I'm trying to find an app that I can use for note taking for school and I've been having problems with Notability. Does anyone know of a note taking app that has some sort of wrist/palm support feature that would allow me to have my hand on the iPad screen and be able to write with my stylus at the same time? All the apps I've tried only have a wrist spot at the bottom of the screen, and it is very uncomfortable and unhealthy to write for long periods of time with your hand raised and wrist resting and I don't want to end up with Carpal Tunnel. I just want to be able to write on my iPad in the same manner as I would on regular paper, and by that I mean same hand posture. Is this possible? Does anyone know of an app that would let me do that?



Bijan

I hope someone will post soon with some suggestions regarding apps with the feature(s) you need. In the meantime, I just wanted to offer that I've read/heard that you can place a towel or sheet of paper (some sort of barrier) under your hand so that the iPad will not "see" that it is there. You might experiment with this using the app you currently have, at least until you can find another app that works better for you.

There are quite a few apps that do this all of which can be found by a quick search in the Internet or even just reading app descriptions of note taking apps on the app store. I often use 'Notes Plus' which has this hand function and works very well.

Proud owner of a 32GB wifi iPad2 iOS5.

Not if you're a southpaw.

I think the best app to have is ever note it's really good

A southpaw?!

Proud owner of a 32GB wifi iPad2 iOS5.

Sorry, was that too much a Yankee expression? We poor left-handed folks spend much of our lives trying to exist in a right-handed world. Unlike most people many of us write with our hands curled over the top of what we're writing. Thus, the "wrist pad" should be placed above, not below the text area.

Indeed it was, especially when I'm British . I see. I did wonder whether that what you were getting at.

Proud owner of a 32GB wifi iPad2 iOS5.

Yes, I noticed your location when I responded. Sorry 'bout that. Southpaw is indeed an American expression originally from baseball. Before night baseball a diamond was oriented with the pitcher facing west so the batter would not face the late afternoon sun. Especially in the early days when a ball was seldom changed during a game it became difficult enough to see as the game progressed. So a left-handed pitcher facing west would be throwing from the south.

No problem. That's pretty interesting . Thanks for the insight.

Proud owner of a 32GB wifi iPad2 iOS5.

Have to withdraw my earlier criticism of Notes Plus for left-handed folks. The latest version has the option of placing the wrist pad at the top of the screen! The wrist pad is the best I've seen.

In addition handwriting recognition has been added as an option ($2). Unfortunately, it is not a real-time translation option (afaik). Instead a block of handwriting must be selected and then trnaslated into text. That's not nearly as convenient as 7Notes HD Premium.

Is the text conversion on either of them any good. I wouldn't mind something like that but don't want to fork out 5.99 on the 7notes app and find out its not as good as expected.

Proud owner of a 32GB wifi iPad2 iOS5.

Notability has a palm protector in the lower right hand corner next to zoom view which can be used anytime you are writing. iOS multitasking gestures can cause the screen to move in any app when there are multiple points of contact on the screen. To turn these off go to setting - general - multitasking gestures

I've found the text conversion on "7Notes HD Premium" to be quite good. Part of its strength, I think, is that the conversion can be turned on in real-time so that each word (or phrase) you write is converted immediately to text. This enables you (and the software) to "train" your handwriting so that it is more and more recognizable as you use it. The alternative of writing a block of text, stropping, selecting it, and then converting it is simply not worth the effort (imho).

I have to say, though, that you have to be willing to invest a lot of practice into whatever app you choose. Success is NOT immediate, especially since part of your brain is devoted to thinking about how to use the tool and part to what you're trying to write. Frankly, as a relatively fast typist, I've yet to find any handwriting app that can come close to my speed and efficiency in typing directly into the app. YMMV, of course. I've found the various handwriting apps to be an interesting exercise and in some cases a useful way of illustrating with diagrams and drawings. But I haven't found them to be very efficient for extended text entry.