GoodNotes 5

I am writing this review to help the developers and potential buyers. First I’m providing this review in March 2019. Things may change later so if you are reading this review you should keep the date and version number in mind. 5.0.20. We are a large builder which use Blue beam, Procore, “go to meeting” and other related industry software. We found that Good notes 4 was simply the best vehicle for note taking and plan markups available. It truly was a “five star app”. We could be on a “go to meeting” with 15 consultants on a conference call and annotate plans instantly. (What I mean is hand write changes on the pdf plans to give direction. Not edit DWG drawings.) It was fast easy and simple. Superior to other products out there, even the industry specific ones. Now, with Good notes 5 the layout and folder structure have been improved. But, there is a big problem. If we open a set of plans and try to zoom in, the plans pixelate. Plus take an in ordinate amount of time to gain focus. Thus, most of us have stopped using this program. I have Good notes 4 and have gone back to it. I. Don’t know. If the developer is aware or working on a fix but it was a great program. If the developer is aware hope you can fix. I will check the App Store for updates. Will mark as 2.5 stars and revise rating if able to remedy problem. Good luck.

I’ve been using this app for years, & recently upgraded to 5. There’s a lot of additional functionality, with more powerful tools, new objects, & way better templates. The only thing I miss is the way the app opens. Previously when opening the app it presented the view I left it int when closing the app. Now every time I start the app it opens to my folder list. I have a loootttt of notebooks, and remembering which one I was last using is sometimes difficult. Maybe I’m just not as organized as I should be, but it’s just annoying that every time I open the app I have to search through my folders & then my notebooks to get to the one I was in the middle of using. I open one notebook only to find that the page I’m looking for is actually in another one. Many of my notebooks hold similar data, but I keep the in separate books for specific reasons. I’d just rather not have to search every time I start, especially when I’m already used to picking up right where I left off with GN4. That minor thing aside, I love this app worthy of all 5 stars, & the upgrade to 5 was a great improvement. The developers seem to really pay attention to what additional functionality could be useful as the way we work evolves. So I’m always looking forward to the next version to see what new stuff I’ll get!

I downloaded several different apps that were free for note taking and or drawing in notebooks, etc. After not being satisfied with any of them, I decided to pay for this one. It is so worth the price! You can easily organize notes and notebooks while customizing them for whatever you need! The Apple Pencil works flawlessly as if you are using real pen and paper. I use the 1st Edition Apple Pencil with my 2019 iPad. One of the best things about this app is the fact that you can set it so that it does not capture anything from your hand or palm resting on the screen and allows you to still use your fingers to zoom, scroll through, and navigate the app all while still connected to the Apple Pencil. Also, it can literally READ and SEARCH your own handwriting so you can find where you left a certain note on a page. I have found that it this feature is very accurate! You can also customize your notebook covers, create outlines for easy navigation throughout a notebook, and you can create folders to organize each notebook even further. My only suggestion to the developers is to make it easier to get different templates for pages/covers and also allow those pages to have more background colors than just yellow or white.

Love the app, convenient for college and holds a lot of storage, I wish moving around pages could be easier. And the ball pen seems too stiff, fountain pen is a little awkward to use, and the brush pen is fine, but again the pens are something I need to get used to. I wish the eraser marks could have an option to be smaller, and not erase a whole line but exactly what my pen touches. So pens are not as fluid as it could be and may make your handwriting either better or worse. Zoom ins are great and resizing also never pixelates my writing, which I LOVE. I never write reviews, so I hope the concerns I listed will be considered and that this review helps those deciding whether or not to use the app. I wish I could download it to my computer without paying extra so that I can see both on my iPad and computer. For an app meant for taking and saving notes, it is an easy and great app to use, but pens are hard to get used to. If you are a high school student, digital note taking is okay, but it honestly isn’t necessary and teachers and classmates usually feel weird about it. In university this app is perfect since in my classes there is a lack of space for desks and so many places to walk to so the portability of a tablet is more useful then (this app also allows for split screen which is convenient)

I like all the added features, and i sincerely appreciate the infinite folders and sub folders feature, but what happened to multifunctional tool bar in the zoom window!? It’s missing the other buttons from the original toolbar in the zoom window. I’ve owned GoodNotes ever since it was first released, thus, I am very fluent in navigating the app. I have recommended it to everyone I know, and have gone completely paperless because of it. I am eternally grateful to GoodNotes. But with this new update, I really needed the zoom window tool bar before it was even added to the first GoodNotes, and it has been a dream come true ever since it was added, but now it has been taken away in Goodnotes 5. I really hope the toolbar is reinstalled soon. The undo and redo buttons, and the three colors and the eraser were all apart of the zoom window, and much more convenient than reaching to the top of the screen every time I had to undo a pen stroke. I don’t even want to consider using GoodNotes until the zoom window is copied from GoodNotes 4. While it may seem like a silly feature, it made the app 100% more useful to me. I hope this is taken into account and an easy fix to to release soon. Thank you, Your original customer Also, your textboxes are very persnickety and glitchy, please, please fix!