I am a physicists (theory), and about a third of my work is “pencil and paper” calculations (and related notes) on the iPad Pro. I use it professionally ~20 hours per week.
May I ask if they are direct paper to screen transfers, or if there are specific features/apps that add extra value? I do a lot of work in (paper) engineering notebooks, and I'm curious about what improvements your workflow has.
I ~exclusively use ZoomNotes, which is very customizable but is quirky and comes with a steep learning curve.
For me the main benefits of the tablet are:
- Copy/paste/drag. Pretty helpful when you manipulate long expressions, or want to condense a bunch of scratch work.
- Relatedly: easy erase. When I used real paper, pencil was too low contrast, and “erasable pen” never worked well. So I used a real pen and just crossed tons of stuff out; ugly.
- Keep a decade of notes with me wherever I go. (And cloud backed up so I won’t lose them.)
- Infinite zoom and no page boundaries. Seems silly, but it’s really nice to write as big as I want without worrying about running out of room on the page.
- Text search of handwritten notes. Works surprisingly well.
- Easily switch to different colors. 99% of the time I only use 2 or 3, but I find it helpful to visual distinguish the main argument/computation from “side commentary”.
Undo is one thing you get used to very quickly. Copy paste, select and move, change colors, erase without a trace... digital handwriting has a lot to offer.
However, the app ecosystem is lacking in terms of interoperability, feature completeness within one app and export/import capabilities, and there is nothing you can do about it in iPadOS. File management is pure pain unless you fully bought into Apple already.
It's very nice for brainstorming and making transient personal illustrations while learning and working through technical problems, but you won't get the feel and certainty of a physical notebook as an institution for persistent notes.
The iPad is way too expensive for what it has to offer, in practice.
That said, without its artificial limitations it would be the last computing device you'll ever need. It could be everything.
Strong agree with the first two paragraphs. I have spent >10 working hours per week for past 4 years with an app I paid $7 for. I wish so much I could pay $7,000 for an improved version.
Disagree on permanence. My notes are useful for much longer when they can be electronically sorted, searched, backed up, and when they take up no additional space in my backpack.
Which doesn't mean parent is wrong. You can do any work on non-ideal equipment and be happy with it for various reasons.
When I saw what one of my ex was using (bio chemist growing various stuff and testing treatments to rare sickle cell anemia that pharma didn't care about due to low patient count), it was very subpar and inefficient but she was happy with it and got results nevertheless eventually. Some of her work I could make more efficient by 10x, some by 50x maybe, but ie she as hardcore unix person just plainly refused to use MS Excel and all its statistics power, to pick a random example (there were quite a few).
Not saying this is your case of course, but oh boy do small screens, limited browsers, limited power and storage speed etc. do have negative effect on work itself, mental flow, staying focused etc. There is a reason not only we IT guys want powerful machines and massive screens, it ain't just chasing shiny higher numbers.
