Great
Best note-taking app for iPad. But need:
• Undo/redo
• Ruler?
• Variable eraser size?
• iOS companion app
• Undo/redo
• Ruler?
• Variable eraser size?
• iOS companion app
Response from developer
Thank you for your kind words! We’d love to let you know that you can use two finger tap to undo and three finger tap to redo. Another tip for eraser size: you can try tilting your Apple Pencil. The eraser size is dynamic for now, although we will be adding a manual option as-well. I’m also happy to let you know we’re working on an iPhone app for the upcoming year.
Best spatial note taking app.
1 year review: extremely positive; wormholes make it like taking notes on physical media but enhanced.
I tried many different note apps trying to get the closest feeling to taking notes in the physical world but enhanced. Every app fell short in some way until Defter Notes. Most were too restrictive in only allowing one page to be visible at a time, others had obtrusive interfaces that reduced aesthetic character and the usable space, even the “best” like MarginNote and LiquidText felt alien to use.
Defter Notes is aesthetically pleasing for the minimalist, it allows you to display and move documents with ease, and now with the newest wormhole feature everything clicks together. It feels best in class when it comes to handwritten documents and notes. Reality but better.
I tried many different note apps trying to get the closest feeling to taking notes in the physical world but enhanced. Every app fell short in some way until Defter Notes. Most were too restrictive in only allowing one page to be visible at a time, others had obtrusive interfaces that reduced aesthetic character and the usable space, even the “best” like MarginNote and LiquidText felt alien to use.
Defter Notes is aesthetically pleasing for the minimalist, it allows you to display and move documents with ease, and now with the newest wormhole feature everything clicks together. It feels best in class when it comes to handwritten documents and notes. Reality but better.
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Great twist on note taking
Finally a note taking app that manages to stay simple while offering a lot of flexibility. I love the twist of having pages and objects on an infinite canvas as it keeps my notes from becoming a sprawl of text. It also means that rearranging concepts is extremely easy to do.
Do you use the pencil?
Then I would suggest you buy this app. There are so many things that feel "right" without the developers using the worst monetization that's become the norm. The UI is seamless and intuitive. The app is appropriate for brainstorming or keeping a serious note library. So many surprises like it's strong usage of PDF. I'd like to see search of handwritten text, but this app seems to have a clear vision, support it.
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What's good about this app?
This app is great. That being said, If you're looking at the price tag and wondering if its really $20 greater than other infinite canvas apps, let me tell you more about how it differs, because I know I would have liked to have that info before I bought it too.
More than milanote, freeform, or concepts, the thing Defter notes uniquely does better is pdf tools. If you work with pdfs at all, the mere fact that you can see and interact with full length, hyper-linked pdfs within the canvas is revolutionary. No pdf annotator can offer the benefits of an infinite canvas, and no other infinite canvas app integrates pdfs in a meaningful way; they require you to click on a pdf thumbnail and open a pdf viewing window, within which you might be able to annotate, but usually only to the degree that the native iOS pdf reader can, lest you export the specific pdf page to the canvas in order to edit it with app tools. Additionally, defter notes offers robust features that further integrate the pdf to your canvas, from the standard annotation tools to the ability to easily duplicate, reorganize, and pull out individual pages to work with multiple at the same time. Somehow, it does this while also providing good export. Aside from that:
This app does not give you online or collaborative features like milanote or freeform, but it's pretty easy to see the advantages of local-only software: speed and safety.
This app does not give you anywhere near the depth and capability of drawing tools and object tools that concepts does (in fact, this app lacks objects entirely), but again, the result of that sacrifice shows its benefits in how simple, streamlined, and fast note-taking is.
Unlike freeform and concepts, which have a branched file management system, this app takes after milanote, where the link to a new canvas is placed within the active canvas, making the canvas itself the file management system. To aid this unconventional but nevertheless highly functional system, there is a small, temporary canvas you can overlay where you can store anything as you navigate between canvases. I haven't seen this feature anywhere else, or at the very least, never integrated so seamlessly.
Another difference worth noting is that unlike the above apps, you cannot draw on the canvas directly (milanote doesn't do this well but it can be done). This, to me at least, is a drawback, but it does mean that exporting your work is much more reliable, because in order to write notes you have to create pages or sticky notes to write on, which come in standard sizes and can be easily exported. They also can be customized visually, which is nice in the case that you want to work with sheets of different layouts, for example, which other apps apply to the whole canvas (like grids, dots, or lines).
Finally, this app is developed by two people. In lieu of a roadmap and customer service, there is an active discord community. This is to say that I can't really speak to the features that are on the way or when new features might arrive, but you can rest assured that your money goes to a good place and you can see for yourself the continued development and take part in determining its direction. Oh, and despite the fact that this was developed by two people, the writing, zooming, panning, rotating, dragging and dropping is all top notch ux (honestly much more enjoyable than freeform, for example).
In conclusion, this is the single best app for note taking on an infinite canvas if you use any sort of embeded media, with support you can trust and even take part in. Especially as a one time payment it is well worth the $20.
If I could ask for any features I'd ask for support for video and audio files. Then this would be truly unstoppable. Some way to draw on the canvas directly would be nice (at the very least some arrows?), and selfishly the ability to use two finger scroll on trackpads to pan the canvas would be nice too.
More than milanote, freeform, or concepts, the thing Defter notes uniquely does better is pdf tools. If you work with pdfs at all, the mere fact that you can see and interact with full length, hyper-linked pdfs within the canvas is revolutionary. No pdf annotator can offer the benefits of an infinite canvas, and no other infinite canvas app integrates pdfs in a meaningful way; they require you to click on a pdf thumbnail and open a pdf viewing window, within which you might be able to annotate, but usually only to the degree that the native iOS pdf reader can, lest you export the specific pdf page to the canvas in order to edit it with app tools. Additionally, defter notes offers robust features that further integrate the pdf to your canvas, from the standard annotation tools to the ability to easily duplicate, reorganize, and pull out individual pages to work with multiple at the same time. Somehow, it does this while also providing good export. Aside from that:
This app does not give you online or collaborative features like milanote or freeform, but it's pretty easy to see the advantages of local-only software: speed and safety.
This app does not give you anywhere near the depth and capability of drawing tools and object tools that concepts does (in fact, this app lacks objects entirely), but again, the result of that sacrifice shows its benefits in how simple, streamlined, and fast note-taking is.
Unlike freeform and concepts, which have a branched file management system, this app takes after milanote, where the link to a new canvas is placed within the active canvas, making the canvas itself the file management system. To aid this unconventional but nevertheless highly functional system, there is a small, temporary canvas you can overlay where you can store anything as you navigate between canvases. I haven't seen this feature anywhere else, or at the very least, never integrated so seamlessly.
Another difference worth noting is that unlike the above apps, you cannot draw on the canvas directly (milanote doesn't do this well but it can be done). This, to me at least, is a drawback, but it does mean that exporting your work is much more reliable, because in order to write notes you have to create pages or sticky notes to write on, which come in standard sizes and can be easily exported. They also can be customized visually, which is nice in the case that you want to work with sheets of different layouts, for example, which other apps apply to the whole canvas (like grids, dots, or lines).
Finally, this app is developed by two people. In lieu of a roadmap and customer service, there is an active discord community. This is to say that I can't really speak to the features that are on the way or when new features might arrive, but you can rest assured that your money goes to a good place and you can see for yourself the continued development and take part in determining its direction. Oh, and despite the fact that this was developed by two people, the writing, zooming, panning, rotating, dragging and dropping is all top notch ux (honestly much more enjoyable than freeform, for example).
In conclusion, this is the single best app for note taking on an infinite canvas if you use any sort of embeded media, with support you can trust and even take part in. Especially as a one time payment it is well worth the $20.
If I could ask for any features I'd ask for support for video and audio files. Then this would be truly unstoppable. Some way to draw on the canvas directly would be nice (at the very least some arrows?), and selfishly the ability to use two finger scroll on trackpads to pan the canvas would be nice too.
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Still young, still developing, and much more to cover
It has editable sticky notes, you can add images (crop and rotate) and stacks of PDFs, infinite capacity to create spaces and rename them; you can add text box (not much formatting options). You can add pages and choose different styles of them, but when you try to add and attached URL there is no way it can get smaller size.
There are many features it can implement. However, as a user I identified some main problems for me, which are the too low quality (blurry) definition of the text when zooming in or exporting the whole space and even exporting separately as pages on png format. There are no many options to increase the size of the eraser or pen. Also, another feature which seems to need further development is the selection tool, you cannot edit the rotation of it or even see where you are moving the text because it just disappears. Additionally, when you use the eraser tool over a sticky note and a page it just gets overloaded and it stops itself. The use of the apple pencil seems to work acceptably but not fluently as I expected. Not very intuitive for now.
Overall, all is a great and useful app with a unique and outstanding concept. Hope can get further.
Note: is not multi-platform and as I can see it doesn't get very often updates but the developer has multiple channels where you can suggest features and see tutorials.
There are many features it can implement. However, as a user I identified some main problems for me, which are the too low quality (blurry) definition of the text when zooming in or exporting the whole space and even exporting separately as pages on png format. There are no many options to increase the size of the eraser or pen. Also, another feature which seems to need further development is the selection tool, you cannot edit the rotation of it or even see where you are moving the text because it just disappears. Additionally, when you use the eraser tool over a sticky note and a page it just gets overloaded and it stops itself. The use of the apple pencil seems to work acceptably but not fluently as I expected. Not very intuitive for now.
Overall, all is a great and useful app with a unique and outstanding concept. Hope can get further.
Note: is not multi-platform and as I can see it doesn't get very often updates but the developer has multiple channels where you can suggest features and see tutorials.
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Seriously UNDERRATED app!
Like many others, I've tried so many note-taking and organize-your-ideas apps, but there was always that one (or a few) things that bugged me enough to make me stop using it. One other reviewer mentioned that this app “works the way his brain does” and it’s the same for me and I freakin’ love it. Finally!
To anyone trying Defter Notes: Please be patient and stay with it. I’m so glad I did. It does have a bit of a learning curve (watch all their how-to videos!) but once you figure out where everything is and what it is they do, it does feel very natural and elegant.
Thank you, Devs! Your hard work shows and shines through this app. I can’t wait to see what new features you will bring in the app and how you will improve Defter Notes and bring it to its greatest potential. More power—incredible work! 👏🏽
To anyone trying Defter Notes: Please be patient and stay with it. I’m so glad I did. It does have a bit of a learning curve (watch all their how-to videos!) but once you figure out where everything is and what it is they do, it does feel very natural and elegant.
Thank you, Devs! Your hard work shows and shines through this app. I can’t wait to see what new features you will bring in the app and how you will improve Defter Notes and bring it to its greatest potential. More power—incredible work! 👏🏽
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Elegant and Appealing
I love this app. I purchased it after viewing the exquisite tutorial videos on the developers’ website and listening to a podcast interview with the user interface designer. I believe that the designer and the developer share a vision of what this sort of app ought to be and are making rapid progress toward their goals. I am not an elegant person but I appreciate quality tools. In this app I haul all my research onto my space and start writing on my screen with my Apple Pencil. If I need anything the app makes it easy to bring it to the workspace. This is a very intimate way to interact with the iPad and releases a lot of inhibitions I feel when using a keyboard and facing a blank screen. I love that I can tilt the “paper” while I write. This feature really helps an old left-handed scrawler like me. The latest update also offers left-handlers the option of moving the drawer and tools to the right side of the screen. Defter Notes helps me to do serious work in a way that I find appealing. I look forward to seeing where the developers take it, and they appear to be moving quickly. I offer an enthusiastic endorsement.
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Works the way my brain does
Can’t wait for updates to improve this, its got a great start, want to see more features, but man I can finally use my iPad and have my messy desk everywhere I go not just at the office
Fantastic app
This app has changed the way I study. It's already great - can't wait to see how it develops
