ForNote vs PDF
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
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Scan, edit, sign and OCR PDFs on your iPhone. Your files never leave the device. PDF-PRO is a private, offline PDF editor and scanner for contracts, invoices, receipts and everyday documents. Read, scan and annotate for free. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited merge, split, compress, OCR, signatures, watermarks and password protection ā the yearly plan includes a 3-day free trial. WHY PEOPLE SWITCH ⢠Sign a contract without printing it ⢠Scan paper and photos into a clean PDF ⢠Merge, split or reorder pages before you send ⢠Compress a large file so it fits in email or chat ⢠Extract text with on-device OCR ⢠Lock a PDF with a password, or add a watermark READ & ANNOTATE ⢠Smooth reader with continuous scroll, pinch-to-zoom and single-page mode ⢠Highlight, underline, strikeout, freehand ink and text notes ⢠Search inside the document and jump to a page SCAN & CONVERT ⢠Camera scan for paper documents, invoices and receipts ⢠Photos to A4 PDF, or export pages as images ORGANIZE ⢠Merge PDFs, split by page range, drag to reorder, rotate or delete pages ⢠Folders, favorites and search in your on-device library OCR ⢠Recognize text on the current page or the whole file ⢠Copy or share the result ā processed on your iPhone, not a server SIGN & PROTECT ⢠Handwritten signature stamp you can place and resize ⢠PDF password and a diagonal copyright watermark PRIVACY Every merge, split, compress, OCR and encrypt step runs locally. No account. No cloud upload. FREE vs PRO Free: read, scan and basic annotation. Pro: unlimited signature, OCR, compress, password, watermark, merge and split. ⢠Yearly ā best value, 3-day free trial ⢠Monthly ā month to month ⢠Lifetime ā pay once Subscriptions renew unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends. Manage in Apple ID settings. Terms of Service (Apple EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: PDF at every 3 weeks against ForNote's every 11 months. PDF 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 PDF sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
ForNote ships an update every 11 months, PDF every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ForNote | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 11 months | Every 3 weeks 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 | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | CAGAN DURGUN | ē±å å |
In-app purchases
ForNote
- Monthly$0.991 Month
- Yearly$9.991 Year
- PDF-PRO Monthly$3.991 Month
- PDF-PRO Yearly (3-Day Trial)3 Days trial$24.991 Year
- PDF-PRO Lifetime Pass$59.99









