Calligraphy Handbook vs Heada
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Calligraphy Handbook
This app is a digital tool for learning and practicing calligraphy. It offers various pens, colors, and effects for both beginners and experienced artists. Users can also challenge friends or test their skills with a calligraphy game.
- Digital pens and papers for learning
- Unique pen and color effects
- Calligraphy game for skill evaluation
- 11 calligraphic pens and 1 pointed pen
- 19 calligraphic hands in various styles
- Layer management for artistic creation
- Export creations to camera roll or email
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It's proven that practicing calligraphy can quickly improve bad handwriting by a better understanding of letters' structure and proportion. Writing bigger letters helps to make curves and lines correctly. The beauty of the letters will make the task of writing more pleasant. Calligraphy is also a very constructive leisure. It develops virtues such as patience, attention to detail, perfection, willingness to learn, and the sense of beauty. Calligraphy is a full art form using letters, words and illuminations. It’s also a meditation process when your mind focuses on the strokes, beautifully draw lines and curves, following your intuition and inspiration. The only pre-requirement to this art is the knowledge of writing, which everyone is proficient. Calligraphy has a high potential of discoveries, it’s one of the rare art form that you can start from a basis you already know: writing letters and words. 1/ CALLIGRAPHY HANDBOOK is a perfect tool for learning and improving your calligraphy skill. As a beginner, the app will provide the best digital pens and papers for your learning. Don’t waste paper and ink now, digital tools are endlessly renewable. As a confirmed calligrapher, you will find pen and color effects that are impossible to create in real life: 6 small parallel lines, 4 size-lines, light effect pen, shaded line, rainbow effect, mixed colors in one stroke, alternated colors in one letter… 2/ CHALLENGE your friends in different writing styles, or simply evaluate your skill with the incredible calligraphy game. Reproduce a model inside a limited space, with a limited number of strokes, and see how many stars you can gain. Avoid actions as: undo, exceeding strokes or using tracing image. Otherwise your score will be heavily cut down. 3/ WRITING TOOLS: - 11 calligraphic pens - 1 pointed pen - 12 mixed colors effects - 12 alternated colors effects - 1 eraser - Smoothed strokes for all pens, let you draw perfect curves and lines. NOTE: we have intentionally made the strokes slower and smoother, because drawing beautiful letters has to be done in a slower speed compared to handwriting or painting. Calligraphy is a highly relaxing activity, a slow motion is the best for it. Writing features and supplies: - 19 calligraphic hands in a large choice of styles (more hands are coming with future updates) - Old papers - Guiding lines - Shadowed letters for tracing - 24 preset pen angles - 63 premixed colors - Export your writing to the camera roll or by email. - Palm rejection - Pen offset 4 / ARTISTIC CREATION. Calligraphy Handbook is a truly comprehensive tool for creating calligraphic works (greeting card, invitation, letterhead, logo, brochure, magazine cover, etc ... - Users can create true works of art with all the calligraphic tools. - An entire page is provided with layers management. - A gallery to save works in progress. - The gallery is organized by blocks, each block contains an unlimited number of pages. - The works and the blocks can be exported and shared in png or pdf formats. - Shadows and texture can be added to your lettering. 5/ TIPS: - Draw your letters very very SLOWLY. - Take a long breathe before a long stroke, then expire slowly and regularly while drawing. - Take a comfortable sitting position. - Clean up your screen frequently. - When following the lessons in this app, don’t pressure yourself to immediately draw perfect letters, but simply follow your intuition and focus on the movement of the strokes. It’s not so important to get completely correct letters, don’t forget, it’s not typography. - Relax yourself before starting a calligraphy session, you will have better strokes. Stretch and simply shake your hands and shoulders. Take a comfortable sitting position.
Heada
Find the direction and distance to any address. Share this information instantly with your iMessage contacts. Navigate with ease and keep friends updated on your location.
- Direction to address
- Distance to address
- Share via iMessage
- Location sharing
- Intuitive interface
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See the direction and distance to an address. Send the direction and distance to your iMessage contacts.
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Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Heada at none against Calligraphy Handbook's 1. Heada also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 70%) and update cadence (every 9 days vs every 4 months). Calligraphy Handbook's advantage is iOS requirement (9.0 vs 18.6). On price, ads 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
Both are free to download. Calligraphy Handbook sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Heada asks for nothing beyond the download.
Calligraphy Handbook ships an update every 4 months, Heada every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Calligraphy Handbook | Heada |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (518 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 70.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 518 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 18.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 257 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Etienne Nguyen Tan Hon | Dominik Hauser |
Customer experience
Calligraphy Handbook
Heada
Bugs and requests
Calligraphy Handbook
Reported bugs
4 issues- App crashes when switching between uppercase and lowercase letters
- Undo feature causes freezing and loss of progress
- Inconsistent performance and lag when using Apple Pencil
- Restoration of in-app purchases not working as expected
Requested features
5 requests- Add more font styles, especially Gothic and modern
- Implement better palm rejection and input handling
- Allow users to favorite/save preferred font styles
- Add the ability to practice full words and sentences
- Improve export and sharing options
Heada
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Calligraphy Handbook
- Unlock All Features$3.99
Heada
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Calligraphy Handbook free?
Is Heada free?
Do Calligraphy Handbook or Heada have ads?
Which is updated more often, Calligraphy Handbook or Heada?
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