The iPad is an excellent tablet for students, professionals, and everyone else. Thanks to the beautiful displays, and the Apple Pencil (and Apple Pencil Pro), the iPad also doubles up nicely as a note taking device, and it’s very handy both in lectures, and in office meetings. So, if you’re wondering how to make the most out of your iPad’s note taking abilities, here are the 10 best note taking apps for iPad that you should check out.
1. Goodnotes 6
The latest verison of Goodnotes brings a lot of amazing features for note taking. For starters, you get support for notebooks to easily organise your notes, and you can fully customise these notebooks complete with multiple cover options, and page styles to suit your needs.
Once you’ve set up your notebook, you can start taking notes with your Apple Pencil — there are three types of Pen tools in the app, and each one comes with its own settings to customise the writing experience. There’s also a pencil tool which is great for sketching, and it supports the tilt functionality as well, so you can shade in your sketches too.
You also get Sticky Notes, a ruler, and an audio recording functionality directly inside your notebook so you can record your lectures or meetings while taking notes. Plus, the app supports Math Notes, which means you can write equations within your notes and Goodnotes 6 can solve them for you.
For students, the app also features Study Sets, which are basically flash cards, where you can write questions and answers and then practice them to learn and remember important information from your classes.
The free version of Goodnotes 6 supports 3 notebooks, and 20 minutes of audio recording, and you can upgrade to the full version to get support for unlimited notebooks and unlimited audio recording as well. The best part about Goodnotes’ payment plans is that while there’s a subscription option, you can also pay once to get lifetime access to Goodnotes 6 without having to pay again. That said, do note that the pay-once option will not include access to Goodnotes 7 whenever it comes out.
Pros Cons Versatile set of tools Audio recording does not sync with the notes Math Notes support Subscription can be pricey Study Sets are useful Excellent writing experience
2. Notability
Notability is yet another excellent note taking app for iPad that you can consider. It comes with a simpler interface that might be to your liking if you simply want something that looks organized without having too many UI items straight on your home screen.
Notability comes with a bunch of features, including pretty much everything you can do with Goodnotes. You get support for creating “subjects” to categorize and organize your notes. You can create new notes easily, and use the Apple Pencil to start jotting down stuff with the Pen tool, or the Pencil tool. There’s also the highlighter, which works really well, along with an eraser tool, a text tool (for typing support), and more.
One of the standout features of Notability is definitely the audio recordings which are synced with your writing. So, when you play back the recording, Notability will highlight what you were writing at that moment, and you can also tap on a particular part of your note to see what was being said at that moment. This is great for adding little bookmarks to your notes’ audio recording so you can get back to it quickly when you’re revising or simply revisiting your notes.
You also get support for adding stickers (including your own custom stickers), images, PDFs, and even GIFs to your notes to make things more interesting and pretty.
Plus, if you’re using an iPad with Apple Pencil Pro, you can squeeze and hold your Apple Pencil to start erasing items in your notes. Once you stop squeezing, Notability will automatically revert back to the tool you were using. I personally really like this feature, because it’s easier than double tapping to switch to the eraser and then double tapping again to switch back to your original writing tool.
The Free version of Notability allows you a monthly “allowance” of edits that you can make to your notes. To get unlimited access, along with added features like automatic backup, math conversion support, handwriting recognition, and more, you can upgrade to Notability Plus as a subscription service. Unlike Goodnotes 6, however, there is no one-time payment option.
Pros Cons Clean and simple UI No one-time payment option Plenty of tools to get the job done Organization options aren’t as good Audio recording with writing sync
3. Apple Notes
The built-in Notes app on the iPad is also very powerful and excellent for jotting down notes and adding sketches etc. It also comes with plenty of collaboration features for working with a team, and if you just want to share your notes with someone else.
Obviously, it comes with Apple Pencil support baked in, and you can use all the PencilKit tools to write notes, highlight them, and do everything else. Plus, you can switch between handwriting and typing on the fly if you want to.
The stock Notes app also does a decent job of organization — you can create folders to separate notes into different categories, and you can use iCloud to sync your notes across all your Apple devices.
One of the main drawbacks of the Apple Notes app is that it can drain the battery a tad too much when you’re taking longer handwritten notes. Plus, people have reported that with very long handwritten notes, the app starts to lag — however, I haven’t observed any such issues in my usage of the app.
Basically, I would recommend that you start off by using the stock Notes app on your iPad, and if there are any features that you need for your note taking that aren’t available in the app, you can consider switching over to one of the other apps on this list.
Pros Cons Built-in app Can be heavy on the battery Full Apple Pencil Pro support Not as feature-packed as some other options on this list Easy to use
4. Obsidian
If you’re looking for an iPad note taking app focused on typing instead of handwriting, you should definitely check out Obsidian. This is a free app, that brings all the features you can want for taking notes on your iPad.
Obsidian does not support handwriting, which can be a deal breaker for some, but it makes up for it by bringing in a lot of extremely powerful features, all of which are available completely free. It supports markdown formatting, so you can quickly and easily format your documents.
One of the coolest things about Obisidian is its link management and graph view, which lets you link notes to each other and easily visualise the various relationships between your notes in a nice graph style. This is perfect for when you’re taking notes on a subject and want to link it to other notes in your Obsidian vault, creating something of a knowledge graph on your iPad.
You can easily click through these links to open the related notes, and in the graph view, you can see how all your notes are linked to each other. Plus, you can also create links to notes that don’t exist yet, to highlight information you want to get back to and take a deeper dive into when you get the time.
You also get support for adding attachments to your obsidian files. Overall, Obsidian is a great second-brain app for your iPad that can let you create detailed notes, with backlinks and embeds to create a proper knowledge graph on your tablet. The app is completely free to use, but you can subscribe to add sync or publishing features as add-ons.
Pros Cons Linking notes and graph-view is very useful Sync feature is a paid add-on Markdown format makes exporting easy No handwriting support Completely free to use
5. Noteful
Another app that you should check out for jotting down notes during lectures and meetings, Noteful brings all the necessary features that you will need. It comes with a clean UI, with a decent amount of categorization options to ensure your notes are properly organized within the app. You can create new notebooks complete with cover designs, and paper styles, and then just start taking notes.
You don’t get quite as many writing tools as you do with something like Goodnotes or Notability, but you get three very versatile pens to write with, which proved more than enough for most of my needs. Plus, you get other useful tools like a highlighter, eraser, lasso, laser pointer, and more. You also get stickers, and the ability to add tags, images, shapes, stickers, and more to your notes.
Also, similar to Notability, you get an audio recording feature here that syncs your writing with the recorded audio, which means you can play back audio and see exactly what was being said when you made a particular note. This also comes in handy for quickly bookmarking sections in the audio recording — just draw a symbol when you hear something important that you want to get back to, and you can later just tap on the symbol to jump directly to that section in the recording.
While Noteful can be used for free without too much of a hassle, I would recommend that you upgrade to Noteful Pro if the app seems good for your needs. It’s a one time purchase of $4.99 and brings unlimited notebooks, unlimited layers, outlines, bookmarks, image cropping, and a lot more that can really take your note taking experience to the next level.
Pros Cons Free version is perfectly usable Only three pen tools to use in the free version Audio sync with writing is useful Reasonable one-time payment for unlocking full version
6. Bear
Bear is a simple, beautiful looking note taking app for iPad that supports markdown, which means you can quickly and easily start taking notes on your iPad complete with easy formatting options and more.
The app also brings support for additional things, such as the ability to embed a whiteboard where you can scribble with the Apple Pencil, adding images, links, and more to your notes in-line.
Also, if you’re not fluent with markdown formatting options, you can always just use the styling options within the app to quickly create headings, or format text as bold, italics, or underlined, and even create lists, checklists, and more. There are also options to highlight text, create superscripts, add code embeds and a lot more within the styling pane.
Bear also supports adding PDFs directly within the note itself, and you can even annotate these once they’ve been added to your note. The free version of the app is probably going to be enough for most users, since it comes with most of the required features. However, if you want things like iCloud syncing, themes, and the ability to password protect your notes, you will have to subscribe to Bear Pro.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Clean UI | Export to PDF not available in the free version |
| Plenty of features even in the free version |
7. Evernote
If you’re looking for a note taking app that is primarily focused on typing but will also let you add some scribbles and sketches in between, you can check out Evernote as well. The app comes with a clean-ish UI, though it’s not as good as some of the other options on this list.
You do get the ability to create multiple notebooks here to organize information easily, and each notebook can contain multiple notes. Within these notes you can obviously type anything you want to, but Evernote also brings support for adding scribbles on a whiteboard of sorts that can be embedded directly inside your note. You can also transcribe your scribbled information if you want to, which can come in handy while searching through notes.
Apart from that Evernote supports adding code blocks, inserting images, links, tables, checklists, and even a table of contents for longer notes with multiple sections.
You can also easily style your text using the formatting options, and there is a highlight tool as well to mark important information. Evernote also has an audio recording feature which is nice, but do note that it doesn’t sync your writing with the audio so it’s not as versatile as something like Notability or Noteful’s audio recording.
Pros Supports multiple types of content within notes UI isn’t as neat as some competitors AI Cleanup can make notes cleaner
8. Google Keep
I don’t think there’s a single productivity use-case for which Google doesn’t have an app of some sort and note taking is no different. If you’re deep into the Google ecosystem of software and services, Google Keep might just be what you need for jotting down notes.
This isn’t a very feature packed note taking app, and you get a very barebones set of tools, but it’s perfectly fine for taking quick notes, especially if they are not too long. You get a clean UI where you can create new notes and start typing at once. Plus, the search bar within the app can let you search through your notes as well, and it works very fast.
There’s also an option to add drawings to your notes, and while it does support the Apple Pencil, you only get to choose from a couple of tools within the app, and there doesn’t seem to be any PencilKit support. You can also add images and audio recordings to your note, which can also come in handy.
As far as organization goes, Google Keep is definitely not as good as something like Goodnotes, but you do get Labels here which you can use to categorize your notes into separate categories. However, this is best used for basic note taking workflows and won’t really do the job if you’re looking for something to take and organize university notes or office meetings on.
Pros Cons Completely free Not feature rich Good for basic note taking No PencilKit support
9. Collanote
If you’re looking for a note taking app that won’t charge you a monthly subscription and can do pretty much everything you need for your college or school work, Collanote is definitely an option you should consider.
For starters, you get a bunch of pen tools to write with even in the free version, along with multiple color options and even a color palette for a custom color if you need it. You can also quickly draw shapes with the pen and the app will automatically convert it into a proper shape so you can easily make arrows, circles, and other common shapes.
Apart from that, you get a highlighter tool, lasso, text box, stickers, and more. You can also add images to your notes. Plus, if you get the Pro version of Collanote, you get support for adding graphs, and you unlock stabilisation settings for the pen tools, which can help you write better.
The app also supports a handwriting calculator along with a scientific calculator, so all your mathematical needs are sorted as well. You can also import PDFs into the app and annotate them or fill them out.
Personally, I feel that writing in the free version of the app is slightly difficult since the default stabilisation setting doesn’t help much in fixing your handwriting. In the Pro version, however, you will be able to adjust this along with a bunch of other settings for your tools, which can definitely come in handy.
Apart from that, Collanote also supports flashcards which are useful for revision and for learning key topics and concepts, and you can create multiple folders to easily organize your notes as well.
Pros Cons Free version has plenty of features Default stabilisation is not good Handwriting calculator UI looks dated Graph support Flashcard support
10. Simple Note
If you’re looking for a completely free note taking app for iPad that is more feature packed than Google Keep, you should check out Simple Note. As the name suggests, this app is aimed at taking simple notes, whether they are for your lectures, meetings, or for personal work.
Simple Note does not support handwritten notes and is aimed at typed notes only. However, you can scribble with the Apple Pencil and the app will automatically convert your scribbled text into typed characters. Apart from that, the app supports markdown editing, you can interlink notes to each other by copying their internal links, and you can even publish your notes to share them as web-links.
The app also comes with a collaboration option, so multiple people can work on the same note, and there’s a history feature as well, which lets you view changes made to the note over time, and also lets you restore the note to a previous version without any hassle.
As for categorization, just as Google Keep uses labels, Simple Note uses tags, and you can add multiple tags to a single note as well to organize information better.
Overall, Simple Note is a good iPad notes app that gets the job done without tying you up with its bells and whistles.
Pros Cons Simple to use Not many features History feature is useful Organization options are lacking
Well, those were the 10 best note taking apps for iPad that you should check out. I have tried to include apps that suit the needs of various kinds of use-cases, including casual users, university and college students, personal usage, and more. Hopefully, you were able to find an app that best suits your needs. If you have any questions or queries, or you think I should include another app in this list, let me know in the comments.
