Noteshelf 3 — the superior app?

When it comes to digital planning on the iPad, it's not just about the planner itself. Which app you use matters a lot. It's important for the experience of planning to feel as smooth and as frictionless as possible. There's nothing more frustrating than just wanting to do a simple task and being overwhelmed by all the the options. We want planning on the iPad to feel as simple as planning on paper, but with MORE flexibility, not less. Does Noteshelf 3 hold up?

The UI is an important element for the look and feel of using an app, and I've quite liked using Noteshelf's UI so far. Most pressingly: yes, there is a dark mode. You cannot use a dark mode planner with a light mode app, that would be preposterous. So we've already cleared the first obstacle. That aside, there are other customizability options too. For one, the toolbar at the top, where you can edit which tools are displayed. The default ones are not the only option! (Thankfully... Because it was driving me crazy that there was no shortcut for duplicating a page, which is absolutely essential when using a planner.)

There is also the option to minimize the UI, like a focus mode. This is basically exclusively how I use the app. I don't mind the toolbar at the top, but the pen selection that perpetually stays on the screen (which you can relocate, but not remove) became annoying. Moving it to the bottom helped, but just minimizing the UI entirely felt much cleaner. The obstacle here is that, especially when annotating PDFs, you might want to switch tools often. I switch between pen colors and highlighters all the time, which you cannot do without enabling the toolbar again. But, there's a solution for this— at least, with the Apple Pencil 2. Squeezing the Pencil triggers the tool selection, and after picking one it will automatically disappear again. I love this. I can keep the UI minimized, and still have quick access to my tools.

One thing, though, is that I wish I could change which tools are displayed here. Separately from the main toolbar. Because the things I need quick access to with my pen are different from which ones I'd look for in my toolbar at the top. Right now, they're one and the same. I hope in a future update we can have these separately.

And lastly regarding the UI, let's talk about the single best feature in Noteshelf: the back button. By far the most frustrating limitation of using PDFs is that the only back button we can implement into our planners is the one that takes you back to the menu. A PDF does not understand which page you were on before you clicked on a hyperlink. Which can be frustrating when you accidentally click on something, or if you just want to cycle between two different sections seamlessly. Noteshelf solves this problem, because in the bottom left corner there is a little button that takes you back to your previous page. And the one before that, and before that. And this way you don't have to scramble to remember which page you were just on. You can just go back with a single click. And this is honestly a lifesaver.

Now, for the tools themselves. Personally, I think the pens matter— especially if you would use this app for writing longer texts. But even for quick notes and reminders, you want the writing to look and feel good. In Noteshelf, there are three pens and one pencil. The first is the ball pen, which is my personal favorite. It kind of looks like a gel pen, and I tend to use it in colors like purple and blue which emphasize this effect. I use this pen for everything, and I really enjoy how it looks. The second one is a fountain pen, which, in my opinion, is not the best fountain pen tool there is. It's similar to the standard Apple fountain pen, the one in the Notes app, and it's not my favorite thing to use. It feels very sharp and digital to me. The last pen is the felt pen, which operates similarly to the ball pen. There's a very slight pressure sensitivity, and it's a bit crispier than the ball pen. The ball pen has soft edges, which I prefer, but I can definitely see other people using the felt pen instead. The pencil... I have never used the pencil. I don't mind how it looks, I think it's better than the standard one in the Notes app, but I just have no use for it.

The other tools, like the highlighter and the eraser, are all great. The highlighter has the option for both hard and soft edges (I like soft), and you can choose for it to automatically snap to a straight line whenever you use it. Which is very convenient, I wish the pens had this option too. And the eraser has many options as well, like only erasing the highlighter, or erasing an entire stroke.

Some more fun features in Noteshelf are the stickers and sticky notes. The sticky notes can be very useful, as they are collapsible and you can either write or type in them. I would have liked the icon for when it's collapsed to be a bit bigger, but it's fine as is. And there are quite a few cute variants! The stickers are also fun. The default ones are a bit lacking, but you can just install your own packs. I haven't looked into this much, but I imagine it's similar to how other apps do this. The fact that it's a feature at all is great for us planners, because stickers can really elevate the whole experience. Lastly, there is washi tape— which is not a feature I ever thought I needed but it's fun that it's there. It's another way to customize your planner, and that's always a plus for me.

In the app, there are also various templates to explore, like notebooks and planners. I've found the catalogue to be a bit lacking. And while it's fun to explore what there is to offer, I haven't actually found any templates that I would use regularly. Even the simple notebooks, I just don't tend to use them. I prefer our own templates. It's hard to articulate, but it just feels like there's something missing in the standard ones.

Overall, I think Noteshelf offers a good balance between customizability and simplicity. There are plenty of things the app has to offer, but you aren't overwhelmed by choices. You can easily use only the tools that matter to you, and ignore the rest. And I personally use the app for all my planners and notebooks on the iPad, even just purely because I like the way the ball pen looks. That alone can really elevate the experience for me. There are also plenty of other features that I didn't get into that might be useful to you— like the zoom box or audio recordings. So it might be worth taking a look yourself!