MarginNote 3

Ok, so this isn’t a perfect system but it’s incredibly useful. Navigation could use work when using the mindmap area. It’s still a little clunky and I only accidentally figured out if you hold the left click down it will turn into a hand and you can move it around. Would be great if there was a shortcut key (there may be?), but the developer deserves 5 stars for a stellarly useful and functional app. For the most part, it works wonderfully. I would love to incorporate OCR into the selection areas. There are a number of texts I’ve used that text selection doesn’t work (particularly titles) and I have to select it as an image, but then I can’t search for it later because it’s an image. I’ve resorted to just typing it out as a header, but then to create your own header and assign it to a section of a document isn’t simple (nor obvious how to do … I haven’t figured it out yet). But for it’s functionality it’s great and the developer keeps improving things. Finding the right video to watch for a tutorial is time consuming. Would recommend they improve that.

MarginNote app is one of the highest priced note-taking apps on the market, yet it restricts use to a single device. If you try to use it on a second device (as one does with these types of apps), it prompts you to pay another $50. Despite the features it boasts, it is absolutely not worth purchasing because cannot utilize said features effectively on an iPad/tablet alone (not appropriate for making use of mapping and flashcards, uploading docs/PDFs, etc); nor can you use it effectively on laptop/desktop alone (no point to a reader interface with Apple Pencil there). The purchase should be synced, but it’s not. This should have been made transparent prior to purchase. I would not have started with MarginNote had I known it would require me to spend at least $100 to properly use. No other note taking apps I’ve used has required multiple purchases like this. Additionally, I have contacted the developer multiple times about this issue to see if there was a chance I was missing something, and they have refused to respond. Given the fact that you are probably considering this app for work that is valuable to you, I would keep in mind that you could find yourself left with no technical support should something go wrong with it.

I’ve used 3 versions of MarginNote over the years, both on my iPads and Macs. A lot has changed, but a lot hasn’t. Each time a new version comes out, I wonder if I want to spend the money and research what else is out there. Maybe I find something interesting and try it, or maybe I don’t, but I always come back. There’s just nothing else that does what MN does. A lot of the other reviews cover why I look elsewhere from time to time... the app can be inexplicably weird or counter-intuitive or just a little bit off sometimes. I can often get it to do what I need, but not without frustration. Often times, where it fails are in standard UX practices that almost every other app follows, but MN chooses to ignore those and do things its own way. I’m not a student, so I’m not making flash cards or anything like that, but I do a lot of research. I really like the ability to add multiple documents to one project. I have one with at least a couple of dozen PDFs and epubs, not small ones either, and MN doesn’t complain. There are occasional sync issues, but I’ve gotten good at backing up and—knock on wood—haven’t lost anything yet. I think if you’re only using it one system, that won’t be a factor.