Awesome Note or Daily Notes for iPad2?

Posted by MadaboutDana
May 28, 2012 at 09:57 AM

Hi Ken,

First, I’m really sorry to hear about your illness - sounds very debilitating.

On the positive side, I have to say that once you start using your iPad in anger, you realise it’s vastly superior to almost anything else for notetaking.

I’ve used both Awesome Notes and Daily Notes. Daily Notes I just didn’t like, mainly because I’m not really a journal sort of person - it’s no longer on my iPad.

Awesome Notes I love, and still have on my iPad. It has one other significant advantage you don’t mention in your list - it’s Evernote compatible, and can export (and import) Evernote files. However, I don’t use it that often (I keep it on the iPad mainly because I love its interface). That’s because:
a) it doesn’t do rich text (not a major failing, actually, but mildly annoying)
b) it doesn’t do more than one level of hierarchy (one set of folders, no subfolders). That becomes quite a limitation once you’ve reached a certain number of notes.

I would, if I may, make two other recommendations:

a) Notebooks (by Alfons Schmid), which also has a Mac app (currently in beta); a Windows app is expected imminently. Notebooks allows you to nest folders to any level. It allows you to embed web pages (and indeed any other kind of file, including e.g. MS Office files, PDFs and so on). It also has no less than three different methods of input, including rich text, plain text and Markdown, depending on what you prefer. It outputs to PDF, and also allows you to open files in a wide variety of other apps on your iPad. It also syncs with Dropbox. Oh, and has an excellent search function - really very powerful, with highlighting (unusual in iOS), which also indexes embedded files and web pages. Finally, Alfons is very painstaking and very responsive. If notetaking is what you want to do, Notebooks is the right choice.

b) WriteUp is also rather good. Again, nesting to any level (folders within folders), Markdown-based rich text. And quite a good search function, although you have to paste complete terms into the search box to get it to work properly! It’s a more lightweight solution, but quite nicely done. The latest iteration also has a built-in web browser. However, Notebooks wins out for sheer professional competence.

c) It would be remiss of me not to mention OmniOutliner for iPad, which is an excellent solution if you prefer single-pane outliners. It supports rich text, outputs to HTML and PDF, syncs with OmniOutliner for the Mac, and has an excellent search function. I use it regularly to produce large documents with multiple sections, outputting to HTML for the final rework on my Windows PC. It also allows you to customise your styles and save templates (as does Notebooks, actually, using CSS stylesheets).

I do like Awesome Notes, and if you want a combination of To-Do app with Notes, then it’s a nice solution. And the interface is a model for other iOS app developers. But the folder restriction is worth bearing in mind.

Cheers, and a swift recovery,
Bill