AI Notes vs Marginalias
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
AI Notes
Read full descriptionHide full description
AI Notes: Smart Writing helps you capture ideas, edit notes, and use intelligent tools to work faster and more effectively. Write naturally, organize your content, and access helpful AI features directly inside your notes. Clean Note Editing Create and edit notes in a simple, focused workspace designed for clarity and productivity. Built-in AI Tools Access smart tools while writing: - Chat โ ask questions and get instant help - Quiz โ review content with practice questions - Translate โ understand text across languages - AI Summary โ turn long notes into short highlights Import Content Easily Bring information into your notes using: - Speech - OCR - PDF - Image Stay Organized Keep your notes structured and easy to manage so you can find important information quickly. One Workspace for Everything From writing and reviewing to translating and summarizing, AI Notes: Smart Writing brings everything together in one smooth experience. AI Notes: Smart Writing is designed to help you stay organized, save time, and make better use of your ideas.
Marginalias
Read full descriptionHide full description
Keep the quotation with its source. Marginalias is a private reading desk for text-based PDFs, plain text and Markdown, with exact evidence clips, local search and optional on-device AI. NEW IN 4.0 โข Search extracted document text across your library and open a matching passage with its source reference. โข Save a portable document backup and preview it before adding restored documents as new copies. โข Create a paginated PDF evidence dossier containing visible clips, notes, source references and local source-check results. โข A clearer reading desk, roomier iPad utility screens, improved contrast and explicitly labeled sample material. READ AND FIND Import your own files or paste text. Filter document titles or search a phrase across extracted text. Full-text search ignores case and accents and shows up to three passages per document and 100 results. Sources that cannot be read are reported separately. Search and reading do not require Apple Intelligence. BUILD AN EVIDENCE BOARD Open a document and choose Clip evidence. Enter an exact, case-sensitive passage of at least three characters, choose an occurrence, then add a topic and note. Collect quotations across documents, verify them against the local text, and share the visible board as Markdown or a PDF dossier. Up to 32 occurrences, 256 saved clips and 1 MiB of board data. Deleting a source document keeps its clips until you remove them separately. A source hash identifies a local text version. A matching quote and hash do not prove truth, authorship, publication history or reuse rights. Dossiers include local source status and do not embed the original documents. BACK UP DOCUMENTS Save extracted text, PDF page references, document details and saved summaries or extracts in readable JSON. Restore validates the file and adds new copies without replacing existing documents. Repeated imports create additional copies. Limits: 1,000 documents, 5,000 saved outputs, 16 million text characters and 64 MiB per backup. Document backups exclude original PDFs, images and layout, Evidence Board clips and temporary Ask conversations. Keep original files separately and export evidence from Evidence Board. ON-DEVICE AI WHEN AVAILABLE Generate summaries, ask questions using retrieved excerpts, and extract key points, action items, outlines or glossary terms. Review supporting excerpts and source positions, then copy or share output. AI can make mistakes and may use only part of a document; verify important conclusions against the source. A supported device, language and available Apple Intelligence model are required. The app explains unavailable AI without preventing reading, search, clipping or backup. YOUR WORK, YOUR DESTINATIONS One purchase, no subscription or separate in-app purchase. No account, developer analytics or advertising SDKs. Marginalias does not upload documents or AI output to a developer server. Exports and shared files go where you choose; device backups and Files providers may copy data to cloud storage. Backups are readable, not encrypted by the app. Designed for iPhone and iPad, with light, dark and system appearance. Imported PDFs must contain extractable text; original page graphics and layout are not retained.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: AI Notes at Free against Marginalias's $3.99. AI Notes also leads on iOS requirement (16.0 vs 26.0). Marginalias's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On update cadence, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
AI Notes is free to download; Marginalias costs $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
AI Notes ships an update monthly, Marginalias every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | AI Notes | Marginalias |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free โ better | $3.99 |
| Update frequency | Monthly โ better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | Yes | No โ better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 โ better | 26.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 57 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Thu Bui Thi Minh | Robert Corbin |
In-app purchases
AI Notes
No in-app purchases
Marginalias
No in-app purchases









