Comparison

iXnote vs Ink

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

Head to head
About

iXnote

This app acts as a context assistant, organizing information into interconnected cards for people, projects, and meetings. It helps you prepare for discussions by automatically linking relevant details and capturing new information as you go, all while keeping your thinking private.

Highlights
  • Interconnected card system
  • Automatic context building during conversations
  • On-device processing and iCloud sync
  • Calendar meeting import
  • Export to JSON and CSV
  • Custom categories and advanced search (Pro)
Features
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Context is all you need. Walk into every meeting with the right context already in front of you. iXnote is your Context Assistant. It gives you the right context, so you walk in ready and stay present in the room. CARDS, AND CONNECTED CARDS iXnote is built from one simple thing: the card. A card holds one thing. A person. A project. A meeting. A decision. Connect a card to the cards it relates to, and those connections become its context. Tap any card to see it in its context, the whole situation around it. FOLLOWALONG With FollowAlong, the context comes together as you talk. You never break stride to make it happen. It surfaces the cards that matter and captures the new ones, so you stay in the conversation and make the call. ON DEVICE FollowAlong runs entirely on your device, powered by the latest open-source AI models. Nothing you say is ever uploaded, and your cards stay in your own iCloud. It works on any iPhone, iPad, or Mac that supports Apple Intelligence. THE THINKING STAYS YOURS iXnote gives you the context. The thinking stays yours: the conclusions, the insight, the call in the room. SIMPLE BY DESIGN Just cards, and the connections between them. Simple enough to use in the middle of a meeting, ready to hold thousands of connected cards. ONE TAP FROM YOUR CALENDAR Import your meetings with one tap. iXnote makes connected cards for the people, the companies and the meeting itself, so the room is mapped before you arrive. AUTOMATE THE BORING PART Twelve Shortcuts actions put your cards within reach of everything else on your device. Make cards, connect them, find them, open one, or read back a day's transcript. Every card also has an appendix, text that stays out of the way but stays searchable, so your automations have somewhere to write. FREE - Unlimited cards and connections - Full-text search - iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad and Mac - Meeting import from your calendar - Export to JSON and CSV - Shortcuts and the Share Extension iXnote PRO - Custom categories with your own colors - Advanced search filters - Import from Obsidian, mind maps, and OPML outlines - Transcript export iXnote: the right context for the moment you're in. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeveula/

About

Ink

Transform spoken words into organized notes and lists with AI-powered transcription and editing. Features include collaborative sharing, customizable shelving, and multiple daily planning views. Print beautifully formatted documents and track your productivity habits.

Highlights
  • Voice-to-text transcription
  • AI-powered editing
  • Collaborative list sharing
  • Customizable shelves for organization
  • Multiple daily planning views
  • Printable notes and lists
  • Productivity statistics tracking
Features
Read full description

Ink turns your voice into finished notes and lists. No re-typing, no cleanup. Tap the microphone, speak naturally, and watch your words land as a clean list, a note, or a tidy paragraph. Ink shapes the transcript while you watch, so you see the result before it's saved. WHAT'S INCLUDED, WHAT'S PRO Notes, to-dos, reminders, repeats, links, shelves, Markdown export, and iCloud sync are free, no account required. Pro adds dictation with AI formatting, file import, your own templates, version history, a focus timer, ledger mode, the richer copy formats, shared lists, Today layouts you can arrange, font packs, accent colors, and paper tones. Your 14 days of Pro don't begin when you install. They begin the first time you open something Pro, so the two weeks are two weeks you spend. EARLIER VERSIONS OF EVERY PAGE Ink keeps a version of a page as you leave it. Read last week's draft beside today's, lift a paragraph back out, or bring the whole thing back as a new page, which leaves everything you have written since where it is. Stored on your device, the newest 50 per page. THE INDEX AT THE BACK OF THE NOTEBOOK Every unfinished checkbox scattered through your notes, gathered on one page. Every passage you marked, on another. Check something off and it leaves the index on its own. Nothing to file, nothing to keep tidy. TEMPLATES FOR THE THINGS YOU DO AGAIN Turn a list you already keep into one you can run again. Ink clears last time's checkmarks and amounts, then asks for a name and a date, so "book transport seven days before" lands on the right day this time. PULL THE WORDS OUT OF A FILE Send a PDF, a document, or a photo of a page to Ink, or tap + and choose Import, and it reads the words into a note. Ink keeps the words, not the file. Scans and photos are read on your device, so nothing is sent anywhere. ON YOUR WRIST Ink on Apple Watch shows what's due and lets you check it off without reaching for your phone. Put the next thing on your watch face and it's there at a glance. ASK SIRI, WITHOUT OPENING THE APP Say "Add an item to Ink" or "Show my Ink today" and it happens. Every action works in Shortcuts and on the Action Button, and your notes turn up in Spotlight. DATES YOU CAN JUST TYPE Write "Dentist Friday 4pm" or "rent next week" and Ink reads the date and leaves the title clean. A chip shows what it heard, so you can wave it off and keep your exact words. DESIGNED LIKE A BOOK, NOT AN APP Ink draws from print: warm cream paper, ink-dark serif type, the editorial details of well-made books. Four Today layouts to open to, from a newsprint spread to a magazine front page. WRITE IT THE WAY YOU MEAN IT Bold, italic, strikethrough, underline. Section headers. Checklists inside a note, tap a line to check it off. REMINDERS, ONLY IF YOU ASK One quiet notification on the day something is due, at the time you choose. Off by default. Set an item to repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly and it comes back on its own. A TIMER FOR SITTING DOWN TO WORK Set 15, 25, 45, or 60 minutes and Ink keeps a quiet countdown, then sounds a soft chime you choose. SHARE A LIST, KEEP IT IN SYNC Invite another Ink user by email. Check off, add, reorder, even dictate, and both copies stay in sync. A quiet byline shows who added each item. LISTS THAT KEEP A LEDGER Flip a list into Ledger mode and it keeps score. Type signed amounts (+$25, -$10, +200) and Ink totals each section, then the whole list. BRING IT WITH YOU, OR TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE • Import PDFs, HTML, rich text, Markdown, plain text, and photos of a page • Copy any note or list as Markdown, or as plain text, HTML, or rich text with Pro • One-tap JSON backup and one-tap restore • iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac • Universal purchase, buy once, use everywhere Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://basicapps.tech/privacy

Screenshots

iXnote3 screens
Ink4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Ink at every 4 days against iXnote's every 11 days. Ink also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads 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. iXnote sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Ink sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for iXnote against 5.0 for Ink. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iXnote ships an update every 11 days, Ink every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
iXnote versus Ink: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriXnoteInk
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings12 — better
Update frequencyEvery 11 daysEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS26.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size83 MB55 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerixnote, LLCSean Trapani

Customer experience

iXnote

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Ink

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

iXnote

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Monthly$3.991 Month
  • Pro Yearly$39.991 Year
2 purchases

Ink

Subscriptions2
  • Ink Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Ink Annual$49.991 Year

Questions

Is iXnote free?
iXnote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Ink free?
Ink is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, iXnote or Ink?
iXnote and Ink are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 2 ratings respectively.
Do iXnote or Ink have ads?
Neither iXnote nor Ink shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iXnote or Ink?
iXnote ships an update every 11 days, and Ink every 4 days. Most recently, iXnote was updated on October 6, 2026 and Ink on October 20, 2026.

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