We already have a thread about
handwritten notes on the iPad, but I'd also like to discuss my other obsession: note-taking, as in typed notes, which iPad or iPhone apps are best to type and organize them. I seem to buy one app a week in this category, I can't stop myself.
I'll start with my favorite app and try to post more on other apps later. Do feel free to give your input, but please give some details about the apps you like or don't like. Different people will have very different needs, so it's not very useful to just drop names.
NOTEBOOKS
(Not to be confused with Notebook, which I haven't tried - will post the links tonight from home because the firewall at work won't let me access them).
This is the app I keep coming back to. It's not perfect but it has what I need most, and I like its interface (though I liked it more before the latest upgrade), it's clean-looking and efficient.
The principle is very simple, you create folders (called books) and notes. You can create books and notes at any level, meaning you can have books within books, you are not limited to one hierarchy level. You can mark a book as a task-list, in which case each note inside the book is a task with a due date (or not) and a status (not started, in progress, done, cancelled). Having to put all your tasks in a dedicated task-list folder is not a very flexible system, but I can live with it. Task management is a necessary functionality for me but I can live with the basic stuff. Notebooks doesn't have the most refined functions such as repeating tasks. For these I use Priorities.
The big selling point for me, besides the clean interface, is the fact that in addition to notes, you can also include other documents in your books: pdf files, images, office files (xls, doc) and even web pages, although this doesn't always work perfectly especially if you choose to import the page for off-line viewing. There are very few other apps that can store attachments like this, in fact the only one I'm aware of is Next!, which doesn't suit me because it's more oriented toward task management and less toward note taking. The limitations of iOS make it extremely useful to be able to organize all the documents related to a project in one place. Goodreader can do this too (without the note-taking capability though) but, as much as I like Goodreader for its extensive file management possibilities, the interface is not very comfortable.
Notebooks, as I said, is not perfect. Its main weakness is cross-device management of notes. First, you need to pay separately for the iPhone and iPad versions. Second, the sync function, which works via dropbox, well, doesn't work all that well if you have several devices, especially (I think) if you update your data while the device is off-line. I ended up removing the app from my iPhone and using it exclusively on the iPad because of this. On the other hand, the nice thing about the dropbox sync is that it's all done through standard file formats, so that you can always display your notes (in txt format) and documents from anywhere you can access your dropbox account. I even managed to "sideload" documents by uploading them to the dropbox folder corresponding to the book I wanted them in. So this app works great if you have one iDevice and occasionally want to access your data from the Net, but not so good if you need to keep several iDevices in sync.
Another not-so-perfect thing is the stability. I have noticed a few crashes lately, though it's not a huge problem so far as I have not lost any data.
ETA links:
Notebooks for iPad
Notebooks for iPhone