Comparison

Nature Notes vs Prepared Scout

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Nature Notes

Record and share notes, photos, and audio from your outdoor adventures. Advanced tools allow for photo merging from other cameras and interactive map integration. Organize trips into multiple hikes and share them via email, web pages, or custom files.

Highlights
  • Record notes, photos, and audio
  • Merge photos from other cameras
  • Interactive Apple Maps integration
  • Organize trips into multiple hikes
  • Share via email, web pages, or files
  • GPS tracking and export (KML/GPX)
Read full description

NatureNotes allows you to record and share notes, photos, and audio recordings on any walk, tour, hike, or just a stroll around your neighborhood. If you are a serious photographer, advanced tools allow you to load pictures from another camera into the walk record. There are several options for sharing walks with friends or other NatureNotes users, including email, Web page creation, or sending a NatureNotes file to another user. Easy sharing: Take photos, save notes, and record audio on your Apple iPhone or iPad. The app offers powerful editing features to create a slideshow or Web folder that you can email to your friends or upload to a server. Interactive maps: Apple maps embedded in NatureNotes shows where you are at all times, as well as where you've been on your hike. Satellite view can show you the terrain with a data connection. If you repeat a hike you've taken before, you can use the interactive map to see where you are relative to your last hike. Organization: Divide your trip into multiple hikes, then put them under a single header. Combine the subsumed hikes into a single slideshow, email, or web folder for sharing. Creating multiple databases offers a system for organizing larger groups of walk records. Records can be copied directly to other databases for easy sorting and reorganization. Photo merging: Take photos with another camera and merge them directly into your NatureNotes recordings. A smart system using dates and timestamps places photos into their correct positions within previously-recorded records. Even without a recorded hike, create a new record from a set of location-encoded photographs, and see exactly where you took the photos, using the embedded Apple Maps features. If the photos contain captions from another photo-editing program, the captions will be copied into NatureNotes titles for immediate labelling within NatureNotes. All slideshow features and email or Web sharing features can then be used with the new records. Create a kml file for viewing the track in another tracking application, or a gpx file for loading a track with GPS data into photo editing applications. GPS tracking: NatureNotes provides detailed tracking data for your walks, regardless of whether you are in cellular range or not. Tracks can be exported as KML or GPX files for use in other applications. Duplication and backups: Take a complete set of records and copy them to another device, with a cable and computer, regardless of record sizes. In this way complete records can be shared or backed-up without loss of information or photographic resolution.

About

Prepared Scout

Features
Read full description

Prepared Scout is built for young people working through an outdoor programme, and for the leaders and parents helping them do it. Badge preparation, rank practice, and the record of what you have actually done, all offline. ADVANCEMENT Five stages of practice checkpoints that link straight into the guide, so a scout can go and study the skill they are stuck on. Alongside them are the three records every scout is asked for and never has to hand: service hours, nights camped, and months served in a role. Log them as you go, with eight patrol positions tracked by tenure. BADGE PREP Work through badge style requirement checklists at your own pace, with progress saved and each requirement linked to the section of the guide that helps you prepare for it. THE SKILLS GUIDE Eleven chapters written for a patrol: survival basics, first aid for your patrol and when to get an adult, camping with your group, laying out a patrol site and running a duty roster, navigation, fire and cooking, hiking, knots and lashings, water, reading weather and keeping a nature log, outdoor ethics, leading your peers, planning a service project, and scout skills with woods tools. STUDY GUIDE Flashcards and fill in the blank practice across every topic, including patrol leadership and what makes service actually count. IDENTIFY WHAT YOU FIND On device identification for plants, insects, fungi and lichen, animals, clouds, and rocks, plus offline map packs and a compass. Works fully offline. No account, no ads, no subscription. One optional purchase unlocks the full guide. Requirement text in this app is original practice material written for study and preparation. It is not any organization's official requirements, and real sign off happens with your own leader. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Scouting America, Girl Scouts of the USA, or any scouting organization.

Screenshots

Nature Notes4 screens
Prepared Scout4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Prepared Scout at every 9 days against Nature Notes's every 4 weeks. On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Nature Notes sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Prepared Scout sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Nature Notes ships an update every 4 weeks, Prepared Scout every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Nature Notes versus Prepared Scout: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNature NotesPrepared Scout
PriceFreeFree
Rating1.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 weeksEvery 9 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.617.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size172 MB153 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperKenneth WahlSEDX LLC

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Nature Notes

One-time1
  • English$4.99
1 purchases

Prepared Scout

One-time1
  • Study Tools$0.99

Questions

Is Nature Notes free?
Nature Notes is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Prepared Scout free?
Prepared Scout is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Nature Notes or Prepared Scout have ads?
Neither Nature Notes nor Prepared Scout shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Nature Notes or Prepared Scout?
Nature Notes ships an update every 4 weeks, and Prepared Scout every 9 days. Most recently, Nature Notes was updated on October 10, 2026 and Prepared Scout on October 14, 2026.

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