Notes and Writing: The InkyGirl review cited two apps that I decided to buy and try, Notably ($2.99) and My Writing Nook ($4.99). Both advance iPad note-taking interface and functionality. One review calls Notably “the Moleskine of iPad apps,” and Nook has similarities to Scrivener.
Notably has a good-looking skin: notes are on a cream-ivory “paper” set on a wood-grain “desk.” The app’s best feature is a choice of 12 fonts and sizes: Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Trebuchet, Courier, Helvetica, American Typewriter, Academy Engraved, Chalk Duster, and Snell Roundhand.
Notes appear in the right pane and an index/table of contents on the left. Each note has a date/time stamp, with most recent at the top. You can’t sort the notes, but the Search function helps you find previous notes quickly.
You type with full touch and keyboard editing, plus spell-check and auto suggestion. Notes may be in portrait or landscape. Saving is automatic, and you share via e-mail. (Additional export/synch options are coming.)
For three dollars you get a pretty way to work, and many writers on the forum say they are more productive when using a favorite type face, like Baskerville or Times. Notably is no Moleskine replacement, since you can’t create hand-written notes or diagrams. And in function it’s not that different from Apple’s Notes, which comes with OSX.
My Writing Nook works on iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android; the port to iPad is new. It has a superficial resemblance to Scrivener, in that the left pane functions like a Binder, where you may set up chapters or scenes to view on the right.
You may do the same in Notably, but in Nook you get bullet icons in 12 different colors to mark project bits and keep them sorted together—similar to the use of color bullets in xPad.
Nook includes 9 font/size choices, spell-check, and autosave. Additional features are a dictionary or thesaurus lookup, and (bravo) real-time word count. The index pane shows the word-count for each item. You share via e-mail or synch with a Nook web app, using a Gmail account address.
Both of these apps offer attractive ways to enter notes or work on segments of a writing project. A crucial limitation of both is the inability to import notes or chapters.
The developers ask for suggestions; my advice is to look at SimpleNote for its synchronized saving, web app version, and hooks to other programs, like Notational Velocity. Although SimpleNote remains “free,” it inserts ads, which you eliminate with a $3.99 one-time payment. For $8.99 a year you get Premium service, which eliminates ads and adds auto backup, a private address for mailing notes, and sharing via RSS feed.