Pad Notes AI: Smart Notebooks
Handwriting, PDF & Study AI
Free · In‑App Purchases
Keep PDF pages at their original size. Write, annotate and explore your notes with an AI assistant in your own notebooks.
Pad Notes AI brings handwriting, typed notes, PDF annotation and a note-focused AI assistant into one workspace on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
WRITE AND CREATE
Write with Apple Pencil on compatible iPads or draw with touch. Adjust ink and stroke size, highlight, add text and images, and hold a stroke to turn it into an editable shape. Erase whole strokes or just part of them.
MAKE EACH NOTEBOOK YOURS
Choose from 15 cover styles, 19 page templates and 12 paper colors. Use ruled, dotted, grid, Cornell, planner, music and reading journal pages. Organize notebooks in folders, pin favorites, search your notes, and import or export PDFs.
WORK WITH YOUR NOTES
Record audio, use transcription and translation, and ask the assistant to summarize, explain or create study questions from selected pages. Apple on-device AI requires a supported device with Apple Intelligence available. Online AI requires your own provider API key and an internet connection. The basic offline mode extracts text and keywords using rules.
Start with up to 20 notebooks for free. A one-time lifetime purchase unlocks unlimited notebooks. iCloud sync uses your device's Apple Account and requires iCloud to be available.
more • Imported PDFs now use their original page dimensions instead of a default paper size.
• Improved rendering of rotated PDF pages and pages with crop bounds.
• Page previews, zoomed pages and PDF exports now use consistent page framing.
1.2.1 Oct 12
• More cover designs, page templates and paper colors, with clearer previews when creating notebooks.
• Paper lines remain complete when zooming out.
• Hold-to-shape editing and partial erasing for geometric shapes.
• Clearer tool selection and live brush-size previews.
• Better translation placement, audio responsiveness and settings layouts.
• Live page swipes, including when zoomed at the page edge; swipe past the last page to create another.
1.2.0 Oct 12
Thank you for using Pad Notes AI! Version 1.1.4 brings important reliability improvements, audio recovery tools, and enhanced data security:
• Audio Recording Recovery: Added a dedicated recovery manager in your library. If an audio recording is interrupted or fails to save, you can easily recover it to your notebook page or share the original audio file.
• Interruption Resilience: Enhanced audio recording engine to gracefully handle interruptions, preserving your recordings up to the exact moment of disruption.
• Robust Storage & Safeguards: Enhanced database resilience to protect your notes and drawings under low storage or system interruptions, providing clear recovery options without data loss.
• Secure API Key Storage: Upgraded Gemini API key management to securely store your keys inside the Apple Keychain with hardware-level encryption.
• Improved PDF Export: Faster, cancellable page-by-page PDF rendering with optimized memory management for large notebooks.
• Performance & Stability: Refined thread safety, smoother autosave indicators, and overall stability enhancements on macOS and iPadOS.
1.1.4 Sep 14
Welcome to Pad Notes AI version 1.1.3! In this release, we've introduced powerful organization tools, enhanced Apple Pencil ink consistency, improved live AI streaming, and optimized performance across iPad and Mac (Catalyst).
Key Updates:
ALL-NEW FOLDER MANAGEMENT
Easily organize your notebooks with a dedicated folder sidebar leveraging iPad-first NavigationSplitView.
Drag-and-drop notebooks directly onto folder chips for instant filing.
Filter your Home Library notebooks by folder effortlessly.
UNINTERRUPTED LIVE SPEECH TRANSCRIPTION
Enhanced audio recording and Speech-to-Text translation with intelligent continuous chunking. The app now bypasses the system's 60-second limit, allowing you to capture long lectures, meetings, and notes without interruption.
STREAMING AI ASSISTANT (NOTES AI PANEL)
Implemented real-time streaming responses for the AI assistant — see answers appear word-by-word instantly.
Added a "Stop Generating" button to let you abort AI outputs at any point.
Enhanced chat history presentation and overall AI panel user interface.
CONSISTENT APPLE PENCIL INK RENDERING
Fixed canvas rendering inconsistency. Enforced light-mode traits on the PencilKit canvas and PKToolPicker, ensuring ink colors remain vibrant and legible on light paper templates, even when system-wide Dark Mode is active.
Standardized toolbar icon tinting for a clean, uniform look.
ROBUST MACOS CATALYST SUPPORT
Optimized desktop experience under macOS Catalyst, adjusting toolbar behaviors, configuring window scenes, and fixing keyboard/shortcut issues.
Resolved sheet dismissal bugs where the "Done" button would occasionally fail to close settings on macOS.
UI/UX & ACCESSIBILITY POLISH
Streamlined interface layouts and standardized system colors to improve contrast, accessibility, and readability.
Implemented an adaptive overflow menu in the Editor toolbar to keep functions reachable on split screens.
Added scroll-to-current-page functionality in the Page Browser for faster navigation.
Thank you for choosing Pad Notes AI! If you enjoy the app, please take a moment to leave a review on the App Store.
1.1.3 Jul 17
Folder management
Keep your notebooks organized with the new folder system. Drag and drop notebooks into folders right from your library, and browse quickly using the dedicated folder sidebar.
Refreshed library
A redesigned library with a responsive sidebar and a fresh new theme that looks great on iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
Smoother AI assistant
AI responses now stream in real time, so you see the content as it is being generated. Added a Stop Generating button and conversation history in the Notes AI panel.
Cleaner page editor
A new adaptive toolbar with a smart overflow menu, tidier on smaller screens. Browse pages with segmented view options and auto-scroll to the current page.
Better Mac support
Improved macOS support with more reliable notebook management, toolbars, and windows.
More
Added translations for more languages, fixed toolbar issues, and improved overall stability.
1.1.2 Jul 6
This update polishes the new elements and pages experience:
• Front/behind layering now applies the moment you tap it
• Add cover-styled topic pages anywhere — movable and numbered like normal pages
• Turn pages with a one- or three-finger swipe
• Sidebar previews now match your pages, including front/behind elements
• Stability and sync improvements
1.1.1 Jul 1
Add anything to your pages
Insert shapes, text boxes, and photos as elements you can freely move, resize, and rotate. Style them with colors, stroke width, and fonts.
Layer elements with your handwriting
Place any element in front of or behind your pen strokes — perfect for highlights, labels, and backgrounds that sit under your notes.
Insert images from your album
Drop a photo onto a page as a resizable element, or start a new page straight from a picture.
Cover & topic pages, your way
Decorate covers with shapes, text, and images. Add cover-styled "topic" pages anywhere in your notebook — they move, reorder, and number just like normal pages. Delete or duplicate covers freely.
Per-recording tools
Copy a transcript, export a single transcript, or export an individual recording right from its ⋯ menu.
One-finger page turns
Flip pages with a quick one-finger swipe on iPhone and iPad.
Settings that follow you
Language, theme, default page style, and more now sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud.
Refinements & fixes
A roomier drawing canvas on iPhone, sharper text-box PDF export, more reliable translation, and sidebar previews that now match your pages — including front/behind element layering.
1.1.0 Jun 25
Shapes, text & images on your pages
Insert rectangles, rounded rectangles, ellipses, lines, arrows, text boxes — and now photos — onto any page. Drag to draw, then move, resize, rotate, and restyle with colors, stroke width, and fonts.
Add images from your album
Drop in a photo as a resizable element, or start a brand-new page from a picture.
More freedom with cover pages
Decorate your cover with shapes, text, and images. You can now delete or duplicate the cover just like any other page — and add a fresh one with "New Cover Page".
Per-recording tools
Copy a transcript, export a single transcript, or export an individual recording right from its ⋯ menu.
One-finger page turns
Flip pages with a quick one-finger swipe, on both iPhone and iPad.
Your settings, everywhere
Language, theme, default page style and more now follow you across iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud.
Refinements & fixes
A roomier drawing canvas on iPhone, sharper text-box PDF export (no more clipped letters), more reliable translation, and library previews that now reflect your shape and image edits.
1.0.9 Jun 25
• Handwriting Search — Find any page by its handwritten
content. The app silently indexes your handwriting in the
background on iOS 27.
• 10 Languages — Full UI localisation for English,
Vietnamese, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified &
Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.
• iCloud Sync Improvements — Sync status now refreshes
accurately when returning to the app from the background.
• Toolbar Refinements — Page view options and actions are
consolidated into a cleaner native menu on iPad.
• Bug fixes and performance improvements.
1.0.8 Jun 23
Bug Fixes
• Page thumbnails in the page browser now always reflect the actual drawing — no more blank previews that only update after opening the page
• The open notebook no longer resets to a different document when switching between multitasking window sizes
• The navigation back button no longer appears unexpectedly in the full iPad layout
Performance
• Drawing sessions generate fewer CoreData writes, keeping iCloud sync smoother and reducing background CPU usage
• iCloud sync status indicator is more accurate and no longer flickers during active drawing
1.0.7 Jun 20
• iCloud Sync status — each notebook now shows a real-time badge
(uploading, downloading, synced, or error) right on its cover.
• PDF import fixed — PDFs opened from other apps or the Files
picker no longer appear upside-down.
• LaTeX formulas — math notation in list items now renders
natively using SwiftMath.
• Audio playback fixed — first tap on a recording now plays
immediately without needing to toggle.
• Performance — sync status updates are debounced during active
writing so the UI stays smooth.
1.0.6 Jun 20
Bug fixes and performance improvements.
1.0.5 Jun 19
Bug fixes and performance improvements.
1.0.4 Jun 19
Bug fixes and performance improvements
Fixed handwriting appearing misaligned when rotating iPad between landscape and portrait
Fixed page lines becoming misaligned when resizing the app window to a small size
Fixed the app jumping back to the cover page when resuming from the background
Fixed a freeze when opening a notebook for the first time after launching the app
Improved drawing smoothness and reduced lag while writing
Improved thumbnail rendering quality
1.0.3 Jun 18
• Lifetime Access — one-time purchase to unlock unlimited notebooks, no subscription ever
• Redesigned AI panel with a cleaner, more native look
• Fixed drawing toolbar layout when toggling the AI panel
• Fixed canvas zoom resetting unexpectedly after using AI
• Fixed app freeze when tapping the Customize button in the drawing toolbar
• Performance and stability improvements
1.0.2 Jun 18
Welcome to PadNotesAI version 1.0.1! In this update, we have focused on improving performance, refining the user interface, and making document import and audio listening seamless:
QUICK IMPORT
- Added quick action shortcuts to create a new page directly from a PDF or image, letting you start annotating or signing documents instantly.
FLOATING AUDIO PLAYER
- Redesigned the audio player panel with a minimized floating state, allowing you to listen to recordings while keeping your workspace clean and spacious.
- Smart name truncation for long audio file titles.
INSTANT THUMBNAIL REFRESH AND SPEED
- Upgraded the handwritten drawing canvas with synchronous thumbnail generation, so your page previews update in real-time.
- Faster page browsing and document navigation powered by optimized SwiftData queries.
PERFORMANCE AND MEMORY OPTIMIZATION
- Integrated smart image downsampling to significantly reduce memory usage when working with large images.
- Optimized PDF export engine with memory release pools, preventing crashes and lag when sharing large hand-written notebooks.
IMPROVED AI TRANSLATION
- Upgraded the OCR text clustering algorithm for more cohesive paragraph analysis, leading to high-quality and context-aware AI translations.
- Refined translation overlay view with a solid white background, making translated text much easier to read.
BEAUTIFUL UI AND UX IMPROVEMENTS
- Redesigned the main navigation bar with a gorgeous glassmorphism effect.
- Removed the paywall and subscription screens, making all premium features fully accessible.
- General performance improvements and bug fixes.
Thank you for choosing PadNotesAI! If you enjoy the app, please consider leaving us a review on the App Store!
1.0.1 Jun 16
• Imported PDFs now use their original page dimensions instead of a default paper size.
• Improved rendering of rotated PDF pages and pages with crop bounds.
• Page previews, zoomed pages and PDF exports now use consistent page framing.
more Version 1.2.1 Oct 12
Data Not Collected The developer does not collect any data from this app.