ForNote vs Libreto
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
ForNote
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The notebook that turns Apple Pencil strokes into searchable, organized handwritten notes. ForNote is a native iPad and iPhone notes app for handwriting, sketching, and annotating PDFs. Draw with Apple Pencil, organize notebooks in nested folders, drop a photo or PDF as a page background, and find any handwritten word from Spotlight. HAND-DRAWN PAGES ⢠Draw with Apple Pencil on iPad, or with your finger on iPhone ⢠Pen, marker, eraser, and lasso with a full color picker ⢠Native page-curl animation between pages ⢠Pinch to zoom up to 5à ⢠Floating tool palette you can drag anywhere on screen FOLDERS & ORGANIZATION ⢠Nest folders inside folders ā Files-style hierarchy ⢠Drag and drop notebooks and folders between locations ⢠Spring-load on the back arrow to navigate while dragging ⢠Select multiple items at once ⢠Bulk export, move, or delete in a single action PAGE BACKGROUNDS ⢠Drop a photo as a background and annotate over it ⢠Import a PDF ā every page becomes a notebook page you can write on ⢠Scan a document with the camera and turn it into pages instantly ⢠Annotate every imported page with Apple Pencil SPOTLIGHT SEARCH ⢠Vision OCR runs in the background on every page you draw on ⢠Search for any handwritten word from Spotlight on your device ⢠Tap a result to jump straight to the exact page ⢠Turkish and English recognition out of the box STATISTICS ⢠Track your writing streak across notebooks, pages, and folders ⢠Library overview with item counts ⢠Content breakdown of OCR-indexed and image-backed pages ⢠Everything stays on-device LIQUID GLASS DESIGN Every card, sheet, and toolbar uses iOS 26's stunning Liquid Glass material. The whole app is built with native SwiftUI ā no custom chrome, just the system you already know from Notes, Files, and Reminders. FORNOTE PLUS ā TRY FREE ⢠Unlimited notebooks ⢠Unlimited PDF imports ⢠Photos, PDF, and document scanner page backgrounds inside the editor ⢠Detailed writing statistics Start a free trial today. Cancel anytime. Built for students, researchers, planners, and anyone who thinks better with a pen. Available in 3 languages: English, Turkish, and Simplified Chinese. āāāāāāāāāāāāāāā Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://cagandurgun.com/fornoteprivacy
Libreto
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Libreto is a full drawing studio, digital notebook, planner, and PDF editor for iPad, and a streamlined PDF editor and notes app for iPhone. Private by design, with on-device AI included, and one fair price. LIBRETO INTELLIGENCE, ON YOUR DEVICE Ask questions about any PDF or notebook and get answers with tappable page citations. Summarize a document, a page range, or a selection. Get plain-language explanations of anything you highlight. Turn any document into flashcards and quizzes with spaced-repetition review. Record a lecture, then transcribe and summarize it on-device, tap any line to jump the audio and your handwriting to that moment. Search inside every PDF, note, and transcript in your library, even when you don't remember the exact words. All of it runs with Apple Intelligence, right on your device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is metered, no AI credits to buy. DRAW & SKETCH (iPad) A full drawing canvas with pressure brushes, layers, blend modes, and a saved color palette. Real symmetry: vertical, horizontal, both axes, or radial. Smudge actual pixels at full resolution. Pro adjustments and filters: hue, curves, gradient map, blurs, halftone, chromatic aberration, and more. Selection and lasso, cut/copy/paste, text, import photos, flip the canvas, export as PNG or PDF. Apple Pencil Pro: squeeze to open your brushes, double-tap to swap brush and eraser. NOTEBOOKS FOR APPLE PENCIL (iPad) Paper styles: lined, dot grid, grid, graph, Cornell, and to-do, or import any photo as your own paper. Choose your page size and orientation. Search your handwriting and convert it to text on-device, in English and Spanish. Write large in the Zoom Writing window and let the ink land small and neat on the page. Add stickers, washi tape, photos, and AI art with Image Playground. On iPhone, take plain handwritten or finger-written notes; iPhone does not support Apple Pencil. TEXT DOCUMENTS Prefer to type? Start a Text Document with markdown, headings, and checklists you can tick right in the preview, alongside your PDFs and notebooks. STUDY SPLIT (iPad) Read a PDF on one side, take notes on the other. Send selected text or a clipped page into your notes, with a link back to the source page. PLANNERS, YOUR WAY (iPad) Six planners, each with its own clean, roomy layout: Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Scheduling, Personal, and Pro. Real calendar dates with tappable months. Every planner opens with a tappable table of contents. Grow any planner with extra pages: habits, goals, schedules, dashboards, and journals. Portrait or landscape, Warm or Dark theme, charcoal and gold, or cream and espresso. DESIGN YOUR COVER (iPad) Elegant cover designs, Leather, Minimal, Botanical, Midnight, Floral, Marble, Geometric, and a live animated Aurora. Recolor any cover, import your own photo, or generate cover art with Image Playground. PDF TOOLS (iPad and iPhone) Read and mark up PDFs with highlights and ink, right alongside your notes. Make scans searchable with on-device OCR. Clean up a photographed page with Scan Enhance. Redact sensitive content for real: the hidden text is destroyed, not just covered, with find-and-redact across a whole document at once. Export as PDF, image, plain text, Word (RTF), or Markdown. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No ads. No tracking. No third-party AI. Your work, and everything Libreto Intelligence reads, stays on your devices, with optional private iCloud sync. MEMBERSHIP Unlock every premium feature, drawing tools, planners, designs, and Libreto Intelligence, for $19.99/year with a 3-day free trial, or $2.99/month. Prefer not to subscribe? Buy Libreto once for $59.99 and keep every feature, including future updates, forever. Terms of Use (Apple standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Libreto at every 6 days against ForNote's every 11 months. Libreto also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. ForNote sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and Libreto sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
ForNote ships an update every 11 months, Libreto every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on July 31, 2026 and September 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ForNote | Libreto |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 11 months | Every 6 days ā better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 17.0 ā better |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | CAGAN DURGUN | JC Mobile App Studio LLC |
In-app purchases
ForNote
- Monthly$0.991 Month
- Yearly$9.991 Year
Libreto
- Libreto Premium (Monthly)$0.991 Month
- Libreto Premium (Annual)3 Days trial$7.991 Year





