Best Note-taking Apps for iPads

The first name, Apple Notes, is the native product most iPads come with. The user interface of the app is simple yet enriched with amazing features. You can use it to write handwritten notes, type entries, and even add pictures to your notes. The app also supports formatting texts. So you can separate titles, headings, subheadings, paragraphs, visual content, and even bullet points.

As for shareability, Apple Notes makes it super easy to share notes with others. Or you can invite people for collaborations and collective management of documents on the app.

What we love most about Apple Notes is that its responsiveness is amazing. If your iPad supports the required configuration for the app, it offers real-time responses without any lag. You can draw smoothly on the app using the Apple Pencil or your finger.

You can use Apple Notes to create presentations, school reports, assignments, checklists, visual notes, drawings, or just to kill time. And to ensure your notes are not lost, you can add tags to these notes as well. This helps you separate your notes better and find them quickly whenever needed.

The user interface of Apple Notes supports languages like Hungarian, Indonesian, English, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Bokmål, Polish, and more.

Zoho Corporation managed to develop a stunning note-taking app that optimized the experience of iPad users. This note-taking app is designed to give your creative soul a means to express. You can write recipes, make notes, revise chapters, draft letters, and even save your notes on cloud servers for easy accessibility.

Zoho’s ability to save data on the cloud makes it easier to access your saved content on iPhones, Apple Watches, other iPads, and more. You can simply log in to the same Apple account and access your notes anytime, anywhere.

The search feature is another smart addition that Zoho Notebook did right. Its search feature speeds up the process of looking for specific notes. You can type words from notes, and the app UI will automatically list down notes with the word you used for the search.

This saves you from the headache of having to add tags or categories. Your search gets faster if you have an idea of any unique word included in the notes you are looking for.

Zoho supports adding images, sketches, and even audio files. This gives you a perfect platform for creating amazing presentations without going into complicated procedures.

Notability is a versatile app that ranks among the top iPad apps for anyone looking to combine handwriting, sketching, and typing in a single elegant interface. Renowned for its flexible and intuitive design, Notability offers a variety of tools that make it indispensable for students, professionals, and creatives alike. Users can take notes, annotate PDFs, record lectures, and even sketch ideas effortlessly with the best free iPad apps. It is also counted as the top drawing apps for iPad.

The app supports a wide range of multimedia integrations, allowing you to add photos, web pages, and GIFs to your documents, making it a robust tool for presentations and projects. Its seamless synchronization across devices ensures that your notes are always accessible, whether you're on your iPad, iPhone, or Mac. With Notability, your iPad becomes a powerful tool for capturing your thoughts and creative ideas with precision and style.

Another name that stands tall as a free notes app for iPad is Nebo, which combines some amazing features. For starters, the dark mode. Note-taking is something that one can do anytime. Sometimes, you might want to make notes while traveling; other times, ideas pop up at night before sleeping. Nebo’s dark mode saves you from straining your eyes in such cases.

The best thing is its color management ability, even when activating the dark mode. Apart from that, this best notebook app for iPad supports 66 languages. You can write in these languages and search documents easily using the language you have written your docs in.

Nebo supports entering data using digital handwriting or typed texts. You can enter mathematical data, sentences, images, and other such data formats on Nebo without any hassle.

This best notes app on iPad has received several nominations for its quality. For example, Perfect with Apple Pencil by App Store, For note-takers with needs that go beyond the basic by TechRadar, and the Best App 2017 by CES Mobile Apps Showdown.

Exporting documents using Nebo is easy. You can export docs in formats like PDF and easily share them with anybody you like. In short, the app is perfect for collaborative and professional tasks.

Evernote is a true companion when it comes to note down every nitty-gritty whenever needed. For some people, it is a digital diary and for others, it is a place where they keep their notes safe with secure passwords. And, the perk for users, the Android version of the application also allows offline access. The Chromebook experience is equally rewarding with Evernote as it offers a touch-friendly interface if compared with other web counterparts. And, the ability to create a quick note via an optional notification is a feature worth mentioning. Well, it is amazing to have your digital diary there with you every time.

Next, we have Noteful, a powerful and visually appealing note-taking app. The app offers great control over your documents. You can import and play with each document separately or combine them to prepare PDFs, books, journals, etc.

The highlight feature is a great option as well. It has three separate brushes, including a fountain pen, a highlighter, and a ballpoint pen. The native Apple Pencil support provided by this best note-taking application for iPad ensures a smooth writing experience.

You can write as if you are writing on paper, making it possible to make highly accurate signatures, write with your handwriting, and draw whatever you want. Noteful is a product of Noteful Technologies Ltd. The app requires iPadOS 14.3 to run and can be downloaded even on Mac systems.

As for its interface, Noteful supports English, French, Italian, German, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Spanish, and several other languages. The size of the app is also limited to 75 MB, making it an easy-to-load option even on slow networks.

Now, as for its usability, Noteful UI is intuitive. You can start making notes when you open the app and easily follow instructions to save them.

Noteshelf 3 exists among the best note-taking apps as well. The app allows importing and annotating PDFs on the go. Its fully customizable toolbar lets you access tools that you want to use so you can create documents faster than ever. These tools can include options like handwriting, visuals, erasers, voicenotes, images, etc. There is an AI-assisted note-taking feature as well.

There are hundreds of free templates available on the app. You can use these templates to record information in specific formats, or you can customize them to match your requirements.

There is a focus mode as well that hides any kind of distractions with just a single tap or simple gesture. You can use this mode to create notes but without any interruptions or notifications in between.

Now, as Noteshelf 3 can sync your data on servers, you can log in on multiple devices and access your data from anywhere. The best app for writing notes on iPad also supports automatic syncing on Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and WebDav, among other cloud-based storage.

There is a presentation mode that supports projecting recorded notes and journals on an external screen. You can use it to organize seminars directly from your iPad and control slides however you like.

MarginNote 3 is well-designed to make it friendly for several purposes including academics, research, documentation, quick journals, and more. The tool supports visual and textual entries as well. Using this one of the best drawing apps for iPad gives you exceptional control over your creativity.

Using Apple Pencil, you can draft journal entries in your actual handwriting, make accurate signatures, and even draw smoothly. The app offers improved performance and also supports Auto OCR.

Additionally, the MindMap mode and Document mode come with flashcards that help you memorize stuff faster. These flashcards can greatly assist during presentations, seminars, etc. when you just need small reminders of the information you need to speak.

The app also supports iCloud sync, so you can access your virtual notes from any device that supports logging in with iCloud. MarginNote has existed for a long time.  This 3rd edition of the series comes with enhanced visuals and features.

You can start using this best note app for iPad with a 14-day free trial. This trial gives you access to the premium features of the app, and you can cancel it before your subscription renews.

The latest version of the GoodNotes series, GoodNotes 6 by Time Base Technology Limited, is among the top options on the Apple App Store. The tool is known for effectively multiplying the productivity of individuals, making it one of the most preferred note-taking apps on iPads.

Its achievements have also helped the app score awards like Apple iPad App of the Year 2022, Editors’ Choice 2023, etc. Now, to focus on its features, GoodNotes 6 offers a range of smart options to ease down the writing process. For instance, it has an automated spell checker and a corrector. This feature can recognize errors in spelling and help you automatically correct them so your important documents remain error-free and easy to read.

The app also has an autosuggestion that completes the words for you or provides suggestions for possible words. This feature can help speed up the writing process by eliminating the requirement to type each alphabet letter.

Another top feature is AI-assisted study sessions. Here, you solve numerical problems, complex algebraic equations, and more using AI’s assistance. AI can also help you improve your literacy skills by assisting you through conversations, scripts, articles, essays, tones, and more.

If you need the best free note-taking app for iPads that offers amazing features and takes care of visual aesthetics, Penbook is the name you want to explore. The app is a collection of beautiful covers you can add before writing journals. It also supports handwriting and drawing using Apple Pencil and comes with hundreds of types of papers and layouts to save journals on.

There are also stylish tapes to help you make more aesthetically pleasing collages of journals. Additionally, you can change the ink color, background, font style, size, and other such settings to customize your notes as much as possible.

This is one of the top iPad note-taking apps that lets you import PDFs that you can use to scribble on. You can highlight parts of imported PDFs and add journals and additional information very conveniently using Penbook.

Now, what we liked the most about Penbook is that it eliminates the need for separate reminder apps. It lets you add reminders so you can keep track of important moments. These reminders are helpful in building habits as well. You can customize the time and date of these reminders and stay on track.