Great function thru simplicity – Notes Plus Review

Don’t often give reviews but thought this app deserved one. I’m a structural engineer trying to go paperless. To do that I need to be able to redline PDFs, generate hand calculations and take notes during job site visits and meeting. This app has been able to do just that and more through its simplicity. I have the IPad Pro 12.9 with the Apple Pencil and it works great. With this pairing I have not had any issues with my palm leaving marks, slow pencil response or any of the other problems I read in previous reviews. Newer app version, hardware configuration, irish luck... no idea but it works great. I’ve emailed the developer a number of times and he has been very responsive. Surprisingly so. The recent update fixed the Dropbox issue another reviewer mentioned. I also had those issues and spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to push files back and forth from my pad to computer until that bug could be addressed. Seems to work fine now. I’ll give the app 5 stars when he adds being able to use your own paper back ground. All my calcs and hand sketches need to be on my personal paper with my company logo. I’ve imported a pdf of the same and it works for now but only the first page of the notebook is my background and the rest are the from the app standards. I have to copy and save each page to a separate notebook. Cumbersome. My goal is to be able to have one notebook for the entire calculation submittal package that can be easily edited. Until then I have to export each page to my computer and combine them there in adobe. Pros: 1.) very intuitive and easy to just pick up and use. I recommend reading the manual and tutorials though as there are lots of nice functions you wouldn’t think about. 2.) lots of functionality to adjust pen colors, weights and types. 3.) For me, a very responsive developer so far. 4.) importing pictures, PDF’s and web pages to write on is a snap and very useful. Cons: 1.) Can’t use your own paper background. 2.). The close up writing tool can sometimes just pop up seemingly at random while drawing a “heavy dot in a sketch for rebar” which has to be closed. I think you can modify the pen movements to fix this but haven’t figured it out yet. 3.). Would be nice to be able to adjust the paper background after you have already created the notebook so you could gave a combination of calc pad and graph paper for example. Good app. Worth the money.
Review by Aerobatic-bipe on Notes Plus.