Best Note-Taking Device Ever? iPad Pro vs. Paper Notebooks

Today we're taking a look at the iPad Pro as a note-taking device. Should it replace your paper notebook?

Gear mentioned (these are referral links - buying through them will support my work at no extra cost to you!)

My Ultimate College Packing List:

Get my book "10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades" FREE:

Follow Me elsewhere:

Subscribe to My Channel:

My Video Gear:

[addsimpson]

It’s worth noting the 2018 iPad is compatible with the Apple Pencil, you don’t have to spend the extra for the iPad Pro, unless you want the bigger screen

[diana.bacircea]

The best note taking method is not taking any notes and then crying at the end of the semester.

[PaulMurley]

6:02 “Note” is said 11 times in one sentence. Possibly a record, please confirm.

[mm-icvf]

I was wondering whether I should save up for an ipad pro or rocket book and this video has consoled me and my decision is final...



I`m spending my money on food.

[gominuke]

my life and productivity has changed dramatically since I use my iPad for note-taking 👏✨ I personally use notability that allows you to record audio as you take notes and cross references the moment you wrote something down to what was being said in that moment, very handy for meetings.

[SrLupinotuum]

This kids and their pieces of refined bark will never understand the beauty of the true, original feeling of carving in a good chunk of clay.

[MarchionessDarby]

Being left-handed, I prefer the iPad Pro. No notebook rings to deal with, and no ink stains!

[tadtranclere]

I’m coming at this from a perspective of a uni student. While I agree writing with a normal notebook gives a better writing experience, there are a lot of things about the iPad Pro and using it for note taking that make it exponentially better for me than a normal notebook. I suppose I should preface this by saying a lot of these things are also true of the new 2018 budget iPad, but I purchased my iPad Pro about seven months before that came out (and tbh I wouldn’t have bought the budget model even if it was out when I went looking for something).

The first thing I find is better with the iPad Pro than with a traditional paper notebook is editing notes. This is actually is the reason I went out an bought the iPad Pro. I wanted a way to write notes that I could go back and edit or add onto and with the iPad Pro, I can use the lasso tool and move notes around to make more space and I can add pages to my notes so I can further elaborate if I get new information later on. This girl I use to study Latin with had a notebook where she wrote down all the grammar and patterns but it was very disorganized. When studying a language, the way you learn it is kind of gradual and you learn about all the parts of speech at once and build up later on. The way you have to learn a language doesn’t lend well to having an organized notebook of rules separated by part of speech and what not like she was trying to have. As such, since I pulled on Latin as my second major, I decided to get something where I could have it organized even if I had to add on later. So I went out and bought the iPad Pro.

The next thing about the iPad Pro I found really useful is not having to carry a bunch of notebooks around. Now, I only took the normal five class course load that makes me a full time student, but I carried around more notebooks than five on a daily basis. This was because sometimes I ended up filling up a notebook for a class so I needed a second one. I also carried around a miscellaneous notebook for just random things to jot down. And I would also take some notebooks from previous classes I had taken semesters before in case I wanted to reference something else (though I rarely ended up having the right notebooks on me for these situations). On top of that I had my textbooks and usually a Ancient Greek play or epic because I pulled on Classics (focusing in Latin) as my second major and I needed it for class. I carried around so much stuff that I actually ended up breaking the display (but not the screen) on my macbook air because there was too much pressure on it in my backpack from all this stuff. Now that I have the iPad, I don’t carry around any notebooks and I put all the textbooks I can onto it as well. This means I only need to take my iPad, Apple pencil, a folder with loose paper in case I need it for a test, and a normal pencil and pen to my classes. This is good for the health of my spine as well as my next laptop (I’d prefer to just buy a new laptop rather than spend $500 to fix the screen on a laptop my family purchased back in 2014 and I was given back in 2016) when I eventually go out and get it.

I kind of touched on this in the last paragraph, but the next thing I’d like to mention is having access to all my past notes everywhere. Like I mentioned, I use to carry around notebooks from classes I had already passed because I sometimes referenced old things. Often times I would still would not have the right notebook on me because I wouldn’t have anticipated which one I would need properly and I can’t be expected to carry around every single notebook I’ve filled since starting Uni. I can’t lug around like 35 notebooks everywhere. With the iPad Pro, I have access to all my notebooks. I’ve also scanned old notebooks into my iPad Pro so now I have access to all my notes anywhere. I also have iCloud sharing turned on in the apps I use for note taking so I can even access these old notes on my phone if I’m out with friends and just want to bring something up. It’s fantastic.

The next thing I like is how you can make digital notecards on the iPad Pro. I am studying Classics: Latin as my second major and because my second major is a language based major, I have a lot of vocab I need to study. I have made notecards in the past, but I always lose them, end up using some as bookmarks, or have them become illegible because they keep rubbing up against each other and the graphite smears. With the iPad Pro, it took me a long time to find a notecard app I liked, but I finally found one in something called “Flashcards.” It lets you make separate decks which I make based on what chapter of my textbook the vocab word appeared in and it lets you have combined stacks made of multiple decks which lets me study all my latin vocab at once. I also don’t have to worry about losing the flaschards, using them as bookmarks, or having them become illegible. It works perfectly for me. And while I’m on the topic of something I use to lose when it was physical (and because I couldn’t figure out where to put it) I’ll mention here something with notebooks. Because I heavily used my notebooks so much in order to reference things semesters later, pages and covers would often fall out. Like with flashcards, notebook pages are something I don’t have to worry about losing on the iPad Pro.

The iPad Pro has also helped me keep on top of my journal. I have several physical journals — all of which are about a quarter way to halfway full. None are completely full. This is because I get busy sometimes and I don’t get home until late so I don’t write in my journal which stays at home. This compounds and eventually I need to start a new journal because I’m in a completely different place and playing catch-up would be too lengthy of a process to get to the day I’m actually writing the entries from. With the iPad, I have it with me almost everywhere. I can write my journal at any time so it is more likely to get done. On top of that, if I ever miss a few days, I can still write the entry for the day I’m at on a new notebook in goodnotes (the app I do my journal on since there are no journal apps that take advantage of the Apple Pencil), play catch up with the main journal, and then combine them when it’s ready. This has really helped me keep a consistent journal that gets written in and doesn’t have massive time gaps in.

I mentioned earlier that I keep textbooks on the iPad Pro. I should probably have a paragraph dedicated to this topic as well. Now that I have the iPad Pro, I don’t have to carry heavy textbooks everywhere. I can get a digital copy of the textbooks and that will suffice. Now, I don’t use the digital copies one can buy at the book store for certain textbooks because those are often ripoffs. Instead, I use primarily three apps for books. I use Apple books (iBooks currently, but I’m running the public beta of iOS 12 so it’s called Apple Books on my iPad Pro now) for books like the Aenied, Illiad, or any non-textbook book because I like the way Apple Books is set up and how easy it is to buy books on it. I use the kindle app for most of my textbooks that I can get digitally as well as some novels. The kindle library has more variety than Apple Books — especially in the way of textbooks, but buying things is a pain since you can’t purchase using the kindle App or the Amazon App. You have to go to safari and use the amazon website to buy the books instead. I hate buying things this way. The last app I use is the Play Books App which I only use for textbooks. If I can’t find a textbook on the kindle app, then I turn to google books because they are working on getting digital copies of basically every book. This works fine, but a lot of versions of the textbooks here are outdated. This is usually fine but does cause some issues occasionally in my Latin class where someone else uses the digital copy of the book (I use the digital copy when I’m at uni following along and I use the physical copy when I’m at home doing my homework). Three are three versions of the “second edition” of my textbook and occasionally some practice problems are different between the two. This doesn’t happen a lot, but it does happen so the guy who only has the digital copy in my class will end up having a sentence completely different from what the newer second edition says. This is fine and the professor is okay with it (possibly this is because the professor’s copy of the textbook is the an even earlier version of the second edition than the digital one so he often has the same thing as the guy using the digital and sometimes has something different than the digital and the new version of the second edition the rest of the class has). Anyway, to get back on track, the iPad Pro just makes it so I don’t have to carry around a ton of heavy textbooks. Digital versions are also usually cheaper than physical copies so this iPad Pro is starting to pay for itself because of that.

Anyway, those are a bunch of ways the iPad Pro has made my experience at uni easier. In the end, writing on paper feels nicer, but given all the benefits I get from using the iPad Pro and now since I slapped a screen protector on it that makes it feel more like writing on paper, using the iPad Pro for note taking is vastly better for me than using a physical notebook.

[anirudhjayendra]

For me, a person who commutes a lot, carrying a 2018 iPad with OneNote is definitely better than lugging around a bunch of notebooks. Plus, it’s not as costly as the pro, supports the Pencil, and split screen! Just love the fact that OneNote is very compatible with the Pencil.

[whatsupdate]

The experience when actually taking the notes is less important to me than the value of the notes. Paper feels better to write on but the ability to search notes, always have every note with you, link or embed media, record audio linked to the written note in real time, tag organize, collaborate, and share notes makes paper seem obsolete.

[Greenfinch]

0:43 "the mitochondria..." *is the powerhouse of the cell*

[Luuky]

To me, it's like eBooks vs physical books. One is the easier and more advanced option, but nothing beats the touch, the feel, and the smell of real books!

[ramazansarier]

I don't even have an iPad Pro, why am I watching this?

[laraprudencio]

Hey Thomas, I am a huge fan of your work. Personally, I would love to experiment the ipad pro because it looks very cool with all of those features but that doesn't mean I don't like to write in real paper. I think you can benefit from both experiences and have the best of the two worlds, it really depends of what you want. About you thomas, all I can say is that you are an inspiration for me:
- you know how to code
- you created a blog, a podcast and a youtube channel
- you wrote an e-book
- you play the guitar
- you practice skateboarding
- you know how to cook
- you have knowledge in money management (the next mr. Money mustache)
- you're a public speaker
- you read a lot of books
- you have a college degree
- you make exercise
- you are very productive in everything and still have time to play videogames (I hope you give Sonic Mania a try 😉)

I'm struggling a little with time management and other things but you have inspired me to be better every single day.

Thank you

[MegaRaja]

Have u tried one of those screen protectors that make the iPad screen feel like paper with the stylus? You should check it out

[kevinjubbalmd]

Solid video. Apples Notes allow you to take notes and markup, but not as well as Noteshelf 2. My personal favorite is OneNote, which i feel is more typing focused (which I prefer) with the ability to mark up as needed (I.e. drawing figures)

[tubeMonger]

I really wanted to like taking notes with iPad. Paper and pen 🖋 just feels natural for me. It is the quickest method as well.

[nikexd]

If you don't like the feel of writing on the iPad with an Apple Pencil, you can try getting a screen protector that increases the friction while writing. While this does not perfectly recreate the feel of writing with pen and paper, it gets close, and it might be close enough to make you switch to the iPad and Apple Pencil for all your note-taking needs.

[anamariamartin]

To me the Rocketbook adds an obstacle to efficiency. Especially if you take many notes (like most students do), The Rocketbook implies an extra step in your every day workflow. In order for you notes to be on the cloud you have to scan them. And for most students, the flexibility of having your notes, books and textbooks all into a device that you can carry around is by far the best bet.

[adeefa]

Nice Video! Although you could've have portrayed a few more advantages of the paper notebook. Maybe it is obvious but I do think that writing on paper has a huge impact on the learning experience.