Take note, Apple. This is how it’s done.

Apple's iPad is certainly capable of replacing every notebook you'll ever need, but let's be serious -- nothing about Apple's Notes app is going to entice any fence-sitters to ditch their trusty pen and paper. Ginger Labs' Notability, however, just might.

As you might expect, Notability records your written thoughts in a portfolio-style pad not unlike the one in Notes, but its array of features quickly set it apart from Apple's one-trick pony. For one, the font type, size, and color isn't limited to three lame style options; for another, notes can include photos (which can be resized and cropped, but not rotated), Web clippings, and in-app sketches.

Why copy and paste paragraphs from a website when Notability can grab the whole darn thing?

And if that's not enough, Notability also sports a nifty menubar that offers one-click access to tools that have no right being in a note-taking app -- multiple undos, Dropbox, iDisk and WebDav exporting, and its killer feature, audio recording. Using the iPad's built-in microphone, Notability records and stores audio notes alongside your written ones, a valuable tool for lengthy lectures or interviews.

With great ability comes great scrutiny, however, so it’s only natural to hold Notability to a higher standard. The lack of a dynamic spellcheck wouldn’t be so noticeable if the app wasn’t so powerful in other areas, and a complementary iPhone app would take some of the clunkiness out of importing and exporting files.

The bottom line. But overall, there isn’t much about Notability that isn’t, well, notable.