A Consumer Review of Notes Plus for the iPad

Notes Plus is an app for taking notes, packed with features that make it far more productive than note-taking with pen and paper. The interface is very intuitive and very clean, and there are no major problems with it – in fact, compared to its competitors, it seems quite perfect and is definitely a winner.

Notes Plus provides you with the the basic tools for making notes: you have lined paper, in electronic form of course, and notes that you write with your finger are reproduced faithfully while being artfully smoothed. There’s even a palm rest provided, to prevent random shapes and smudges from inadvertently resting your hand on your iPad. But Notes Plus goes way beyond this in the functionality it provides.

There’s a mode for writing in close-up, that lets you write in a box that zoomed, and it’s very simple to shift both drawings and text around the page. Shapes are recognized by the app and converted into vector objects that can be edited, and notes written by hand are integrated seamlessly with typed text. You can record sound while you make notes, and have the sound associated with those specific notes.

There are controls for pens, fonts, and colors, which are all concealed until called up so that you have the maximum space available to work in. It’s easy and very intuitive to delete anything – you simply cross it out and it goes away. It is possible to undo mistakes, but unfortunately there’s no redo option.

Notes Plus is enormously popular, and deservedly so. There are a couple of specific features in similar apps that could be a bit of an improvement, but when it comes to a collection of features, no other app even comes close. One area that might be improved upon is organization – Notes Plus displays thumbnail versions of pages, but doesn’t take it any further, whereas some other apps have innovative ways of illustrating relationships between notes.

Apart from that, and compared to its competitors, Notes Plus is almost an ideal app. The very few areas where there is a bit of room for improvement don’t keep it from standing head and shoulders above its competitors. If you’re looking for a note-taking app that’s packed with great features, and is intuitive, easy, and fun to use, then Notes Plus is the app that you want.

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