Pencil Planner & Calendar Pro

I had been using Penultimate many years as a digital calendar. But it didn’t sync to my actual calendar. Forcing me to duplicate/write in my scheduled appts. That being said, I loved being able to hand write my tasks, markings for in process, doodles, etc. Knowing that technology probably caught up over the years, I went in search for new options. Pencil Planner V1 is the best of both worlds to me. And has functionality that adds more “diary” features as well which I like. It is a modern digital version of the old day planners, for those that remember those. V2 converts handwriting to text for tasks and doesn’t allow for personal handwritten markings etc. within that space. I find this inconvenient albeit neater. It also appears to lack the diary features. I found myself not using this on the daily because it wasn’t allowing me to capture what I wanted and how I wanted it. V1 has more ability to write in a form that matches how your brain processes and functions. This creates stickiness for memory. It also induces more personal order. PLEASE Don’t get rid of V1!!!

The concept is exactly what I was aiming for when I was trying to find a paper planner style planer for my iPad. It’s integration with the Calendar app and Reminders app is exactly what I was hoping for, and I like that the notes are able to link to the individual events or to a particular day. However, it does not seem that it has had any updates since 2022 and the list of features and updates has not been updated in several years which worries me with regard to support and whether or not this is going to be a maintained application in the future. A feature that would be really nice and I was hoping for would be the ability to either export notes using the share sheet or even better having the notes in this app synchronize with the Notes app just like it does with the Calendar and Reminders app that would be a superb option which would allow the notes that are created outside of this app to be linked as well and also accessible outside of this app on other devices. I am hopeful that the developer is still working on implementing some of the features listed on the website and I understand that it can take a long time to develop some features so I am not assuming that they are not coming. I just would like to see them sooner so that this can be more useful as a one stop planning application that would justify the subscription cost.

I downloaded this app about a week and a half ago. I first downloaded it to my iPad. It linked my calendars and I was able to write notes on the individual days which is exactly what I wanted to be able to do. I then downloaded the app on my phone and signed in with my account. Everything transferred over that I had entered up to that point. However, I have made changes since then on my iPad and the new info that I put in my iPad won’t update on my phone. I’ve done all of the trouble shooting tips, refreshed the app, closed out the phone and iPad m, restated, even uninstalled the app and reinstalled it. When I signed back in after reinstalling the app on my phone it still only shows the info that had been input at the time I had originally installed the app on my phone. It still won’t update. It’s been over a week. I tried reaching out to the support email within my free trial period and am still waiting for a response. I give this app 2 stars because I really like the design of linking to my calendars and being able to write on it but if it will only work on my iPad and not update to my phone then it’s pointless for me to have this app and I would have cancelled it before the free trial. I’m hoping the app support group will eventually have a solution to fix this at which point I could update my review. Not sure how long their typical response time is for getting back to emails but it’s been over a week so far with no response.