Notability is an impressive note-taking app for iPad. I noticed that a companion app for Mac was just released today and is available through the App Store. Until now, Notability was restricted to the iPad (and iPhone, I think) ecologies, which made it impractical for me. So, despite some very nice features, I haven't used it. Sadly, the Mac version requires Mavericks, so I may still not use it, but others might want to take a look. The iPad version has a strong following, especially for education.

More info: http://www.gingerlabs.com/

Steve Z.

Thanks very much, Steve.

I *quite* like Notability on the iPad, but its use for handwritten notes suffers from some - though not all - of the challenges often posed by using the iPad for handwriting. It will be interesting to see whether the Mac edition can be used for precise hand-writing of annotations on a pdf, a facility which the author David Hewson has spent a long time searching for, according to his blog, and indeed which anybody who tends to write more than a single draft of long-form documents would value. Possibly Notability plus the addition of a Wacom Bamboo tablet or similar would do the trick.

And just a little follow-up: On the web site for Notability, they really play up hand-written notes, and drawings. Notability is good at those things, but it also takes typed text, and does a nice job with outlines (haven't tested the Mac version).

Steve Z.

Hugh,

I can definitely sympathize with David Hewson, as I've had very limited success/interest in using handwriting on the iPad. My writing isn't great to begin with and it just gets too clunky writing on a screen with a stylus. I've not worked at it enough to become comfortable with the entry tools like Notability (and others) has. And I'm a miserable artist, so the thought that I might create attractive and interesting diagrams and sketches by hand is laughable (to me, anyway).

Steve Z.

I've always enjoyed Notability and keep it on my iPad's first page because it is a pleasant app to work with. It has a good basic feature set -- or good enough for me for note taking. The new desktop app is a bit less featured, but the developer has managed to navigate the mysteries of working with the iCloud API and created a much more reliable synchronization between the iOS app and the desktop than many other apps. I think this is the sort of seamless cross-platform document sharing that Yosemite and iOS 8 are supposed to incorporate

I'm delighted - I've always liked Notability, but haven't used it as much as I could have done because of the lack of Mac/PC compatibility. Now, encouraged by Paul's experience, I'm testing the iCloud syncing! It's clearly been optimised for the forthcoming OS X update, which is good news.