[tomsem]

While reading mode doesn't need the Writing toolbar in reading mode, clearly they decided it's more important to have Consistency. So it's visible by default. Maybe the first time you open a book, they could have a little info box that tells you that you can hide it, and where to find this option.

And I've noticed another difference between adding Note with Tap vs using Long press: Long press doesn't do anything unless there's some object to tap on (a word or image or table). But Tap just randomly chooses a nearby target instead of doing nothing. It would probably be better if it also did nothing, and cancelled Place note mode, since the user has failed to identify a target for the Note. And with reflowable content, it won't do to allow Notes in white space, since it's not clear how you'd create a reference that would preserve that location (reflow the doc and it could wind up on the other side of the page etc.

Currently the imported, converted PDF documents don't have any targets (i.e. words) to attach Note to because of Scribe's failure to read in the text layer (when it has one). So you can place a Note anywhere. Presumably when that's fixed, you'll again be able to Long press to select a word as target, and it'll figure out when initiating Note from the toolbar, Tap handler will figure out whether you tapped a word and snap the icon to the appropriate place, or if not assume you want to anchor it to the coordinate you tapped (on top of an image or in white space).