Widget Notes Home Lock Screen vs Simple Sketchbook
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Widget Notes Home Lock Screen
Create and customize widgets for your home screen to display notes and photos. Personalize backgrounds, fonts, and set reminders with repeated notifications. Enjoy unlimited widgets and dark mode support.
- Unlimited home screen widgets
- Photo and background color options
- Customizable fonts
- Notes sharing and sorting
- Repeated notification reminders
- Dark mode support
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It's a notes & photos app compatible with iOS14 home screen widgets. All features are completely free to use. - Unlimited widgets on the home screen (all sizes supported) - Background settings: photo / background color (gradation) - Font settings: color / size / weight / position - Share / copy / sort notes - Reminders (with repeated notifications) - Dark mode - Free & no additional charge URL scheme: widgetnotes://
Simple Sketchbook
A digital sketchbook for iPad and iPhone that offers a clean, fast drawing experience without distractions. Create multiple sketchbooks with various paper styles, utilize layers, and import reference images. Export your work as high-resolution PNGs, PDFs, or timelapse videos.
- Distraction-free drawing interface
- Multiple sketchbooks with custom paper styles
- Multi-layer support with opacity and blend modes
- Import reference images
- Export pages as PNG or PDF
- Generate timelapse videos of drawings
- Face ID/Touch ID sketchbook lock
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App Description Simple Sketchbook is a distraction-free sketchbook for iPad, designed around the Apple Pencil but will also work with your finger. No subscription. No social features. Just a clean, fast place to draw. Create as many sketchbooks as you like, each with its own paper style — blank, lined, grid, dotted, or a range of specialty templates. Every sketchbook fills your screen edge to edge, and the canvas stays fixed in space when you rotate your iPad, so your drawing never moves out from under your hand. There is no zoom by design on iPad (iPhone users can double-tap to zoom), just a regular sketchbook page in digital space. Layers, done simply Each page supports multiple layers with individual opacity, blend mode, and visibility controls. Bring in photos from your library or drag and drop images directly onto the canvas to use as reference or compose with your work. Reposition, scale, and rotate images freely before committing them to the page. Export your work Export any page as a high-resolution PNG — with or without the background — or export an entire sketchbook as a PDF. Generate a timelapse video of your drawing process, perfect for sharing how a piece came together. Your sketchbooks, backed up Back up any sketchbook to a single file and restore it on any of your iPads. Backups scale automatically to fit the screen, so moving from an iPad mini to an iPad Pro keeps everything looking right. Lock individual sketchbooks with Face ID or Touch ID. Simple Sketchbook is a distraction-free drawing notebook for iPad and iPhone, built for the feel of putting pencil to paper, with just enough digital magic to make every page more useful than a physical one. Draw naturally A slim, always-out-of-the-way tool strip puts your pen, sizes, opacity and colours one tap away, no picker popovers, no hunting through menus. Double-tap or squeeze your Apple Pencil to switch tools instantly, or rest two fingers on the page to pull up the full tool grid without ever putting your pencil down. Layer it up Sketch, ink, and shade on separate layers. Drop in a photo and arrange it (move, scale, rotate) right on the canvas. Add a storyboard frame template for comic panels and animatics. Blend, reorder, and merge layers exactly like a design tool, but built for a sketchbook workflow. Paper that feels right Choose plain, lined, grid, dotted, or textured paper for every notebook, whatever the page is for, to structured notes. Watch your drawing come to life Every stroke is quietly recorded as you draw. Export a timelapse video of any page, or a whole run of pages, and watch a sketch build itself from first line to finished piece. Say what you're thinking Record a voice reflection on any page, your process, your intent, what you'd change next time, and Simple Sketchbook transcribes it on-device, completely privately. Reflections play back alongside your timelapse, or export as Markdown for a portfolio or journal. Yours, and only yours Lock any notebook with Face ID or Touch ID. Back up and restore your entire sketchbook library whenever you like. Nothing leaves your device unless you choose to share it. Whether you're a student building a visual journal, an artist studying your own process, or just someone who likes to draw — Simple Sketchbook gets out of your way and lets the page do the work.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Widget Notes Home Lock Screen at Free against Simple Sketchbook's $1.99. Widget Notes Home Lock Screen also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.3) and ratings volume (115 vs 3). Simple Sketchbook's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (100% vs 71%). On in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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
Widget Notes Home Lock Screen is free to download; Simple Sketchbook costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Widget Notes Home Lock Screen holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Widget Notes Home Lock Screen has 115 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 71% of Widget Notes Home Lock Screen's written reviews are positive against 100% of Simple Sketchbook's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Widget Notes Home Lock Screen ships an update every 2 months, Simple Sketchbook every 9 days. Both last shipped on October 23, 2026.
| Parameter | Widget Notes Home Lock Screen | Simple Sketchbook |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $1.99 |
| Rating | 4.7 (115 ratings) — better | 4.3 (3 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 71.4% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 115 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | — | #50 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 53 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | FugaPiyo Inc. | Duncan Pollock |
Customer experience
Widget Notes Home Lock Screen
Simple Sketchbook
In-app purchases
Widget Notes Home Lock Screen
No in-app purchases
Simple Sketchbook
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Widget Notes Home Lock Screen free?
Is Simple Sketchbook free?
Which has better reviews, Widget Notes Home Lock Screen or Simple Sketchbook?
Do Widget Notes Home Lock Screen or Simple Sketchbook have ads?
Which is updated more often, Widget Notes Home Lock Screen or Simple Sketchbook?
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