Goodnotes 6 4+

it’s cheap and that is what you get -bad for fast note taking -bad for reliable note taking -bad for drawing -bad for carpal tunnel -bad for sensory issues -extremely basic graphic functions -no fill tool -ugly stickers and templates -file bloat -custom stickers cause file bloat -frequent crashes -lost progress after crash -can’t drag items between pages -can’t scroll past right edge, making the note look untidy -can’t scroll past right edge, causing pain in the hands. idk who this is for, someone with infinite time on their hands.

[edit]
still just as bad and feature-less as it was, but now it forces an update that DOES NOT migrate the license that you already purchased, and makes you pay way more than you already did.

there are some other downsides, i forgot to mention previously:
- doesn’t export your outlines as ToCs, when it exports PDFs
- user created templates get inexplicably shrunken, and stickers get ridiculously enlarged.
- no video embedding (kind of a big deal for people who use notes apps for education)

I’m going to stop using it and migrate to Pro Create: i already take most of my notes there because that painting app is literally more convenient and useful for taking notes than Goodnotes is. And they don’t make you pay exorbitant hidden fees (the Goodnotes license was supposed to be lifetime…). Embarrassing. It feels like a student project, and a passing-grade one at that.

giving it 5 stars ironically.

In general the application is great. Vertical scrolling is very confortable. The app allows to configurate the type of drawing of the pencil. In combination with apple pencil, the application is very useful. Nevertheless, it has had some, normally sporadic, bugs that have been unsolved for some time now. For example, when deleting some text, the application may become unstable: the deleted text will appear and dissappear arbitrarially. It is also unconfortable the fact that it is not possible to start drawing on a page and to finish on another one. The application does not recognize it. The application does not allow for moving a cut text on a page to another one. One has to copy and delete on one, and then to paste on the second page.

I can no longer recommend this app to other people, which is unfortunate. Version 5 is good and I plan to continue using it. Wish it didn’t mess with my pen thickness settings every time a minor update is released, but that’s my only complaint. Releasing version 6 was… an interesting choice. It’s treated as a separate app, despite being a paid update. I wouldn’t care much if it was listed as a separate app in the app store, sadly, its existence makes V5 unavailable. It keeps crashing, deleting words, lags, blurs and does everything a note taking app shouldn’t do. If it was my only option, I would switch back to using a physical notebook. Also, treating it as a separate app means people are expected to pay more than the original „full price” to get minor, gimmicky bonus functions (and further support, I guess) such as… a virtual ruler. I’m surprised to see some people actually did pay for it, but to be fair, previous updates were solid and I can see why they decided to trust the good notes team. I’m glad I didn’t.