Blackboard by Boogie Board vs Minimal | Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Blackboard by Boogie Board
This smart notebook app digitizes handwritten notes and drawings, offering a paperless way to capture ideas. It allows for easy saving, organizing, editing, and sharing of your work to cloud services and via email.
- Digitize handwritten notes and drawings
- Save, organize, and share work
- Integrates with cloud services
- Edit and enhance notes
- Smart Scan functionality
- Archive and search notes
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Blackboard™ by Boogie Board® is a reusable smart notebook that blends creativity with productivity. It delivers a fluid, freeform, and paperless note-taking experience. The FREE, all-in-one Blackboard™ app turns handwritten notes or drawings into digital files – backing content up to your favorite cloud platform. Saving, organizing, and sharing work has never been easier. STAY CONNECTED & SEAMLESSLY CAPTURE WORK The Blackboard™ app works across the following models: Blackboard™ 2.0 (new for 2024) and the original Blackboard (in both Letter and Note sizes). Both Blackboard™ 2.0 and the original Blackboard™ models support Smart Scan, which captures and saves notes to the app using the smartphone camera. The app also integrates with popular cloud-based services, including OneNote, Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Drive. EDIT & ENHANCE The Blackboard™ app includes tools to draw, highlight, and enhance work materials. SHARE The Blackboard™ app archives work as images or PDFs for easy and fast sharing to e-mail, messages and more. ARCHIVE, ORGANIZE, & SEARCH The Blackboard™ app allows work to be tagged – making organization and search move swiftly. FEEDBACK OR HELP? E-mail us anytime at customerservice@buffalogames.com Instagram & Facebook: @myboogieboard
Minimal | Notes
This app offers a distraction-free writing environment inspired by meditation. It features collaborative writing, note expiration, and the ability to publish notes as websites. Organize tasks with integrated to-do lists and sync across all your Apple devices.
- Note Lifetime reminders
- Collaborative writing
- Publish notes as websites
- Todo lists sync with Calendar
- Beautiful formatting
- Sync across Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch
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Write with focus. Open your mind with Minimal, a meditation-inspired notes and writing app. Minimal combines thoughtful, modern design with powerful features to deliver a spacious, beautiful writing environment. • Note Lifetime • Collaborative writing • Publish notes as websites • Add Todos to the Calendar app • Beautiful formatting • Sync everywhere: Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch Minimal is a simple yet powerful notes app. Inspired by meditation, nature, and architectural design, Minimal provides a beautiful space to think, write, and organize projects. NOTE LIFETIME The Note Lifetime keeps your notebook fresh and reflective of the present moment. When a note goes unedited for a duration you choose in settings, you’ll be gently notified. This is an opportunity to review the note, act on it, or let it go. COLLABORATIVE WRITING Share notes with friends, family, and teammates. With a gentle design, writing remains focused and tranquil, even as thoughts merge and ideas multiply. Everyone receives changes as notes evolve, and multiple people can make edits at the same time without conflict. FOCUSED + SPACIOUS DESIGN Minimal is designed so only one element is ever in focus. We love the beauty of a blank page – abundant empty space allows for an ease of creative expression. PUBLISH AS WEBSITE Transform notes into beautifully-formatted websites in microseconds. TODO LISTS Todo lists are an effective way to organize projects and complete tasks. Sync with the Calendar app, get things done, and check everything off. BEAUTIFUL FORMATTING Minimal combines Markdown-style formatting with elegant typography. The result is simple, expressive notes that make it easy to think and write. SYNC EVERYWHERE Bring focus to your favorite devices. Minimal is designed for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Cloud Sync is fast, reliable, and invisible. SHARE, EXPORT, IMPORT You’re in control of your notes. Share directly in iMessage, export as PDF or HTML, and use the system share mechanism to take notes anywhere. Importing links + prose into Minimal is just as easy. CUSTOMIZE EVERYTHING The best notebook is personal. We made everything in Minimal customizable, from fonts + themes to sorting notes + note actions. You can also build custom workflows using the Shortcuts app. A LITTLE GIFT Wow, thanks for reading. As a little gift for tuning in, these are our favorite musicians -> Somi, Snarky Puppy, and London Grammar. They’re jazzy and introspective, just how we like it. Enjoy. —— For help, write us at team@minimal.app or on Twitter at @minimalnotesapp. To learn about our terms + approach to privacy, visit https://minimal.app/terms. We offer a long free trial and make cancellation easy. After that, Minimal costs $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year. These prices are in USD and may vary by region. Cancel in your iTunes account settings at least 24 hours before renewal.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Minimal | Notes at 81% against Blackboard by Boogie Board's 27%. Minimal | Notes also leads on rating (4.7 vs 3.4) and ratings volume (298 vs 53). Blackboard by Boogie Board's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Minimal | Notes sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Blackboard by Boogie Board asks for nothing beyond the download.
Minimal | Notes holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Minimal | Notes has 298 ratings behind it against 53, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 27% of Blackboard by Boogie Board's written reviews are positive against 81% of Minimal | Notes's.
Blackboard by Boogie Board ships an update every 2 months, Minimal | Notes monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Blackboard by Boogie Board | Minimal | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.4 (53 ratings) | 4.7 (298 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 27.1% of reviews | 81.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 53 | 298 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Subscription |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 84 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Buffalo Games, LLC | Timeless |
Customer experience
Blackboard by Boogie Board
Minimal | Notes
Bugs and requests
Blackboard by Boogie Board
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Minimal | Notes
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes when using certain formatting or pasting content
- Syncing issues between iOS and macOS versions
- Incompatibility with older macOS versions
Requested features
4 requests- Add ability to insert images or attachments
- Improve iCloud sync reliability
- Implement a folder-based organization system
- Add a word/character count feature
In-app purchases
Blackboard by Boogie Board
No in-app purchases
Minimal | Notes
- Minimal Monthly14 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Minimal Annual14 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Minimal Family Plan14 Days trial$79.991 Year
Questions
Is Blackboard by Boogie Board free?
Is Minimal | Notes free?
Which has better reviews, Blackboard by Boogie Board or Minimal | Notes?
Do Blackboard by Boogie Board or Minimal | Notes have ads?
Which is updated more often, Blackboard by Boogie Board or Minimal | Notes?
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