There are a growing number of handwriting apps for the iPad, I picked Penultimate mostly because it is only $0.99, and it has gotten some pretty good reviews. The iPad can occasionally be an infuriating tool, in that the ‘keyboard’ is not as suited for real typing as you might want. The idea of using a handwriting app to take notes is something which might make the iPad a truly worthwhile student tool.
As far as handwriting goes, since (in most cases) the average iPad user would be using his (or her) index finger as a sort of pen, there is a noticeable learning curve to traverse in order to master this tool. There are some styli for the iPad and other capacitive screen appliances (they start over $10.00), but I’ve found a number of YouTube videos which can show you how to make your own stylus in mere seconds (see the end of this post…).
I’ve only been using this tool for a few days, and can already see that its real value as a note taking tool may take a while longer than that to see how efficient it may become. So far, I am pretty impressed in that it works very easily, and the only really important shortcoming is that it does take some time to get up to speed with the ‘handwriting’.
As far as a wish list of things which I would like to see improved on this (and most other of these sorts of apps) would be to create some manner which allows you to create the handwriting large enough to have some reasonable control, yet to display the results in such a manner as to not take up so much screen real estate. Other than that , it is possible that this app may be a real winner.
4 iPad apps for hand-writing and idea-sketching
http://blogs.computerworld.com/16474/4_ipad_apps_for_hand_writing_and_idea_sketching
Finally, I found a pretty simple way to make a stylus for the iPad (in minutes…)
As a final point, as soon as I can develop some useful skills writing with this app, I will present it on this blog (I think that any reasonable review of this app should show how it actually works!).
