Notability App Reviews

First let me say, I love this app. I use it everyday to keep all my PDFs in one place. I’m a university student so the annotation and higlighting comes in super handy. If I could reccomend a single app to any student it would be this one. Its just perfect and well worth the money. BUT…. I REALLY wish they had their own sync feature- not an iCloud based one. I can only use a limited amount of files in the sync feature until it becomes full. If notability had a seperate sync feature (like iStudiez Pro for example), then it wouldn’t fill up my iCloud so quickly. Otherwise the app is absouloute perfection I adore it and I’ll never stop using it.

I’m a university student and I use this app all the time. Originally I was using evernote, but I didn’t liek that I had to pay for a subscription. I then switched to microsoft one note, but it was buggy. When I was airing my grievences about my experiences with evernote and onenote to a classmate, he recommended notability. I haven’t looked back since. It does everything I need it to do, and it syncs with my all of devices (iPhone, iPad, and MacBook). For each course I create a folder, load the lecture slides and take notes, while recording the audio. Its a nice way to refer back to lecture notes with audio. I also like the fact that its backed-up and synced with iCloud, it makes it easier to switch from my iPad to MacBook. Finally, I also load the textbooks into the course specific folders, makes it easy to find everything I need pertaining to the course I’m workign on.

I am a Technology Integrator in a school PreK-12. Middle School is who uses Notability the most, some on iPad and some on MacBooks. The biggest complaint I get is the option of using a different iCloud account as a backup other than the iCloud account associated with the device. I myself installed Notability on my home iMac so I could work on projects without having to bring my work Computer and iPad home. My Computer is setup with a personal icloud account. So, my attempt to do that was fruitless. You can choose ANY Google Drive account to back up to, WHY can’t you have a choice of iCloud? Work on it boys and girls. Make it happen.

fix icloud sync or not worth using

I have this app on my desktop ipad and iphone. In addition to the note taking this is a great app to open PDF’s in for reading and review. With the multi platform syncing the data travels with me everywhere.

On my iPad I love the zoom box feature. I was upset when i noticed this didnt have that. Also, it is very hard to write and hold down the trackpad at the same time. A zoom box feature should be added, and you should be able to write without having to hold down the trackpad. Maybe this could be done by double clicking to start the writing and double click to stop.

Don’t let the positive reviews fool you. This app is for all intents and purposes BROKEN. Nothing works as it should. Text boxes are glitchy, typing lags in any slide set beyond 20 slides, nothing is intuitive, it’s missing features that are present in the iPad version. Garbage.

80% of my use is with the iPad app, but often I have to refer to or add to notes when I’m hacking at the computer. The iOS version of this app is therefore useful only if using the other platforms as well.

The iOS version is awesome as you can draw with the stylus and change the style of paper and lining. However these options are unavaliable on the mac version (exclude the stylus features). It would be useful to provide said options as well as two view multiple page of notes as once. The syncing works great but it would be nice to look at a past history of alterations if need be to revert back to those versions. Another thing I’ve been noticing is that the iCloud syncing is kind of laggy but there may be many underlying factors as to why that happens. What I find to be very helpful is the organization and simplicity. But my favorite part is being able to write/type and record simultaneously. It is very useful when going back in lectures. Everytime I get in contact witht their support team their responses have been very thorough and they usually respond quickly.

I’m a huge fan of the iOS app, and pray that the devs can bring the same love to the Mac app soon. Good: -Reliable and stable iCloud sync to all devices -Decent typing tools Bad: -UI just seems old, lazy, and blown away by the iOS UI (especially since you can set themes in the iOS app) -Resources seem a bit drained at times with this app, I constantly monitor the app and see an above average drain on memory and a slight stress on CPU -Typing tools can be easier to use; more tools can be present Feature Request: -I’d beg to see a feature to search handwritten notes -Web portal of notes to access notes outside of the Apple environment -Simple, yet beautiful UI, various themes (at least a dark theme) -Some other surprises for us notetakers :P I love these guys and would love to see the Mac app get the same TLC the holy iOS version (multiple App of the year awards!).

I like everything about this app except for the fact that it doesn’t offer a LINED PAPER TEMPLATE for the mac version. If you can have that template on an iPAD please make it here too. Please please… thanks

This app has been the same for over a year now. It needs some of the times the notability app has. Where is the table of contents. Where is dropbox and Google drive functionality. This app can be easily 5 stars with just these minor improvements

I bought it for my first week of class and it worked perfectly for the first 3 days of class and then it started shutting down every 5 seconds making it impossible to retrieve the audio files or send them any place else from my mac. It was a waste of money and time since i’ve been fighting it to get my audio files. useless. I guess they didn’t do a great job for this app on mac.

crashes right after the launch...

The mac os x version of notability with icloud sync was the missing piece to really make notability a must have tool. I use it coupled with my iPad to read, review and comment research articles. icloud sync enables me to transfer back and force the notes between my mac and the ipad without thinking about it. The latest new feature (pdf support) is really something that was also missing (could not copy a selected text sample otherwise). It’s progressing quickly in the good direction from version to version. I would love to have the same sync possibility with other cloud storage. My instituation has a private one based on owncloud for instance, but no sync, just backup or manual file transfers. One other thing that is missing from my point of view are tags hat are more versatile than directory to organise documents (you can associate more than one tag to one document and thus make it appear through different tag filtered directories).

Its was an excellent app and I mostly use this for my course work. I edit pdf, use my smart phone to clik pics and import then in no time for editing. A suggestion to the editor is that it would be nice if he can include shapes like lines, box, circles, etc to draw the figues during course work. Over all excellent app. Every penny is worth. :)

I like the app for iPad and if need be also for the iPhone. What I miss with the Mac version is the possibility to synch via Webdav. I want to decide myself how and where I want to synch and backup my data. Another issue for me is the missing of any format templates like the A, B, C on the iPad which offer at least 3. Here you can adjust five different features, but you have no way to easily select a per-formatted style. I would like to have this feature to easily differentiate between different titles, quotes, tasks, normal text, … If I add text above a photo the photo does not move with the text. I have to readjust it later. Cumbersome! If these issues could be changed I would definitely give four stars. The fifth is left for an improved user interface.

Generally a really good app, i used it to annote lecuture slides every day, it works really nicely with the new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. However, I would appreciate the ability tp open powerpoints in the app directly, a feature seen in apps like iAnnotate. Also, in the current version there seems to be a problem in Folder titles that are longer than one line. Another nice feautre to have, especiall on the iPad Pro would be the ability to open two notes at the same time

I use the app for university to mark things directly on the PDF files. Two standard feature that i really miss: 1. Draw geometrical figures (with pencil tool) 2. Create Tables If that is implemented, i will give 5 Stars!!

Awesome app for creating your own PDFs. Combine hand writing and typing all you want. It works and doesn’t crash. Have been using this app for 6 month now - not a single crash. As an engineer I can only complain that it lacks figures. It’s a bit of a pain to draw coordinate systems and graphs free hand. Would be so much easier if the app had straight lines, circles, squares and such.. I am using it on a Macbook, just in case. A part from the figures - awesome!