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App Imp

Handwriting notes app.

11 apps · 4,239 reviews held · 1,663 negative · 2026-09-02 snapshot

The market’s shape

1.9star
How angry
39%
Negative reviews
48%
Room to enter
10 of 11
Willingness to pay

Mostly solved: ads. 9 of 10 apps run below the store’s typical rate on it, while 10 of 11 still carry sync & data complaints.

3 gaps.

Shares of this market’s 1,663 negative reviews.

Sync & dataextreme

10.5% vs 0.9% typical store-wide.

Counted in 174 reviews · 10 of 11 apps · 1.9star mean

What they said · 3 of 174
  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Sep 2, 2026

    Error loggining in from an iPad with an Apple account. — Error loggining in from an iPad with an Apple account. No login issues occurred on the iphone with the same account. When attempting to log in from Apple on the iPad, there is a long loading screen followed by an error. I really liked this app and used it for a 3 years, but now this problem really shocked me, if I didn’t had that app on my p

  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Aug 28, 2026

    Buggy sync — The app keeps saying that the sync fails and then I go check it manually and it looks fine, but literally every single time I open this app it says potential crashes my files might not have been able to sync. Developer bugs in the big 2026 is crazy.

  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Aug 25, 2026

    Deleted my notes — It signed me out and I signed back in and ALL my notes were deleted!!!

Named problems · 2
  • Sync fails between devices33 of 174
  • Everything gone at once28 of 174

Limits & capshigh

5.0% vs 1.9% typical store-wide.

Counted in 83 reviews · 9 of 11 apps · 2.4star mean

What they said · 3 of 83
  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Aug 29, 2026

    Bought the App now I have to pay a subscription? — I’ve been using this app for years, paid full price, and now I have to pay a subscription to use any of the features. Honestly feels like a scam. I recommended this app to a lot of people in the past too. All their responses to customers that complain about this is just the same copy paste bs. I really enjoyed the app when I used it, but unfortuna

  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Aug 25, 2026

    Deleted ALL my notebooks/documents — Deleted all of my documents, won’t let me redownload app without paying again WHAT? The yearly subscription for unlimited notebooks is very stupid, this app sucks and the developers are greedy. I wish I could give 0 stars.

  • Microsoft OneNote3star· Aug 20, 2026

    Poor implementation of access to photos — iOS gives developers better options than what OneNote appears to be using here. An app can present Apple’s private photo picker, where you can choose any photo at that moment without granting the app permanent access to your whole library. Many apps do exactly that. With Limited Access, an app can also provide a “Select More Photos” / “Manage Photos” butt

Performanceelevated

28.9% vs 16.3% typical store-wide.

Counted in 480 reviews · 11 of 11 apps · 2.3star mean

What they said · 3 of 480
  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Sep 2, 2026

    Error loggining in from an iPad with an Apple account. — Error loggining in from an iPad with an Apple account. No login issues occurred on the iphone with the same account. When attempting to log in from Apple on the iPad, there is a long loading screen followed by an error. I really liked this app and used it for a 3 years, but now this problem really shocked me, if I didn’t had that app on my p

  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Sep 1, 2026

    It’s not as good as before — I used to love this app, this was the only app that allowed me the freedom to draw and doodle on my first year of nursing school but now it’s too controlling, it doesn’t allow you to put a sticker anywhere nor drawing and it’s been glitching often. It’s so frustrating just navigating around this app

  • Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF1star· Aug 31, 2026

    Horrible to use on anything other than IPAD — Horrible syncing features across devices and so many glitches/ poor compatibility with macbook pro. Ultimately switching to another note taking app as it is more trouble/stress than it is worth.

Also counted

ThemeOf 1,663 negatives
  • Billing492 · 29.6% · 11 apps
  • Support128 · 7.7% · 10 apps
  • Login & auth86 · 5.2% · 10 apps
  • UX79 · 4.8% · 11 apps
  • Ads40 · 2.4% · 7 apps
  • Accuracy5 · 0.3% · 4 apps

The tick marks the store-typical rate. A review can mention more than one theme, so these sum past 100%.

Is anyone looking for this?

What Apple and Google complete after handwriting notes app, in their order.

Google
handwriting notes apphandwriting notes app for androidhandwriting notes app for windowshandwriting notes app for ipadhandwriting notes app freehandwriting notes app for android tablethandwriting notes app linuxhandwriting notes apple
App Store
ai notes takerai handwriting pen+ai handwriting to text makerai notes & voice recorderhandwritten notesai noteshandwritten notes widget, drawai notes free

Marked App Store phrases are searched, but no app in this market says them in its name.

Potential customers

People the apps here do not serve, and what they asked for.

  • Wants lesstoo many features 17 · just a basic one 9 · it used to be simpler 221
  • Shut out by device or contextMac 6 · iPad 515
  • Outgrown itbulk import 2 · bulk delete 26

Counted in 1 to 4 star reviews. The small numbers are how many reviews named each thing. What they wrote is in the free trial.

Who’s in it

All 11 apps counted in this market · 2026-09-02.

Installs are Google's own count, captured 2026-09-06. 3 of 11 apps have an Android listing we could match. A dash means we could not pair the two stores, not that the app is absent from Play.

What they charge, and what it costs them

Prices from Apple’s public pages; the share counts payment-mechanics language only.

AppMoney complaints
Noteshelf 3: AI Digital Notes$7.99–$49.99 · 10 tiers8% of 163
Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF$0–$35.99 · 8 tiers1.9% of 361
CollaNote: Notes & PDF Markup$6.95–$13.90 · 4 tiers1.7% of 178
Notability: AI Notes & Planner$5.99–$99.99 · 8 tiers1.5% of 394
Microsoft OneNote$9.99–$12.99 · 3 tiers0% of 233
MyScript Notes: AI Handwriting$1.99–$29.99 · 9 tiers0% of 126
Noteful: Notes & PDF Markup$6.99–$6.99 · 1 tiers0% of 33
Element Note$3.49–$14.99 · 3 tiers0% of 43
Feenote - Notes and lists$4.99–$19.99 · 6 tiers0% of 18
tatter$4.99–$4.99 · 1 tiers0% of 74

What each one owns, where each is exposed

Notability: AI Notes & Planner

Owns. Largest reach (451,656 ratings), audio sync, decade-long install base

Exposed. 69% negative share — highest in category; forced cloud migration deleted 300+ notes; retroactive paywall on lifetime buyers; crashes on every update

Goodnotes: AI Notes, Docs, PDF

Owns. 438,328 ratings, best Apple Pencil feel, whiteboard mode

Exposed. 59% negative share; notebook cap dropped to 3 free; billing via Paddle with no cancellation path; macOS lag widely reported

CollaNote: Notes & PDF Markup

Owns. 13,482 ratings, collaborative annotation, lowest IAP ceiling ($13.90)

Exposed. 45% negative; silent free-tier limit cuts mid-use; crashes block note access before lectures; support unresponsive

Noteshelf 3: AI Digital Notes

Owns. 6,012 ratings, richest IAP tier count (10 tiers, up to $49.99), physical notebook feel

Exposed. 51% negative; misrepresented yearly update promise; pricing described as bank-account-draining by 1-star reviewers

Noteful: Notes & PDF Markup

Owns. 22,799 ratings, 10% negative share — lowest anger in category, single clean IAP at $6.99

Exposed. Reach modest vs leaders; no clear sync story; limited mindshare despite cleanest satisfaction record

Penbook: Paper Planner & Notes

Owns. 44,769 ratings, planner aesthetic, IAP up to $49.99

Exposed. 35% negative; update wiped seven notebooks for users; no recovery path offered

The Deep Report on this market

Each rival’s exposed weakness, what not to build, and the call, argued from the same reviews counted above.

Read the Deep Report

Browse the apps behind these counts

Every app we count, with the complaint it runs furthest above the store’s typical rate.

Open the app library

Is there a market for a new handwriting notes app?

11 apps compete on this shelf, holding 4,239 App Store reviews. And the widest unfixed complaint, sync & data, runs in 10 of 11 of them at 10.5% of negative reviews against 0.9% typical. Those are counts, not a verdict. The page shows what is unfixed, not whether to build.

What do users complain about most in handwriting notes app?

1. Sync & data: in 10 of 11 apps, 10.5% of negative reviews; 2. Limits & caps: in 9 of 11 apps, 5% of negative reviews; 3. Performance: in 11 of 11 apps, 28.9% of negative reviews.

How many handwriting notes app reviews did App Imp count?

4,239 US App Store reviews across 11 apps, 1,663 of them negative. Counted on the 2026-09-02 snapshot, never estimated.

How markets are ranked

We give each market a mark out of 100 for seven things (nobody's fixed it 20 · above the norm 15 · how angry 10 · room to build 15 · room to enter 15 · getting bigger 20 · willingness to pay 5). Then we multiply the marks together. We do not average them.

Averaging lets a market hide one bad problem behind good numbers. Multiplying means one bad mark pulls the whole score down. That is the point. A market you cannot win is still a market you cannot win, however badly it is served.

Each mark has a fixed rule. Nobody’s fixed it and willingness to pay are plain shares. Above the norm maxes out at 4 times the store’s usual rate. How angry runs from star3.0 down to star1.5. Room to enter is what the biggest app does not own. Getting bigger hits 100 at 10% growth. Room to build is different. It is a sweet spot, not a size. A market can be too small to live on, or too big to break into.

If we cannot count something, we leave it out. We never guess it. The score only sorts this list. Every other number you see on a market is counted.

How this is counted

Every number is arithmetic over the reviews we hold, re-counted weekly: nothing modelled, nothing scored. Themes come from a frozen pattern classifier rather than a model reading reviews, so the same review always lands in the same bucket. A market rate is pooled across every app here; the store rate is the same count across 12,728 apps. A complaint is only called a gap when at least half the market carries it, at least 20 reviews are behind it, and the market’s rate is elevated above the store’s, the same cutoff used everywhere on this site, because a problem concentrated in one app is that app’s bug, and a problem every app on the store shares is nobody’s gap.