By device
Best note-taking apps for iPad
The iPad question is really a handwriting question. If the Pencil is why you bought it, the ranking changes completely, and the usual markdown favorites drop out of the top.
Top pick: Grape, at 9.1 out of 10 on this ranking. The most AI you can point at your own notes while keeping them on your own machine. Young, and it shows in the missing web app and in sharing that stops at email invites, but the study tools, the $9 AI plan and the lifetime license make it hard to ignore.
What we weighted
Ink that keeps up with the pen
No lag, palm rejection, and pages that scroll where you expect.
Write on the PDF
Import a paper or a worksheet and annotate it in place.
Find the handwriting later
Search that reads your writing, which is what makes it a note and not a drawing.
Every app keeps its site-wide score, but the order here is a separate fit reading built from those three needs, so it is not the same list you get on the home page.
Grape
Take the note. The AI does the filing, the studying and the searching.
For ipad: Handwriting / stylus, PDF & documents, OCR / handwriting search.
Students and individual note-takers who want AI over their own notes, kept on their own device, and who now and then share a folder with a classmate or a colleague.
Fit
9.0 overall
$3/mo
GoodNotes
Handwriting on a tablet, done better than anyone else.
For ipad: Handwriting / stylus, PDF & documents, OCR / handwriting search.
Students and anyone whose thinking happens with a stylus.
Fit
8.0 overall
$9.99/yr
Apple Notes
Already on your phone, and better than it has any right to be.
For ipad: Handwriting / stylus, PDF & documents, OCR / handwriting search.
Anyone fully on Apple devices who wants zero setup and zero cost.
Fit
8.1 overall
Free
Microsoft OneNote
An infinite paper notebook that has quietly been free for twenty years.
For ipad: Handwriting / stylus, PDF & documents, OCR / handwriting search.
Students and Windows users who want free handwriting plus typing on one page.
Fit
7.8 overall
Free
Noteshelf
Handwriting on every platform, with an AI that reads your pages.
For ipad: Handwriting / stylus, PDF & documents, OCR / handwriting search.
Stylus users who are not on an iPad, or not only on an iPad.
Fit
7.5 overall
$9.99/mo
Notability
Recorded audio linked to every stroke you wrote while it played.
For ipad: Handwriting / stylus, PDF & documents, OCR / handwriting search.
Students recording lectures on an iPad.
Fit
7.2 overall
$14.99/yr
Obsidian
Plain markdown files on your disk, with a plugin ecosystem bolted on top.
For ipad: PDF & documents, Drawing canvas, Images.
Long-term thinkers who want to own the files and are willing to tinker.
Fit
8.4 overall
$4/mo
Noteful
A seven-dollar ink engine that embarrasses apps costing ten times more.
For ipad: Handwriting / stylus, PDF & documents, Drawing canvas.
iPad note takers who care about the pen and resent subscriptions.
Fit
6.4 overall
$6.99 once
Zoho Notebook
A free Evernote-shaped app from a company that sells other things.
For ipad: PDF & documents, Drawing canvas, Images.
People who liked old Evernote and refuse to pay for it.
Fit
7.2 overall
Free
Evernote
The original everything-bucket, now considerably more expensive.
For ipad: PDF & documents, OCR / handwriting search, Images.
Researchers and clippers who live on the web and want everything searchable.
Fit
7.1 overall
$14.99/mo
Questions ipad ask
- GoodNotes or Notability?
- GoodNotes for organizing a lot of handwritten notebooks and searching them. Notability for lectures, because recorded audio is linked to the strokes you made while it played.
- Can I use Obsidian or Notion on an iPad with a Pencil?
- You can write in both, but neither is built around ink. Handwriting is a plugin or a drawing block, not the surface itself, so heavy Pencil users end up with a second app.
Keep looking
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