iAnnotate 4 — PDFs & more Reviews

I’m Very, very disappointed!

Tlili1

It is unethical to force customers to buy the new version by screwing the previous one.

This was the worst app update I’ve ever experienced. I was forced to update, following Branchfire’s equally terrible decision to stop supporting Dropbox connections in iannotate 3. Having to work online takes away 99% of the benefit of the app, document zoom no longer works with ease, annotations can’t be moved with the pencil... it’s also a generally clunkier experience. I am ridiculously disappointed that I paid $10 for a downgrade, rather than an update. You owe it to people who loved and supported the first app to give them better and correct the bad decisions. This is awful.

Glitchy, but I need it for class

Want tags!

This app freezes a lot and many many times I run into an open tab coming up with “could not be saved in the same location” so I have to save the file as something new and this happens regularly. I shouldn’t have to constantly save something new, instead of just saving it as it was.

Comprehensive PDF annotations

achrisvet

Very useful for taking notes, filling out forms. It would be good to have a Help icon to use during annotating. If it is there, I couldn’t find it. Mostly it is easy to use, but sometimes I could use some help.

How do I disable finger input?

UniqueNick95

I would prefer annotations to only come from Apple Pencil but I can't figure out how to disable finger input. Other apps seem to let finger pan only while pencil is used for annotations.

Don’t count on it

joannarrootd

I have used iAnnotate for years ... and recently moved to iAnnotate4 - Just now I was using it to annotate a 500 page document ... and was significantly through the document with many annotations ... and all of a sudden a small window popped up, asking me if i liked iAnnotate4 - to which i replied truthfully (at the time) by selecting Yes (vs. the other choice which was No). Then another small window popped up asking me if i wanted to rate it? There were 4 choices, that i don’t remember - except the last - which was to decline (or postpone) ... which I selected. Upon which the document closed and i was looking at the directory where the document lives. None of my changes were saved - the document appeared as if never opened (used) ... i am livid.

Long-time user looking elsewhere

dhtiu

From the previous reviews, I sense a theme emerging. A mass exodus of long-time iAnnotate users frustrated and feeling betrayed by an application that they enthusiastic supported and recommended for many years. My recent upgrade to v4 was nothing short of a disaster after many, many years of faithful, productive use of what used to be the best PDF annotation tool on the market. The problems began when I downloaded the upgrade and received no notification during the process that ALL my v3 files, saved stamps, and other features would be lost. After the upgrade completed and I opened it to verify that everything was working, I mistakenly deleted v3 which still remained on my iPad. Now, maybe that was “stupid user” behavior, but if iAnnotate had popped up a warning saying that I must manually transfer all my prior files and annotation settings, then I would have been more careful. I wrote to the iAnnotate staff, who responded reasonably quickly, but only to say I was out of luck and nothing could be done to restore my prior documents and settings. Luckily most of the document annotations had been saved, so I just had to re-create the stamps and other settings. But, that turned out to be just the beginning of the nightmare. I began using the new app and was happy with some of the new features. The app seemed to respond quicker, the file management was a bit better, and the auto save to Dropbox function seemed to work - based on a quick test of Chapter 1. That’s when I let my guard down. After reading a large book where I had added many notes and highlights, this morning I opened the app and only saw a white background with yellow streaks where highlights had been left the night before on the page. Okay, I thought, like with v3, maybe I just need to click the “x” to close the document and re-open it. After-all, the app had been auto saving to my Dropbox, right? Certainly, it would have also saved all my work since my initial test-save to the local iPad storage. Wrong on both accounts!! When I re-opened the local file ALL my changes (12 chapters) since the first test save were gone! Moreover, when I went back to Dropbox there was nothing saved after the first chapter — which now might have been because I clicked on the tab, causing a manual save I think. So much for auto save!! Reliability is the first and foremost “feature” every app should have and iAnnotate has failed that requirement miserably. I have begun researching alternatives — any suggestions from other reviewers would be much appreciated! After so many years of joyful service from v3, with the few inevitable annoyances (such as the loss of capability to search for Dropbox files that hadn’t yet been downloaded) that came from prior upgrades, my experience with v4 can only be described as being jilted — so sad to have to leave a deeply loved productivity tool. With some remaining hope that “counseling” might intervene, I am headed to divorce court :-)

Going backwards

ND Traveler

I have been using this app for years and loved each version. But now I must join the other users in saying the inability to save (or exit) an altered document unless the device is connected is a HUGE problem. I regularly need to read and annotate pdf documents while traveling by air. The inability to work on the documents unless I have an internet connection is a deal-killer for me. So count me among those disappointed customers who now are shopping for an alternative app. This follow the developer’s response. Yes, I know pdfs can be downloaded. I did that. But once opened and marked up, those files cannot saved to the device or even closed if not connected to the internet. That is the problem about which I commented. It is a known issue. As stated in the article you cite “Please note: Documents that are opened while offline will need to stay open in a tab until you save the files to an offline source (such as Local Files) or until you regain internet access. Changes will be saved back to the cloud as each document is closed (or saved manually) while connected to the internet.”

iAnnotate 4 — PDFs & more Reviews – Page 23