Hi!
I just got myself a Pencil. I want to use it both for taking notes and doing visual thinking. What apps to you suggest that works nicely with DTTG? For handwritten notes, I probably will need more than one page. And for sketches, I need something where I can zoom in and out, and where the actual image size probably is larger than the iPad’s native resolution.
Thanks,
Anders
First, DTTG is not optimized for Apple Pencil. The Pencil works in DTTG, but lines are too broad, handwriting is jaggy. I never use Pencil with DTTG.
What I use, mainly, are Zoom Notes (very zoomable canvas, per your specs), and Notes Plus.
One surprise is how well Pencil works with MS Office apps and One Note.
I’m not sure what “work nicely with DTTG” means for you, though I wouldn’t buy an app (or hardware) just to “work with” DTTG. Buy the best, then figure out the rest.
I also use Notes Plus. It’s incredible the amount of features it packs. I’m just not completely convinced by the ink smoothing mechanism … I think it should be less noticeable. Feels a bit limited when compared to other apps like Notability (which is also great IMHO).
Apps where I can doodle, draw and take notes – and then easily send them into DTTG. I guess every app that export as pdf does work, but specifically I’m looking for apps that can create multipage pdf documents based on multipage notes in the “sending” app.
YMMV, but I’ve always used Goodreader from the days of DTTG1, and it still offers a very feature rich and solid option. It’s still my go-to in terms of annotating PDFs.
Its key-feature for my (very specific) usage scenario in annotating, is that it is one of only a handful of apps that ‘stores’ my most recently used highlight-colours. I use several specific colours repeatedly when I annotate PDFs, both on the Mac and iOS. Its ability to ‘remember’ these colours, and have them available from the quick-menu (given how regularly I rotate through these colours whilst annotating) is a huge plus-point for me - but then, I’m probably an outlier in this regard…
I use Notability for just about everything else involving the Pencil.
It allows for synchronous audio recording, which is “paired” with the writing inside the document. In other words, the text is greyed out initially whilst using the audio scrubber (of what was recorded), and is the ‘revealed’ as you get to that part of the writing that coincides with the audio - and therefore allows you to quickly get to the audio component surrounding a piece of writing, and is very useful in the context of meetings and consultations.
It also has a Mac app, which syncs via iCloud - and does so without issues - which is its key feature for me, as I am able to generate secondary reports from my Notability meeting ‘recordings’ on my Mac only, should I wish to - and serves as a useful backup.
It’s not a feature-rich as Notes Plus, which is another good Apple Pencil focused app I downloaded after seeing many recommendations for it. That said, it is very feature-rich, and I’ve not really taken to it, since Notability and Goodreader more than adequately covers my needs. Still, many swear by it, so might be worth a look.
Lastly, I’ve dabbled with Liquid Text, and still need to spend more time with MarginNote. The former offers some very nice (and fairly unique) features with regards to viewing and interacting with PDFs, but lacks some of my required features outlined above.
MarginNote looks to be the most interesting of what I still intend on sinking my teeth into. It’s quite a complex beast - but assuming you get to grips with it, offers some of the features of Liquid Text, but is a combination of PDF annotator, outline and mindmap app - coupled with a text summariser and flashcard creator - all rolled into one! 
So assuming you can get it to do all it promises, could be a real powerhouse.
That said, as alluded to earlier, whether these amount to the ‘best’ companion app for DTTG2, really depends on what your specific needs are. But I would hazard a guess that you will find what you need between the suggestions that will/have already been made in this thread! Good luck!
FANTASTIC! Never knew that the pencil worked with DTTG!
I have to read the manual again clearly. Another function to an already perfect app.
Tried it on several .pdf and no problem at all.
I use GoodNotes (very, very good support of Apple Pencil) and have activated automatic backup to Dropbox. This means, all pages are sent as a PDF (incl. OCR) to Dropbox. Those PDFs are indexed by DEVONthink on my Mac And, if you change a particular note again in GoodNotes then the change is also available on the Mac - and on DTTG, as well, of course, because it’s synced with my Mac!
I just tested this and the backup file is a zip file. What kind of files do you get?
Thanks to your question, I just figured out that you can select PDF as the backup format in iOS GoodNotes via Options>Settings>Automatic Backup>File Format>PDF, not GoodNotes Document, the default.
and another good point: if you’ve tagged the PDF all tags remain unchanged even if you change your note in GoodNotes - so, once tagged, searchable all the time, regardless how often you modify the note in GoodNotes - I love that!
Thanks, Wart - I missed the file format for PDF in Settings.
Well, it turns out that I couldn’t get GoodNotes to work as you describe - I did set backup format to PDF, but it keeps creating a zip file; even after I close and invoke the app again.
– NOW GOODNOTES SEEMS TO WORK CORRECTLY, AFTER CREATING A NEW NOTEBOOK, THE AUTO BACKUP USES THE PDF FORMAT. IM GUESSING THE CHANGE IN SETTINGS TO PDF ONLY WORKS FOR NEWLY CREATED NOTEBOOKS.
After much testing, I wondered why my GoodNotes couldn’t input text from a virtual keyboard (maybe it doesn’t), so i went to the iTunes Store. I then discovered after searching that there are two “GoodNotes 4 - Notes & PDF”, from different developers. However, in the description of the app from Ultimate Apps Inc, they refer to it as SmartNotes (but Apple lists it at GoodNotes. Also, this developer has “tm” (the trademark icon) after “GoodNotes 4” - the other version from Time Based Technology Limited (the one I have) does not have “tm”. Very confusing! I’m guessing you must be using the version that is not what I have.
– AFTER READING USER COMMENTS AT ITUNES STORE, IT APPEARS THE VERSION OF GOODNOTES THAT USED THE TRADEMARK ICON IS A FAKE AND DOESNT WORK AS ADVERTISED. IF YOU PLAN TO BUY GOODNOTES, BE SURE TO READ THE COMMENT SECTION FOR THE GOODNOTES YOU ARE ABOUT TO PURCHASE.
(I wonder how long it will take before Apple realizes this situation.)
Unfortunately, the App Store is full of fakes that go to lengths to look exactly like the genuine app. It’s sad that crooks come along and steal from hard working developers this way. Apple doesn’t seem to pay attention. In several cases I’ve corresponded with App Store staff who eventually fall back on the same answer: tell the genuine developer. Apple seems to rely on loudly-complaining developers before it takes action against a fake.
How sad.