Goodnotes 6 vs. Notability (Which is better after the 2023 updates?)

earlier this year I reviewed good notes and notability and compared them to ultimately tell you which one was better at that time and spoiler alert goodnotes 5 actually won that very tight battle back then I'm sure with people like and with good notes and notes ability both releasing very important updates I feel that it's time to revisit this ongoing War so let's dive right into it if you have been using good notes and notability for quite some time this is where you'll notice the first big differences when compared to previous versions both uis have been redesigned so it's even easier to find and navigate through your notes but some things actually stay the same good note 6 has a user interface displayed as a list or a grid that's pretty much unchanged but the sidebar on the other hand that's new if you can open it by clicking on the icon at the top left it includes a Search tool a place for your share documents quick access to your bookmark note Pages which are basically your favorites and the enab marketplace where you can purchase new templates covers stickers and so much more there are also icons at the top right for more tools like settings book editing or notifications notability on the other hand has stayed pretty true to itself the app has your folders on the left sidebar and your notes within those folders are displayed on the right you can display your notes as a glist or a grid and you can either find headers which work as collapsible toggles to keep your workspace more organized it's a practical and efficient approach that stayed pretty much unchanged and rightly so as for navigation well it's pretty simple in both apps with good note 6 it's pretty straightforward you'll have to open a folder to get to the specific notes you're looking for some might say it's a bit limiting but fortunately there are some ways around that using the sidebar you can quickly access any of your shared or bookmark documents so those are actually always very easy to find unlike good note 6 notability sidebar offers a better access to every divider folder or document and if you've got notability plus shared recent favorite and unfiled notes sections are on the same sidebar as well lastly while good note 6 offers a very powerful Search tool both on the free and on the paid versions notability Search tool is only available if you have a subscription okay all that being said I still got to give it to notability especially if you have notability plus if you don't have a subscription the lack of a Search tool and the lack of visibility for bookmark notes for example is kinda limiting so it would pretty much even it out however notability's sidebar offers a much more easy and direct access to all your dividers folders and notes and that's a huge Plus in my opinion if you're looking for an easy way to manage your notes nutability is a great option for you from the main screen you will create a folder on the left sidebar and house all your notes within that subject you can easily drag and drop notes between folders so relocating misplaced notes is actually super easy folders go in dividers and you can Nest dividers up to five layers deep which is pretty neat on the other hand goodnotes offers a few more options to help you stay organized you can ask folders within folders within folders which is pretty cool I tested it up to 10 layers of depth which is pretty much more than anyone would need and good note 6 would still allow me to create more good note 6 also has a very powerful Search tool which can read type notes texts and also your handwritten notes notability can basically do the same thing but it's behind the paid subscription as for note creation with notability it's really easy all you need to do is hit this button right here and the app will instantly create a new note within the subject effect you've selected in the sidebar and that's it it's fast and simple any new note is generated with a default template but you'll find other options at the bottom of the screen when you open a new note these new templates have been added with recent new updates but if you feel this is still not enough you can also tap on the more button and template settings to go to the full template Gallery it's safe to say that notesability offers more inbuilt templates than goodnotes does you'll find digital planners worksheets and much more with good note 6 document management and creation remains completely unchanged when you create a new document the app will ask you what kind of document you'd like to create and then guide you through the appropriate workflow what you choose in the beginning will actually Define what options you have notebooks and quick notes will hold your notebooks images scan documents while folders will hold pretty much anything this isn't actually a huge issue by the way because goodnotes allows you to move things around pretty quickly and easily you can drag and drop to rearrange your pages add a certain page to a certain notebook all of that is really easy to do with a launch of good note 6 you can even create custom themes meaning that you can create custom page sizes adjusting the height and the width to whatever you desire you can also change both the background and foreground colors to create something really unique in conclusion here I think both apps have huge Bros and some cons so it really depends on what you prefer the question for you is basically how much time are you going to spend on the app because the quick note creation process in notability encourages you to create a lot of notes basically you start the meeting or a class you open a new note you write whatever you need you close it down and next time you open another one whereas with good notes creating a note feels more like a commitment and that's not necessarily a bad thing you see the note creating process is a bit longer but gives you a lot of options and having the possibility to Nest your folders is actually pretty cool so if you're looking for something that is quick to use and simple to open notability might be the best choice for you if you want something that is a bit more complex but offers you more customization and organizational features good notes is the best bet and now to what matters most get Note 6 and notability provide very similar but very robust toolkits for you to take notes both include a pen tool a highlighter an eraser a lasso tool and a text box tool these present only minor differences from one app to the other let's say that customization options in size color pressure sensitivity can vary but all in all it's all very similar there are some unique features to both apps that are really worth mentioning first notabilities pencil tool it's pressure sensitive and has tilt activated shading good notes doesn't provide a pencil tool and their brush tool really doesn't compare anything to this pencil tool when it comes to drawing or sketching on the other hand good note 6 allows you to scribble out some words with your apple pencil and this is just not possible on notability now to something that I consider pretty sad notability used to have a favorite toolbar which I loved and sadly in July 2023 there actually got rid of it I can't understand the reasons behind it but I was such a fan of the favorites toolbar so I was kind of disappointed when it happened so with this change you can no longer save your favorite pen type and Pen width but you can still add your favorite colors to the preset options and you'll get up to 8 spots for this purpose on good notes it's actually pretty similar the app gives you seven slots for your colors but good notes also allows for Unlimited Custom colors with notability custom colors are actually behind the subscription now something interesting about good note 6 is that it comes with a lasso tool just like notability but good note 6 actually pretty much made the lasso tool obsolete you can now select anything by just drawing a circle around it and tapping on it it's so much quicker and intuitive shape recognition is present on both apps obviously notability offers shape detection where you draw the desired shape with your apple pencil and hold it in place until the app reads does everything with the perfect Dimensions good notes offers something very similar and offers a shape tool that you can use to fill shapes with colors and snap shape lines together now there are two more tools that actually come exclusively on notability when compared to good notes and those are the ruler now available on three and paid versions and the tape tool this was added back in April and it allows you to temporarily hide your content by covering it up with just a piece of digital tape as for handwriting both apps support the apple pencil too as well as third-party styluses both apps support handwriting to text conversion and good note 6 provides AI powered writing I I don't know I don't know if it's hot where you are but where I live it's blazing outside and like I feel I'm just in a furnace right now so sorry for that what was I saying good note 6 also provides AI powered writing AIDS these allow good notes to learn and generate text to your handwriting right now it can basically spell check like a Word document it's far from perfect but it's actually a pretty cool tool last but not least notability also shines when it comes to work on multiple documents simultaneously while in good notes you can open multiple tabs like you do on your web browser for example notability allows you to actually open two documents side by side in app and this makes comparing notes or just copying something so much easier some might say that you can do exactly the same by opening two instances of good notes side by side which can be kinda clunky and come on notability has supported this feature for years already okay this one is actually pretty tough for me because I was such a big fan of notability's favorite toolbar but still even without it I have to give it to notability here I just feel that the overall toolkit is a bit more complete the pencil tool actually might take it away just by itself other tools like the ruler or the tape tool are also pretty nice additions so that doesn't really mean that goodnotes is far behind it's not the case good notes has been adding a lot of cool stuff to their toolkit in the past years but it's still not there yet we might revisit this in a few months and my mind might have changed by then writing notes is obviously the main focus of note-taking apps but there are plenty of other little features that can be really really helpful PDF or image annotation is possible both in good notes and notability notability offers a great audio recording tool for note takers when recording notabilities audio is synced in real time with the notes while you take them and during playback notability will highlight the text as it was written during the recording so that you can better understand why you noted something down for a very long time this was unique to notability until good notes actually added something very similar in January 2023 and the same goes for notabilities math conversion tool the app can recognize math expression symbols elements and rules which goodnotes had no comparable counterpart until the release of good note 6. now if we're talking about unique features good notes already offer the flashcards maker it used to be pretty clunky but it was there and it was nice to use but good notes added study sets earlier this year which makes it just so much easier to do lastly good note 6 introduced two new learning features the first is interactive exam practice these are basically prep courses to help students prepare for very important exams and the other tool you can check out is the AI math assistant when you're working through a math problem good note 6 can actually spot mistakes that you're making although it only works in one of the prep courses for now good notes has plans to turn it into a full-fledged AI tutor this for me is actually the first very clear win and we have to give it to good notes where notability had two very cool unique features in their math conversion tool and audio recording tool good notes has them as well and has added some pretty interesting AI tools that really Elevate the app you can't beat the convenience of digital note-taking when it comes to sharing your notes and having your notes accessible pretty much anywhere if you have your digital devices with you good notes and notability handle these areas pretty much the same way except that notability requires you to have a subscription to have access to most of its features yep you heard it for notability users iCloud sync or any kind of backup is behind the paid subscription now both apps allow you to backup your data on third-party storage services like Dropbox or Google Drive for example and the backup process is very similar from good notes to notesability the only big difference is well again for noticeability users you need to have a paid subscription to back up your data which is really terrifying now when it comes to sharing both apps allow you to share and Export your content but they go about it in pretty different ways with notability you can use the link sharing feature to share it with pretty much anyone so anyone who has that link has access to your notes however collaborative editing is not possible on notesability good notes on the other hand doesn't allow non-users to open or view any notes to open the shared link you need to have an updated version of the app but it allows for collaborative editing even in real time which is something that is just not possible on notability and that's part of the reason why I have to give it to good notes Here notability's link sharing feature is great if you need someone to just read over your notes but the collaborative aspect of goodnotes just takes it away from me and on the other hand not being able to backup my data if I don't pay for the subscription just terrifies the hell out of me and now to the last and decisive section pricing and updates and this is where the apps mostly diverge from one another good note 6 offers a free trial for as long as you want to take full advantage of the app you can buy it with a one-time purchase of 29.99 or with a subscription model of 9.99 the subscription model is new to goodnotes as before good note 6 it was only possible to upgrade via a one-time purchase and a subtle limitations with the number of notebooks you can create pretty much all the features are unlocked on the free version anyways it's also important to know that if you were a good note's 5 user but wanted to upgrade to good note 6 you needed either to repurchase the app or subscribe to the latest version notability on the other hand has a free plan and a subscription plan it is 14.99 a year but there is no option for you to buy it as a one-time purchase like you have on goodnotes although notabilities free plan is very usable for casual note takers it comes with very big limitations in regards to storage and syncing also keep in mind that the free version of notability limits the number of edits you can do per month on your notes and weirdly enough the app is pretty vague about how many edits you can actually do as far as updates are concerned good nodes appears to still update all its content for a good note 6 and notability has mentioned that some new features might only be available with a subscription but it's pretty unclear how the company will actually choose which features will be put behind the subscription wall so if you're looking strictly at costs good note 6 is the best bet I mean even with the new subscription plan it's still more affordable than notabilities and you still have the possibility to just pay up front and buy it all at once another thing is that you won't probably have to worry about key features being put behind the subscription wall based on how I use these apps and how I feel most of you are going to be using these apps as well I do believe that good note 6 is a better and more complete app for most users that being said I also believe that notability is a more practical note-taking experience it's just a great tool for anyone who just wants a place to quickly take notes and not think about it anymore so if you're looking for something really simple notability is the best choice for you but all in all good note 6 feels nicer to use especially over the long term the app has some incredible features it actually caught up to some of the unique features that notability had and it's just more complete in terms of how you can organize your workflow and this concludes our video I really hope this was helpful but what do you think like what's your favorite app hop in the comments and let me know and if you just got an iPad and don't know how to set it up here's a quick video that will help you get started thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Paperlike

Views: 152,120

Keywords: goodnotes, notability, notetaking apps, note taking apps, how to take digital notes, digital notetaking, which notetaking app is better, ipad apps, goodnotes 6, goodnotes 6 updates, goodnotes 6 ai, notabiity updates, notability updates 2023, notability vs goodnotes 6

Id: RdHDWXQBy2s

Length: 16min 58sec (1018 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023