Taking notes at university with Apple Pencil and the iPad Pro
It’s been my dream to ditch pen and paper since high school, when I used to have tons of notebooks. I didn’t need all of them all the time, and carrying them with me wasn’t a huge pain. But still, I’d have preferred not to need to buy any, carry them with me to school, decide which ones to take or not when packing my backpack, and so on.
I also missed “Ctrl+F” greatly, as I found it tedious to search my notes sometimes. I always thought that an app could do the whole notebook thing way better: I’d be able to search through everything in an instant, the app would write the date on each page automatically, I’d switch colours and draw shapes easily, and erasing would leave zero marks behind.
Going digital
My first attempt was in December 2014, when I got a silver iPad Air 2 for Christmas. I also bought a Pencil by 53, hoping I could use my iPad to take notes for at least some classes. But it didn’t work out. It was simply too cumbersome, and the stylus wasn’t working well on the iPad. I tried different apps, same thing. After that, I retired my Pencil and only used it for drawing in the Paper app (also made by 53).
When I saw the iPad Pro and the Pencil unveiled, I thought “that’s it, the perfect setup!”. As I was getting ready for university, I decided I really didn’t want to use notebooks again. I had to try Apple’s new offering.
Reviews on the internet from other students seemed positive, so when I started uni, I bought the iPad with Apple Pencil. Oh, how big it seemed! And gorgeous, amazing, the-best-thing-in-the-world… well, at least until the excitement worn off. It’s a great device, although I don’t use it that much now apart from taking notes and the very occasional game break.
Compared to my previous setup, this one was perfect. The screen was big enough to not miss the big notebooks, the Pencil had a tip that’s just a bit larger than a normal pen, and they worked flawlessly together.
At my university, there are no restrictions when it comes to taking notes. Everybody uses whatever they want, be it paper notebooks, laptops, or tablets. I haven’t seen anyone use their phone, though, for obvious reasons. In my class, I’m not the only one with an iPad Pro + Pencil.
Apps
Now, Apple Notes is the only app I use because it fulfills all my needs:
- it looks and works great with the Pencil,
- it has folders to organise my notes,
- and it’s synced with all my devices.
I’ve also tried Penultimate, Notability, and GoodNotes, and even though they did have some nice features like different paper templates, voice recording, and OCR (features which I don’t actually need), they didn’t come close to the experience offered by Apple Notes when using the Pencil.
A paperless world
One semester through the first year, I’m happy I decided to go for the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. I use it not only for note-taking, but also for reading—so all my books are on it, too, wherever I go. Now I don’t own any physical notebooks, apart from a logbook which our uni forces us to use.
As I’m doing Computer Science, I don’t take notes that often. However, I think this setup would work for any subject because it’s so similar to real pen and paper. As for code, I never program on the iPad. I use my MacBook for that, even during labs.
I imagine that one day, we’ll all be replacing paper with technology.
