better job on this front. - Annotations: One feature I like in Notability is you can open a document and have it filter the thumbnails of pages to show only those you have annotated. This makes it easy to review key pages in the document. Goodnotes would benefit from something like this. - Rearranging multiple pages: If you decide to shuffle the pages in a notebook and need to move several pages to a new area, I havent found a way to do this without moving one page at a time. The thumbnail view lets you select multiple pages and copy to the clipboard, but then theres no paste function (its possible Im missing something; if so, perhaps it needs to be more intuitive). All-in-all, this is a great note-taking, handwriting app. I can even use my iPhone 5S as a memo pad with ease. Id make this 4 stars if the iCloud sync was improved. It would get to 5 with more robust document management features. Keep up the good work folks!

As a new user to the app, I must confess I got confused on why it took me this long to make the leap for the purchase. I agree with VicCubes comment: GoodNotes + Apple Pencil IS the best thing that ever happened on iPad. If you have any intention of using your iPad for notes, BUY IT. If you have any doubts on whats the usability of a pencil whose cap that one (I) easily lost especially when youre not a fabulous painter, BUY IT. If you dont know what to do with the (BIG or SMALL) iPad Pro that you found yourself with, buy the pencil and GoodNote. All in all a very satisfying purchase. Would recommend to anyone whos even a little bit interested.

When used with the Apple Pencil, This app is a great notebook replacement. It has a strong OCR capability even having good luck with my terrible penmanship. The ability to use the OCR capability is either a little convoluted or not very intuitive. You can lasso handwriting and the covert and the typed text comes up in a box but to take that text and paste it some place requires multiple steps.

I want the ability to record and infinite scrolling like notability. Then I can switch to good note fully. If not then have to use notability more than good note which is annoying. Thx

Good app for taking notes, it works fantastic with the Apple Pencil. Searching is good but it cant search across all folders and notes, which holds this app back. Also the way it organizes notes is not very intuitive. Sorting is not very good either. In these areas other apps like notability really shine. The OCR is really good and is the main reason I stick with it,so I can search my handwritten notes. If they were to tweak their UI, sorting and folders and all note searching was added this would be 5 stars.

The best handwritten notes tool! But needs a cloud version to go with it!

I use this app in meetings just about every day. Id like to be able to use the lasso tool in the zoomed window. Other than that, its spectacular!

I love this app! It has been so helpful to me in my online doctoral program. Many of my textbooks are online, and I love that this app lets me snap and import photos of the tables and charts from my book. Being able to import PDFs that I have to read and take notes on them is also very helpful. This app basically took my entire gigantic backpack and reduced it to only my iPad. So handy.

This app is great, hands down. You can have several different "notebooks", and the ability to make your own notebooks by importing PDFs is awesome. Whether you type the information in or use your Apple Pencil, I havent found a flaw yet for my needs!

I have been using Goodnotes for over two (2) years now....one of my first documents is dated April 22, 2014.....and I have to tell you it is one of the best APPs I have - and I use it constantly. I download the documents I need - then outline, scribble, make notes in the margins, type, color code.... you name it I do it to mark them up. I can share them with others, print them or just keep them on the iPad (and iPhone) for future use....it is outstanding....I cant say enough about it. It has been fantastic for me !!!! Hope it is the same for you. Get it !!