Comparison

Piano vs Touch Notation

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

Head to head
About

Piano

This virtual piano app offers a full 88-key experience with recording capabilities for both piano play and voice. It features intuitive keyboard switching and a dual keyboard display, making it versatile for entertainment, training, and sharing musical creations.

Highlights
  • 88-key virtual piano
  • Record piano and voice
  • Intuitive keyboard switching
  • Dual keyboard display
  • Share soundtracks and sheet music
Features
Read full description

This is a full 88-key virtual piano designed for ease of use and versatility. **Discover a fun and easy way to play piano while building real skills.** This app is designed for users who want more than just a virtual keyboard. You can enjoy playing piano anytime, and also improve step by step through **87 training levels** created to help develop your music skills in a simple and engaging way. Whether you are a beginner starting your first notes or someone who wants to strengthen rhythm, accuracy, and finger control, this app gives you a smooth path to practice and progress. **Features:** * Play piano directly on your device * Train your skills with **80+ guided levels** * Improve note recognition, timing, rhythm, and coordination * Practice in a fun and interactive way * Suitable for beginners and growing learners * Learn at your own pace, anytime and anywhere Each training level is designed to help you build confidence little by little, so learning feels rewarding instead of overwhelming. You can enjoy the fun of playing songs while also sharpening the core skills needed for better piano performance. Turn practice into progress and make piano learning more enjoyable every day.

About

Touch Notation

Create musical scores with intuitive touch gestures. Draw notes, add expressions, and play back your compositions with 30 instrument voices. Export your work in various formats.

Highlights
  • Handwritten notation input
  • 30 built-in instrument voices
  • Tempo and dynamics control
  • Page layout functions
  • Transpose feature
  • Multiple export formats (PDF, SMF, MusicXML)
Read full description

Touch Notation is a powerful musical score creation app that allows anyone to enjoy writing music using touch gestures. In Japan, Touch Notation was selected as one of the ‘App Store Best of 2014’ apps, and held the No.1 spot in the iPad Paid App index for music apps for over two weeks. Up until now, musical score creation software has relied upon dragging individual notes from a palette onto staves. By contrast, Touch Notation allows musicians to draw directly onto the score using a finger or touch pen, and have their work immediately appear as beautifully written notation, then played back using the app’s 30 built-in instrument voices. - A wide-range of functions accessible from a cleanly designed, intuitive user interface. - Ability to enter musical expressions for adjusting tempo and dynamics. - Layout functions such as page breaks. - Convenient transpose feature for raising/lowering the pitch of the entire score. - Output scores using Air Print, or save to Dropbox in PDF, SMF, MusicXML, and ScoreMaker formats. Touch Notation allows the following musical symbols to be entered by hand: - Note, Rest (including dotted and double-dotted), Long Rest, Beam, Tuplet (Triplet) - Grace Note - Accidental, Tie, Slur - Accent, Staccato, Tenuto, Fermata - Trill, sfz, Arpeggio, Pedal, Senza - Metronome symbol - Crescendo, Decrescendo - Dynamics symbols (ppp~fff) - Octave symbol - Repeat brackets - Repeat marks (D.C./Fine/D.S./Segno/Coda/to Coda) - Clefs (Treble Clef/Bass Clef/C Clef/Percussion Clef) - Key signature - Time signature - Bar lines (repeat marks) - Abbreviation Lyrics and other musical expressions (‘Dolce’, ‘Tranquillo’, etc.) can be added using text input, while comments and memos can also be written freehand directly onto the score. * Drum notation is supported, but other types such as rhythm notation and tab notation are not supported. * Older devices may experience stuttering when playing complicated scores with many simultaneous notes.

Screenshots

Piano2 screens
Touch Notation4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Piano at Free against Touch Notation's $9.99. Piano also leads on rating (5.0 vs 2.9). Touch Notation's advantage is review sentiment (44% vs 9%) and update cadence (every 3 months vs every 12 months). On 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

Piano is free to download; Touch Notation costs $9.99 up front. Piano sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Touch Notation sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Piano holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Touch Notation has 21 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 9% of Piano's written reviews are positive against 44% of Touch Notation's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Piano ships an update every 12 months, Touch Notation every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Piano versus Touch Notation: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPianoTouch Notation
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better2.9 (21 ratings)
Positive reviews8.8% of reviews44.4% of reviews — better
Number of ratings121 — better
Update frequencyEvery 12 monthsEvery 3 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.011.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB112 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAlteru Inc.Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

Customer experience

Piano

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews57 reviews
Positive8.8%
Neutral5.3%
Negative86.0%

Touch Notation

All ratings21 ratings
Positive38.1%
Neutral19.0%
Negative42.9%
Written reviews90 reviews
Positive44.4%
Neutral25.6%
Negative30.0%

Bugs and requests

Piano

Reported bugs

24 issues
  • Record feature overlaps with microphone
  • App crashes when trying to record
  • Recorder doesn't work
  • Screen stick/arrow doesn't work
  • Keys are too small
Show 19 more
  • Cannot amplify keys
  • No settings or options available
  • Keyboard is too small to use effectively
  • App stopped working, no longer makes noise
  • App is slow
  • Piano sound does not come out of headphones
  • Cannot hear what you are playing
  • Double keyboards are oriented incorrectly
  • Keys not working properly
  • Recording is impossible and crashes the application
  • Cannot confirm if recording was successful
  • Buttons freeze
  • Older version worked better than the current one
  • Music sheet file will not open on PC or iPhone
  • Recorded tune sounds like a succession of similar short notes
  • App causes phone to freeze
  • Generated sheet music is restricted to whole notes and does not account for rhythm
  • Playback does not work properly on iPhone
  • Playback not working on iPod Touch

Requested features

9 requests
  • Instructions needed
  • Sound stops when finger leaves screen
  • Option to choose number of keys displayed
  • Option to choose sound
  • Information symbols for how everything works
Show 4 more
  • Make keys bigger
  • Improve double keyboard orientation
  • Clearer boundary between upper and lower keyboards
  • Move left/right keyboard navigation buttons higher

Touch Notation

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Piano

One-time1
  • Piano Ads Free$1.99
10 purchases

Touch Notation

One-time10
  • Sound Set: Piano$0.49
  • Sound Set: Guitar/Bass 1$0.49
  • Sound Set: Strings$0.49
Show 7 more
  • Sound Set: Brass/Woodwind$0.49
  • Sound Set: Bell/Mallet$0.49
  • Sound Set: Vocal/Others$0.49
  • Core MIDI Output$1.99
  • Handwritten Font$1.99
  • Sound Set: Full$2.99
  • Chord Name & Automatic Accompaniment$3.99

Questions

Is Piano free?
Piano is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Touch Notation free?
Touch Notation costs $9.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Piano or Touch Notation?
Piano is rated higher. Piano averages 5.0 out of 5 from 1 ratings, while Touch Notation averages 2.9 from 21 ratings.
Do Piano or Touch Notation have ads?
Neither Piano nor Touch Notation shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Piano or Touch Notation?
Piano ships an update every 12 months, and Touch Notation every 3 months. Most recently, Piano was updated on October 24, 2026 and Touch Notation on November 1, 2026.

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