I've been playing around in the Nebo App to try to get myself away from writing fic ideas in multiple physical notebooks 😅 I wanted to write some of my personal pros and cons about the app, in case other people were thinking about trying it out.
(Might be worth mentioning that the iPad Pro I'm using is primarily for doodling, so I use Procreate. The only other writing/note-taking app I've tried out has been Penbook.)
Pros:
+ It's free to download from the Apple App Store to try out.
+ The real time conversion! Getting to see what I write in (legible) text and having the option to convert it later is great. And sometimes I prefer reading the conversion preview to my own handwriting.
+ Gestures! Scribbling to erase words helps cut down the back-and-forth of needing to tap the eraser tool.
+ Multi-language support! Nebo itself supports over 60 languages, and if you set a notebook in a different language, it will still be able to convert English plus the chosen language. (I'm assuming this is based off of the device's language setting, so I think a combo like Spanish & Korean, for example, would be possible? That's a question for the developers!)
Cons:
- The language settings can't be changed once you create a notebook, which isn't bad but if you're trying the free app you'll either have to delete the notebook you're using to change languages or buy the app (^)
- Pages (standard & Freeform) are only white. Which isn't *bad* but having colored pages or a dark mode would be nice for when I'm writing in the evening. (Using the highlighter on a Freeform page to color the background could be helpful, though.)
- There aren't any other templates/layouts aside from ruled lines for Pages and grid lines for Freeform Pages. (...As far as I can tell? I haven't found an option to change the layout, yet.)
- The lack of (certain) iPad gestures, like 2-finger undo & 3-finger re-do. Granted this is coming from me, who's used to Procreate's gestures, and the surprise that I could do the undo gesture on Penbook.
- Can't seamlessly write over images when writing from the page (on the standard Pages). You either need to write on the page or on the image, or else the app will give you a warning: "Please write further from the nearby objects". (Freeform pages don't care, lol.)
- (^) I purchased it for ~7.99$ USD to unlock all of the features. It looks like the price ranges from 11.99$~9.99$ depending on the store and if there are sales.
Features I'd Like to See:
* An option for finger gestures, or a 'use finger as eraser' setting to use a rubber tip stylus as an eraser.
* More layout styles, 'cause who doesn't like the availability of variety.
** I haven't tried to import a PDF to use as a template, though, so that might be a work around.
update (Aug 24th): I took a screenshot of a layout from Penbook and imported that into Nebo! It defaults the page type to Freeform.
(●ˇ∀ˇ●) I'll update this as I discover more features and capabilities of Nebo! Thanks for taking the time to read this!
