Comparison

Notewise vs Arity One

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

Head to head
About

Notewise

This app offers a versatile digital canvas for note-taking, PDF annotation, and sketching. It leverages AI to summarize content, generate quizzes, and transcribe audio. Designed for students, professionals, and creators, it provides tools for organization, collaboration, and enhanced productivity.

Highlights
  • AI-powered note summarization and quizzing
  • Handwritten notes and PDF annotation
  • Audio recording with synced transcripts
  • OCR for searchable handwriting
  • Real-time collaboration
  • Infinite freeform canvas
Features
Read full description

Featured on the App Store. 8M+ downloads. Trusted by millions worldwide. Your meetings, lectures, ideas, and research don’t arrive in one format. Your notes shouldn’t have to either. Notewise brings together what you write, record, draw, read, and save. Capture it once, then find it again, ask about it, learn from it, and build on it. Notewise is an AI note-taking app for iPhone and iPad with handwritten notes, audio recording and transcription, PDF annotation, documents, web sources, and AI search and chat. ■ CAPTURE EVERYTHING IN ONE NOTE • Write, type, or handwrite notes • Sketch ideas and diagrams on a freeform canvas • Record meetings, lectures, conversations, and voice notes • Import 25+ file formats, including PDFs, documents, slides, images, and more • Add website links and bring web research into your notes • Scan paper notes and whiteboards Start with whatever is in front of you. Add things in any order, and keep related notes, recordings, files, and ideas together as you go. ■ SEARCH & ASK ACROSS YOUR NOTES Search handwritten notes, typed text, audio transcripts, PDFs, documents, and images. Ask Notewise AI about the note you’re in or across all your notes. Search the web when you need more context. Answers can cite the notes, recordings, files, and sources behind them, so you can always see where the information came from. Search less. Pick up where you left off and keep thinking. ■ RECORD, TRANSCRIBE & ASK IN REAL TIME Stay focused on the meeting, lecture, or conversation instead of trying to write down every word. • Automatic transcription in 20+ languages • Key points, decisions, and next steps • Ask questions while a meeting or lecture is still happening • Ask across past recordings later • Keep audio, meeting notes, PDFs, and related documents together Meeting notes become more than transcripts. Class notes stay useful long after the lecture ends. ■ WRITE, DRAW & ANNOTATE FREELY Handwrite a page. Draw a diagram. Work through a problem. Mark up a PDF. Move things around until the idea makes sense. Choose from 30+ brushes and tools — including pencil, oil paint, watercolor, highlighter, lasso, tape, shapes, tables, rulers, sticky notes, and more. Start from 20+ templates or create your own, from Cornell notes to meeting notes and custom workflows. ■ TURN NOTES INTO FLASHCARDS, QUIZZES & PODCASTS Good notes don’t all look the same. Turn study notes, meeting notes, or research into AI notes, summaries, flashcards, quizzes, podcasts, and more — using the same material in the format that helps you most. Summarize a recording. Ask questions about a PDF. Search handwritten notes. Find connections across different notes. Sometimes you want AI. Sometimes you just want a blank page. Notewise gives you both. ■ FOR WORK, STUDY & RESEARCH Use Notewise for meeting notes, lecture recording, handwritten and digital notes, voice notes, PDF annotation, research papers, brainstorming, and search across everything you save. On iOS 27, use Siri AI to create, edit, and find information in your notes, or Visual Intelligence to surface related content from what you see. Whether you’re building a company, studying for an exam, researching your next idea, or simply trying to remember what matters, Notewise gives your thinking one place to grow. ■ PRIVACY FIRST Notewise is built by a small, independent team. We don’t sell your data or show ads. Your notes are encrypted, secure, and under your control. ■ TRY NOTEWISE FREE Start with 10 free canvas notes and import your own slides and documents. Explore Notewise with a 7-day free trial, while core features remain free to use. Write. Record. Draw. Remember. Privacy Policy: https://www.notewise.dev/privacy-policy Terms & Conditions: https://www.notewise.dev/terms-conditions

About

Arity One

Features
Read full description

Arity opens and you draw. No account, no manual, no setup screen. Pick a diagram type and sketch the way you would on paper. Each type already knows its own notation, so you never have to remember which shape means what or which arrow is allowed where. Arity handles that. You handle the thinking. FIVE DIAGRAM TYPES • Freestyle: a blank canvas, no rules. • Flow chart: Terminal, Process, Decision, I/O, Connector. Break a rule and it says so: only Decision and Connector may branch. • Class diagram: class, abstract, interface; fields and methods; association, aggregation, composition, inheritance, implementation, with multiplicities. Checked against OOP: missing abstract methods, inheritance cycles, interfaces used wrongly. • ER: both crow's foot and Chen, one button apart. • Mind map - official style: one central idea, organic tapering branches, one keyword each, colour inherited down the branch. The diagram argues back when the thinking is wrong. That is the difference between a drawing tool and a thinking tool. APPLE PENCIL Strokes follow your pressure, smooth down to every sampled point. Rest your whole palm on the glass and keep drawing. Two fingers pan and zoom; a second finger undoes whatever the first one just started, so you never nudge a shape by accident. Press and hold stands in for a right click. No Pencil? A finger draws just as well - and Settings lets you decide whether a finger should draw or move the canvas. ONE PROJECT, ONE FILE A whole project lives in a single document with its own folders inside it. It sits in Files under On My iPad › Arity, so backing it up, sending it on, or opening it from iCloud Drive works like any other document. Every change saves itself after a second or so, when you switch diagrams, and when the app goes to the background - written to a temporary file and renamed, so a half-written project is not a thing that can happen. PRESENT ON AN EXTERNAL DISPLAY Plug in a screen and the Present button appears. The external display shows only the diagram while your iPad keeps its toolbar and panels. Not mirroring. ALSO • Arrows bind to shapes and follow them as they move or resize. • Combine shapes with union, intersect, subtract and exclude. • Export PNG from 1x to 4x, transparent or on a colour you choose. • Library: save a selection as an asset and drag it back out later. • Notes, images, groups, undo/redo, minimap. • The entire app is under 5 MB.

Screenshots

Notewise4 screens
Arity One4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Arity One at 16.0 against Notewise's 26.0. 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. Notewise sells 16 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Arity One sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Notewise versus Arity One: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNotewiseArity One
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (283 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews53.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings283 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size431 MB21 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperZIIKRKiet Nguyen Tuan

Bugs and requests

Notewise

Reported bugs

18 issues
  • App crashes on every update
  • Handwritten content randomly disappears
  • Annotations vanishing intermittently
  • Lasso selection tool malfunctions
  • Text input fields not responding
Show 13 more
  • App freezes when highlighting large areas with markers
  • Handwriting input not registering
  • Palm rejection issues causing unwanted marks
  • Shape recognition failures
  • Scribble-to-erase function unreliable
  • PDF export causing app crashes
  • Notes auto-deleting or getting corrupted
  • Sync getting stuck mid-process
  • Slow and delayed cross-device synchronization
  • UI elements obscuring page content after 20+ minutes of use
  • Copy-paste functionality limited and unreliable
  • App performance degradation over time
  • Glitchy behavior with shape drawing mode

Requested features

20 requests
  • Add layers feature for advanced editing
  • Implement automatic zoom box that follows writing
  • Add pencil, waterbrush, and crayon drawing tools
  • Sticker marketplace or sticker customization
  • Horizontal page flipping/swiping navigation
Show 15 more
  • Ability to pause real-time syncing
  • MacBook native app with full feature parity
  • More shape customization (arcs for graphing)
  • Improved text formatting and customization options
  • Single page view mode (vertical and horizontal)
  • Notebook organization beyond just pages
  • Magnifying glass tool like GoodNotes
  • More pen and pencil style options
  • Line spacing customization for text
  • PDF import from web/internet
  • Printing functionality
  • Audio recording and sharing capabilities
  • Hyperlink support on desktop version
  • Scroll locking to prevent accidental page movement
  • Better shape recognition (arrows, parentheses)

Arity One

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

16 purchases

Notewise

Subscriptions6
  • Notewise Cloud Basic Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Notewise Cloud Starter Monthly$6.991 Month
  • Notewise Cloud Pro Monthly$15.991 Month
Show 3 more
  • Notewise Cloud Basic Yearly$28.991 Year
  • Notewise Cloud Starter Yearly7 Days trial$36.991 Year
  • Notewise Cloud Pro Yearly7 Days trial$129.991 Year
One-time10
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$1.99
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$2.99
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$3.99
Show 7 more
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$4.99
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$5.99
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$6.99
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$7.99
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$8.99
  • Notewise Marketplace Content$9.99
  • Notewise Unlimited$19.99
1 purchases

Arity One

One-time1
  • Arity One Lifetime$29.99

Questions

Is Notewise free?
Notewise is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Arity One free?
Arity One is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Notewise or Arity One have ads?
Neither Notewise nor Arity One shows ads.

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