trishussey
on - last edited on by
ElizabethS
The first problem I faced with notes apps was what kind of notes was I taking. Since I've been using fountain pens as my preferred writing utensil for almost 25 years, I like writing. But I also tend to doodle and draw pictograms when I take notes. Sometimes I'm writing text notes, sometimes I need to sketch or doodle something that records my thoughts. Easy to do in a Moleskine notebook, not so much when you're doing things electronically.
Yeah you'd think it would be easy, but going from typing notes (I still find "writing" on screen to be hit and miss at best) to sketching is something that apps often have a hard time doing. Several of my notes apps let me flip between sketching and typing (Sundry Notes, Notability, and Notes Plus) but a few are sketch only (Penultimate, Noteshelf) and a couple are text only (Thinkbook). Of course there's Evernote ... but I'll get to that soon.
The next problem is finding and consolidating notes. I have several paper notebooks on the go. One stays at my desk and is for phone numbers, settings and such. I have Moleskines in each of my go bags. Yeah I should stick to one, but that means making sure one notebook goes from desk to bag to desk consistently. That isn't as easy as one might think. And hence the problem with having more than one note taking app. Notes get spread around (because I want to try them "for real") and I then have to search around for them. So ... how do I avoid this? Well obviously picking one app would help. Export options are a better solution.
My preferred potential export solution would be Evernote, but only one app supports it, not to mention information there isn't encerypted or terribly secure. ThinkBook looks like a great app, but its primary sync is to DropBox (and I'm less and less enamoured about saving sentitive material there).
Quite a pickle I think.
Where are we at right now?
Notability and Notes Plus are leading contenders to be my regular notes app, but I'm intregued with ThinkBook. Because a lot of my notes contain proprietary information, syncing into DropBox or Evernote isn't going to work well. I need to keep the information in my control, so I'm going to have to pick something like PDF for exporting notes for backups.
In truth the answer really is, pick one, stick with it, and deal. It's just like all other applications, there are (often) hundreds of options out there and if you spend time spinning your wheels trying them all, you won't get anything done.
So other iPad owners ... what are you using to take notes?
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