Every few years I try switching some workflows to iPad, so after picking up an iPad Pro 2018 on ebay a few weeks ago, I‘ve been trying out various iPad productivity apps.
In my role as product manager, I‘m usually diving in and out of conversations for different products, so I was looking for an app that will let me take quick handwritten notes with a bit of structure, but ideally with enough flexibility to also incorporate other drawings.
Penbook is a fairly straightforward drawing app with a variety of paper templates. It uses the iOS 13 pencilkit framework so the drawing tools and pencil support are great.
It has a bunch of options for each template, allowing you to add date info, todo checkboxes or adjust other options.
So far Penbook has been a pretty useful tool for meetings and keeping track of notes during the day. There‘s no text mode, which means there’s no friction to start taking handwritten notes – but that might be a dealbreaker for some.
I have to say the initial intro and page overview screens have a quirky UI that isn’t my cup of tea, but the main template chooser and editing views are solid.
There‘s an in-app subscription to add multiple notebooks which you should get to support the developers.