Pencora vs Apple Notes

Apple Notes is free, built in, and can even paste text in your handwriting. Pencora takes the page further: whole documents in your hand — in Russian too — real graphs and geometry, an infinite board, and PDFs that turn back into ink.

Where Pencora is ahead of Apple Notes

Pencora compared with Apple Notes
Feature Pencora Apple Notes
Typed text in your handwriting
YesTeach it your letters once, then type or paste a whole Markdown document — lists, formulas — and it’s written in your own hand. Russian and English, on the iPad
PartlyPaste as Handwriting writes pasted text in your style — Russian isn’t among its listed languages
Graphs on the page
YesFunctions, implicit curves, points and tables — typed, imported from CSV or read from a hand-drawn table; ink on the plane sticks to its coordinates
PartlyMath Notes graphs equations of the form y = f(x) — no implicit curves
Geometry constructions
YesBisectors, perpendiculars, tangents, reflections, triangle centres — drag a point and everything built on it follows, in real millimetres
NoA ruler and shape snapping — no constructions
PDFs from other apps
YesHandwriting comes in as real, editable strokes on the right paper — lasso, recolour or erase any of it
NoA PDF is an attachment you mark up
Infinite board
YesAn endless canvas with a minimap behind every notebook
NoA note scrolls down; the infinite canvas is a separate app, Freeform
Paper
YesLined, grid, dotted and more — or any PDF page as your paper
PartlyA fixed set of lines and grids

Moving over from Apple Notes

  1. In Apple Notes, export each note as a PDF (Share → Export as PDF).
  2. Open the PDF with Pencora — from the Share sheet, or with Import inside a notebook — and choose to bring it in as editable ink.
  3. Pencora detects the paper ruling and turns the handwriting into real strokes, page by page. Long notebooks open at once and finish converting as you go.

Other comparisons

Compared with what Apple Notes says about itself on its own website and App Store page, checked September 2026. Apps change — if something here is out of date, tell me and I’ll fix it. Apple Notes is a trademark of its owner; Pencora is not affiliated with or endorsed by it.