Field Note Taking with the iPad

iPad

Field note tak­ing can involve doc­u­ment­ing obser­va­tions or research with video, pho­tographs, audio, and writ­ing down obser­va­tions on a type of device or on a good old pen­cil and paper. The iPad has all these fea­tures built into it and there are apps out there that can access these fea­tures and keep all your notes in one place. The advan­tage of the iPad is that it’s portable and fairly easy to use. We decided to take a look at apps that will help with field note taking.

Two things we were look­ing for in the apps were that the app will attach a geolo­ca­tion to our notes and that the app eas­ily adds images, audio, and video (media) into out notes with­out hav­ing to leave that app. We found that not all note tak­ing apps attached a geolo­ca­tion to our notes, and some did not give us all the note tak­ing fea­tures we wanted, but these apps address most of the con­cerns of field note tak­ing and have been used in aca­d­e­mic cir­cles for this spe­cific pur­pose. One more thing you need to con­sider when using your iPad for tak­ing field notes, you may want to invest in a cel­lu­lar plan if you can not con­nect to wi-fi while doing your field research. It’s always best to shop around first and see what kind of deals you can get for a cel­lu­lar data plan for your iPad.

Nota­bil­ity (no Geolo­ca­tion for notes) $1.99: iTunes Link:

• Can type, hand write, erase, and high­light notes. Record audio and take pho­tos inside the app and insert them right inside your notes.
• Can draw fig­ures inside the app and insert them directly into your notes.
• Can take a clip from a web­site and directly insert it into your notes
• Can book­mark pages of notes
• Can send your notes to many dif­fer­ent ser­vices like Web­Dav, Drop­box, Google Drive, and Email (and attach the audio files too). You can send the notes as a PDF file.
• Can cre­ate stick­ies inside the app to place inside your notes.
• Adds date of the time and day it was cre­ated but can mod­ify the due date if you edit it after the date it was created.

Penul­ti­mate (No Geolo­ca­tion for Notes but Ever­note does)Free : iTunes Link:

• Auto Syncs with Evernote
• Sim­ple inter­face to insert pho­tos, either from your Cam­era Roll or take a pic­ture right inside the app using the iPad camera.
• Can write notes with your fin­ger or sty­lus. Erase hand­writ­ing eas­ily with swip­ing a fin­ger or stylus.
• Cut­ting and past­ing sec­tions of hand­writ­ten notes is easy
• Can search your hand­writ­ten notes inside Penul­ti­mate. (because just like Ever­note, it rec­og­nizes your handwriting).
• Lat­est date on the note­book is the date of the last edit to notebook.
• Note­books are locked when view­ing inside Ever­note, can’t edit the note info (like adding tags, loca­tion, etc.). Need to email from Penul­ti­mate to Ever­note and can then add loca­tion and tags.

Ever­note (Geolo­ca­tion) Free: iTunes link:

• Can access from web or iPad app (and other devices through the mobile Ever­note app)
• Adds geolo­ca­tion to notes
• Can add tags to notes for a way of label­ing your notes
• Can add audio to notes
• Can take pic­ture with cam­era or add image from cam­era roll in iPad
• Free but lim­its you how much con­tent upload­ing and sync­ing you can do in a month, can pay for more upload­ing quota
• Can add video to note (size limit for that). Can’t shoot video and add it to note right inside the app. (can drag and drop video in com­puter to the note).
• Can email the notes with images and audio.
• Can search notes (it will even rec­og­nize text in pic­tures and handwriting)
• No tool inside iPad app to write with styles or finger

GeoNoto (Geolo­ca­tion for Notes) Free: iTunes Link:

• Add points on a map by dragging
• Finds your cur­rent loca­tion using GPS
• Add text notes
• Add image using cam­era (only one image per point)
• Dates the notes but under the built in app event calendar
• Can’t add audio
• Only adds notes to where you’re cur­rently located.
• No fea­ture where you can export your notes out of the app

Field­Notes LT (Geolo­ca­tion for Notes) Free (Paid Ver­sion $8.99): iTunes Link:

• Add images based off of your loca­tion using GPS
• Can add audio and video but need to pur­chase the Pro app ($8.99)
• Dates the notes
• Can send the file as a Field­Note native file (which the recip­i­ents will have to pur­chase the import func­tion­al­ity to open the doc), Google Earth KMZ, Text and Zip File and Email.
• To save files as a PDF, out out­put to iTunes or Drop­box, you need the pro ver­sion to do that.
• No hand­writ­ing (with fin­ger or sty­lus) feature

As will all apps, you should always try them out to see if they work into your work­flow, address your needs, and check the reviews to see what other users’ expe­ri­ences have been with the apps. Happy field note taking!