Apple Productivity

How Good is Apple Notes Handwriting?

I tweaked “If” by Kipling to test Apple Notes’ handwriting recognition

Rewriting “If” (out of copyright), figure by author

You could type your thoughts and ideas, saving time later, but you don’t. Instead, you grab a sheet of paper or a notebook and start scribbling notes. Why? Typing and formatting text gets in the way. You just want to write, right?

Short-term convenience and speed, however, often come at the cost of poorer long-term productivity. I went through my work notebook before a job change and discovered really useful information locked away in handwritten notes. I had forgotten they existed. If only I’d been able to search for them.

An Apple Pencil and an iPad almost solves that. There are lots of note-taking apps on the iPad, most of them sporting hand-writing recognition. They’re impressive and improving all the time, but they don’t quite match the simplicity of pen and paper. Until now, Apple would have you believe.

Notes on iPadOS 18.x treats handwriting like typed text while maintaining the original handwriting. You don’t have to convert it into typed text to edit it. You can edit the handwriting. Notes understands your scribblings are words. It should be even better than pen and paper.