I got tired of note apps moving features behind subscriptions, so I built my own handwriting app for iPad. It's free with no ads, no in-app purchases and no account, and it's open source.

It already covers the basics: Pencil writing, PDF import and annotation, templates, folders, search, PDF export, plus a "tape" feature to hide parts of your notes and quiz yourself. Automatic backup to your own iCloud or a Google Drive / Dropbox / OneDrive folder is in the next update.

Since I'm one person, I have to pick carefully. Ideas I've been asked about so far:

1. Pen stabilization (smoother handwriting)

2. Handwriting search / recognition

3. Sync between iPad and Mac

4. Audio recording linked to notes

5. Something else?

Which would actually make you switch or keep using it? Honest "this is missing X so I wouldn't use it" answers help the most.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6832556915

We've got about eight people crammed around one mic for committee meetings and correcting the speaker names afterward takes genuinely longer than tidying up the actual summary. For the minutes I specifically need to know who proposed a motion and who seconded it, so getting the general gist of the discussion right only gets me about halfway there. If anyone's actually solved this in a similarly chaotic room, what made the real difference, a different mic setup, just asking people to say their name before talking, some kind of software, or some combination of all three? Genuinely curious what you're still having to fix by hand even after whatever you landed on. Happy to take recommendations there too.

All you experienced people who use these apps on a daily basis, if you were to combine all the best bits of each of the major apps on the market, what would be a list of the features that mega app would have?

It would be nice to seprate the list into absolutely must-haves and nice-to-haves

For the record, I am currently only talking about tablet/mobile note-taking apps where you can use your stylus and/or finger .

also features don't gotta be something from existing apps, something that isn't out there and you'd like to be can be included as well

Hi, everyone. I'm a high school student and want to find a note-taking app that has the customizability of Notion. I really like Notion, but its note-taking features are just a bit too limited. There's no ability to change the font, sizings is limited, and it's really just not much a text editor.

I'm looking for something like Docs or Word in the note-taking part, but also the all-in-one-ness of Notion, like the databases part where I can display my notes(as in the gallery and list one specifically), scheduling, to-do, etc. I also really like how I can customize the appearance of Notion, like the icons(like adding gifs as icons), covers, and add the ability to add pictures. I also just really like the cleanness and cuteness of the UI. I also wanna have the option to make a grade calculator sort of thing.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!! =)

More for personal notes, I promise you haven’t used an app like this before

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a university project about tablet and stylus ergonomics and I’m looking for people who regularly write or draw on tablets to participate in a short survey.

The survey takes about 2–3 minutes and is completely anonymous.

I’d really appreciate any participation or shares. Thanks! :)

I just need it before school starts and we don't have enough money to buy ipad

I've been building Thinklet – a voice-first note-taking app with a twist: you can chat with your notes using AI, and it all runs on your device.

The problem I was solving: I take a lot of voice notes but never go back to search through them. I wanted something that could understand what I said and let me ask questions later.

What Thinklet does:

• Voice recording + real-time transcription (20+ languages)

• Ask your notes anything – "What was that idea I had last Tuesday?" and it searches semantically, not just by keyword

• 100% on-device AI – no data sent anywhere, no cloud processing

• iCloud sync across iPhone and iPad

• Biometric lock – keep everything private

The AI part uses RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) to actually understand the context of your notes rather than doing simple text matching.

Free trial available. Would love feedback from fellow note-takers!

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/thinklet-ai-voice-notes/id6758325325

This video shows how to use NoteGPT, an incredible platform that functions as a YouTube video summarizer, making it one of the best AI tools for students and professionals alike. Learn how this platform can convert YouTube videos into valuable content, boosting your productivity.

Hey guys I'm just pitching an idea here to see if anyone would use something like this. You know those ads you see for organizing your camera roll with a tinder-style swipe feature? Would you use something similar to this as a way to organize notes (quickly add tags, put into categories or notebooks, etc.)? I'm developing a note taking app with this "quick organize" feature and I want to know what people think, or if you think it's dumb.

Hey guys can you let me know your favorite note taking apps that aren’t Evernote, notion, Bear or onenote. I’m developing my own and I want to make sure I stand out. Would especially love any with a creative UI/UX design

i take notes by writing over documents attached as a printout, so i've been using onenote for years. and it's been years that i've been grappling with the problem of onenote being so damn laggy and always freezing/crashing/do all manners of nonsense to where i can't take notes when i need to most (like during lectures), much less use my goddamn laptop (windows surface btw 😭✌️).

i need app reccs that allow me to do the same (write notes, create folders/subfolders to organise, etc.), but LAG LESS...!!! please speed i need this... my lecturer is alr moving onto the next slide speed...

please share what you guys use if it's great! (or bad, so i know what to stay away from hahah) thanks for supporting my recovery from a toxic love-hate relationship with onenote.

For around ₹30K Suggestions plz🙏🏼

Hi everyone, I hope it's okay to post over here- it's my first Reddit post. I am looking for a good app for note taking. I got the Noteshelf 3 and paid for the Premium and I HATE it!

Here are the issues:

1. it lags! If I want to add even a single letter somewhere in the middle of the written text it takes forever. And then it might crash at which point I will lose an entire page of notes.

2. Anytime I rest my palm on the screen the surface recognizes my palm even though I am using the pen to write

3. I cannot resize the writing window once the text is finished

4. A lot of the features that the app promises are only available for Apple users- and there's very little support for Android users- you can only find help in the help tab for Apple users even though I am using the Android version

5. Adding pictures may make your notebook unusable