A search for the best stylus-friendly iPad note-taker hits the wall

I have this touch-capacitive Pogo stylus, and it never made a lot of sense to me as an iPhone tool unless I was wearing gloves (not likely) or had severely sunburned the tips of all my fingers (even less likely). I know some people like them for typing or drawing, but I never used mine on the small screen. Now, though, I have an iPad, and I want to take notes on it, so I need a notebook-type app I can use to jot down ideas with the stylus or--in a pinch (heh)--my fingers.

My search, by the way, started one month after the original iPad launch, so I naively hope the apps I find won’t feel like beta software. Not so for the first three. Finger Notes ($2.99, dragancats.com) is almost unusable. Double-tapping the screen erases...the entire screen. And that happened a lot, especially when I tried to use the stylus. And you can’t erase just a part of the screen or email your notes, only save them to the photo roll.

Writing in cursive is the best way to avoid Finger Notes' cuel false erasings.

Write Now XL for iPad ($2.99, jetware.com) is a laggy, obviously rushed-out port of the iPhone app Write Now, evidenced in the grossly oversized control panels and text labels. And then there’s LegalPad HD ($0.99, atomicharvest.com), which feels alpha, but according to iTunes is version 1.5. Turns out, the first version didn’t even have an eraser tool. It’s there now, but you can’t change the way-too-thick pen size--the developers say that’s coming in version 1.7. Meanwhile, no sending, no saved-note gallery, no color--no joking.

LegalPad HD is practically devoid of any truly useful features.

NoteSketch ($0.99, thejukeboxnation.com/notesketch) has a thoughtful design--customizable for lefties or righties with an optional, movable, nonlive “green zone” for stylus users to rest their hand on while writing. But writing didn’t feel natural. My capital C, for example, wound up with four points instead of a curve. To get graceful-looking letters, I had to write way too slowly. And there’s no emailing here either--it saves PDFs, and you sync those back to your Mac via iTunes for printing or sharing, another heart–slash–deal breaker.

NoteSketch is designed well, but it makes our letters look pointy and strange.

PadNotes ($0.99, www.nicoladefranceschi.com) takes four taps before you can write, a UI nightmare. It can email PDFs, but it prefers to crash. And this is version 1.2. Scribble Notes ($5.99, seashellgames.com) is better, but needs undo--you can’t erase, except to draw over it with white, and that erases the lines on the paper too. Sob.

HandWriting Mail Pro ($8.99, ultie.com) is designed around the gimmicky task of sending a letter in your own “handwriting,” so as you write each line on the bottom of the interface, it’s added to the sheet of stationery along the top. It’s tricky to make your missives look good, though, and they’re emailed as PNG attachments with no saving in the app itself.

At this point my old pen and paper are looking pretty good. Luckily, I found two apps that work a little better. PaperDesk for iPad ($1.99, mypaperdesk.com) lets you type, write, draw, and even record audio--great for classes or meetings. But you can’t export the audio, only play it back from within the app. Emailing your notes attaches them as PDFs, but strangely, the audio toolbar along the bottom was included too. Still, it works in portrait or landscape and has the best set of tools so far, even letting you bookmark notes so you can find them later after you’ve created dozens.

And Penultimate ($2.99, cocoabox.com) is the best as a real writer, delivering stylus writing that feels smooth and natural. It also makes my handwriting look the most like, well, my real handwriting, and I dug its gel-pen look. You can’t change the pen thickness or color, but you can email individual pages or a whole notebook as PDFs.

Still, call me picky, but after test-driving these nine not-so-ready-for-prime-App-Store-time apps, I wish I would have blown that $28 on the nicest Moleskine and fancy pen I could find.