Explorations of a Life
It took me a while to fall in love with NoteTaker HD. As I was looking through all the note taking applications, I was already heavily involved in a different product on other platforms and that was skewing my opinions as I looked at applications like NoteTaker. Finally after several months, I still wasn’t happy in my use of the iPad with regard to spontaneous note taking, and I took another look. What a difference a few months of frustration makes.
A bit of background is in order. When tablets first came out, I was excited. When I saw OneNote on Windows, I got more excited. I spend my day in meetings with customers and prospects, and one of the fastest ways to put up a barrier between you and your client in my mind is to put a laptop screen between you. It’s a mini wall. Add to that the constant clicking from typing, and you have a very disturbing and disruptive process. This brought me to looking at NoteTaker HD again. What I love about this application is that it doesn’t do too much, and what it does do, it does superbly. What do I mean by this? It strives to give you your paper in the best way possible. It doesn’t act as a recorder. It doesn’t try to do handwriting recognition. It gives you a place to write, and with the Edit2 screen, write elegantly.
I had a couple of meetings coming up and decided I would use NoteTaker only to take my notes. I had practices a bit before hand, to get comfortable, and I ordered a BoxWave stylus to write with. Writing with your finger is possible, but I have muscle memory which makes me feel more natural with something in my hand. By the time I was halfway through the first meeting, I was barely glancing at the iPad, just taking notes as I would on paper. I was drawing diagrams, keeping up with the conversation, and
had about 6 pages of notes. By the time I finished the second meeting I was a convert. Now, several weeks later of constant use, and I can say I would own an iPad only for this application.
Send your notes to EverNote for recognition as PDFs, and you have an end-to-end solution.
As I said, it took a while to wrap my head around what Dan has created, but in it’s own way, it’s every bit as powerful as VisiCalc. Are there things I would like? Sure. My short list includes:
* Better documentation around annotation. I want to use it but haven’t mastered it yet.
* A better way to share notes between different people with NoteTaker HD
That’s a very short list. The worst thing he could do is try to make it all things to all people. The additions he has made are well thought out. If you spend any time in meetings, classes or just prefer writing to typing in your creative process, don’t hesitate to get this application.
