Phatpad App Reviews

The interface is clunky, the Evernote "compatibility" is just an unusable PDF export… but worst of all, the handwriting recognition is next to worthless. I'm trying to get my money back from iTunes.

I can't get it to recognize my handwriting, I always get garbled conversions. I have very nice writing, btw. Maybe if I printed, instead of wrote, but I'm looking for something that I can just jot quick notes, maybe write out long paragraphs too. Seriously disappointed that I spent money on this. I have a smart stylus that it paired to nicely, but it didn't help with the handwriting recognition. I can't say "don't buy this" but it certainly doesn't work for me.

Would be a perfect app if it had the ability to create templates and export to a desktop version.

This app would be perfect if it had bulleted lists where a wrapped sentence aligns with the first letter of the sentence. Please add this very important bulleted list feature since it is very important for clean looking notes. Also, please add the ability to rotate text. This is useful when you draw something like a map and need to make the text rotate in a slant or vertical position. Please also allow the user to stop a recording and then insert a new recording or continue the recording. Right now, if one stops the recording, you cannot continue recording more audio. Also, please make the recording box less obvious and screen real estate hogging.

The general organization of the PhatPad is good, but there are two problems if your goal is to write a document and have the handwriting converted to text. First it is set up to write a while and then convert it to text. You cannot keep writing and generating a long continuous text. Second, perhaps it is my handwriting, but the accuracy was not very good. It seems to me that with a few changes, it could eventually become a really useful App.

No matter how many times I try.

I have been using this app for client meetings for about 5 months and I have had no issues. I recently updated the App and now it does not open. This needs to be fixed! I have work sensitive data that I rely on.

It was a great aplication until the last update. It not posible to coppy from photo manager pro and past the photos in the aplication. You cant insert pictures from other photo aplications . Just photos . Its a waist of time

There aren't many apps I will pay for but took a chance on this. There is a lot of work that needs to be done on this before it is marketable. First, it flipped my photos when I tried to email my work. Also the prompts don't respond very well at all. The handwriting recognition isn't perfect, but those imperfections are more forgiveable. Please don't sell an app until you have it pretty perfect. The tutorial isn't the easiest to follow either.

Great recognition but crashes when I try to open phatpad options

This app is not stable, you will experience crashes very often with the risk of loosing your work.

This just collapsed after the latest update. Can somebody please look at it as I do have documents I need to access and it just won't go beyond the logo on the screen!

I had planned to use this app mainly for writing notes. However, it doesn't register the difference between my wrist and the stylus, so I get lines all over. It is also not doing the best at character recognition.

Not very convenient or easy to use, not worth the. $$$ or messing with.

Is a fun way to pass the time, vandalize friends pictures, and actually make some pretty cool art designs. The set-up was a tad confusing at first because I didn't read the tutorial (which was rather nicely laid out and not at all composed of horrible tiny black text, but instead color and pictures)but slowly unfolding all the attributes was actually kind of fun! I like that bold colors are set as the default, but are changeable. Since there are 5 options, I can create 5 specific colors and alternate between them without the stress of having to recreate the same color to the exact shade (which nobody likes). AND THERE ARE SO MANY TOOLS. I can add pictures, and give them funny caption and screen shot them and send them to friends. Or put a nice mustache on my face for a new Facebook profile picture :) I can even make presentations!!! What the heck?! So awesome. I would highly recommend

Update: After more than a month of trying to work with this app and have it learn my writing, it is still slow and very tedious. I could write down notes and type them up much faster than using this app. I tried a different handwriting conversion app and it was remarkable how smooth and easy to use it was in contrast to phat pad. Original:The ability to write out a section of notes and convert to text is useful, however the learning is slow and the app is missing a few helpful features A few suggestions to make it better: Add a bullet point symbol Allow user to set custom gestures or handwritten symbols for letters or word shortcuts Add a practice set of sentences to the help section to speed up the process of learning the user's handwriting

It's a good idea but not there yet. Hand writing recognition is not there and folder organization is clunky. Not worth $4.99. In my opinion you can get better for $0.99.

So happy to find this app! It works great!

Not bad character recognition. Needs more features. The ability to import PDFs would be nice.

This is a very intuitive application, with an uncluttered interface, and a straightforward purpose. It provides the convenience of a good old-fashioned paper pad, with the added functionality of shape recognition, handwriting recognition, and the ability to enter text via keyboard. Add to this the ability to create numerous "pads" to help keep information organized ... You get a powerful and simple way to take notes and create presentations from a single app. I particularly appreciate the fact that the developers did not cram in unnecessary features… Highly recommended…

I have only tried a single simple example on PhatPad, but it works fine for me. I think the reason it works fr me is that my noisier is NOT an upgrade, but a firsttime download. I noticed that the instructions have a sort of footnote saying that earlier downloads must be deleted before the new version is downloaded. The system seems very powerful to me and I look forward to using it. Near the end of the excellent tutorial mention is made of making an unattended presentation by Syncing with a voice recording. What's that about?

This keeps getting better and I'm starting to favor it. Has improved text smoothing. The HWR could be even better (see Script Memo). BTW, eraser not needed because you can make an erase gesture that works beautifully (horiz back & forth 3 times). Very good Dropbox sync. This app just "feels" right.

It says good HWR but it is horrible. My handwriting is a bit bad but anyone can read it better than this. MyMemo was free and has MUCH better HWR. Definitely not recommended.

This app has a LOT to recommend it, but in my opinion, it has a FATAL flaw that renders it nearly valueless. If you accidentally erase something, or if you realize "Oops! I didn't mean to do that," it's too bad . There is no UNDO command. I don't know about you, but I make mistakes that I need to fix from time to time.

Keep crashing when insert text. One start until it is fixed.

Since I take handwritten notes extensively, I have pretty much downloaded them ALL, and still end up going back to Noteshelf again and again. Periodically, I try out the other ones in the hopes that recent updates added new features which would make them more useful for me and more of a competition to Noteshelf. Today, I tried out PhatPad again, and the rift between it and Noteshelf is even bigger. (I am looking for alternatives to NS because it is getting very very slow, the more folders I have add to it, and because I would love to have handwriting recognition like I used to have it on the old Pocket PCs.) I tried to import a picture from my Camera Roll, and the image is completely distorted, with a big "phat" black bar on the right of it. Maybe it's because I am using the iPad in portrait mode and the picture was in portrait mode?! I tried it with a different image, and the exact same thing happened. Then, I tried out the handwriting recognition, which is the one thing Phatpad has over any other handwriting app and the reason why I bought it in the first place. For the life of me I could not figure out how to make the app turn the handwriting to typed text. This should be self-explanatory! There is a very good and long user guide that you can read, but being that I use so many apps on my iPad, I really don't have the patience to read though a user guide for functions that should be obvious. I gave up after page 8... Could you maybe create a one-pager instead, like other apps do? I feel that Phatpad has a lot of potential and hope that it will have a less clunky interface in the future. Handwriing recognition sets it apart from other note taking apps, so create a button right in the top bar for this function. Because, to me, that's really your selling point!!! Also, it is now pretty much standard and expected that you can go to teh next/previous page by touching the right/left lower corner of the page. That would free up space in the top menu bar for more important functions - just an idea. Positive addition: the handwriting strokes are now smoother- I would defintely update the user guide with newer screenshots. This review is based on the use on my 3rd gen iPad.

Please fix!

I have tried a number of systems for taking notes and all have fallen far short of being truly viable replacements for the old "paper pad and pen." I'm not sure, yet, if PhatPad will enable me to completely go "paperless," but it's coming closer than anything I've tried to date. Here are the software's stronger points, in my opinion: 1) It recognizes my handwriting! This is a feat which befuddles most humans, so how the software does it is beyond me. (Full disclosure: I use a stylus I picked up at a local Walgreens for $5.) 2) You are not restricted to just writing letters, numbers, etc.: you can draw shapes as well. 3) If you're in a real hurry and just want to bypass writing in the recognition panel which pops up at the bottom of the screen, you can scratch a note right on the drawing area. Once your note is "drawn," you can use the lasso tool to select it and manipulate it as you would any other drawing, but, in addition, you can select a "convert to text option" and PhatPad will make a respectable attempt to turn it into machine-readable text and place it into a text box for further manipulation. 4) Its pdf export routine has a ''quick preview" function and uploads easily to Google Drive.

I searched a number of apps looking for one that works well with Evernote, and this is it. Many can email a note or sync, but opening your note into Evernote is handled by a very few. This is a nice feature when wifi is not available but you want to get your note into Evernote immediately. If you choose to sync, with PhatPad it is done with as few a steps as possible. The audio feature works great, and you can listen to the playback directly in Evernote. This app is just ideal!

Every time I start the app, I see the splash screen, and nothing else. I killed the app, restarted iPad... Nothing works. Running on iPad 2 , latest version iOS This was not a cheap app, please fix

In my opinion, PhatPad does not work as well as the newer PhatWare apps do, and it needs to be updated for the current operating system. In particular, the handwriting recognition engine does not work as well as the ones on WritePad or Penquills. I happen to have good, clear, simple printing and handwriting. I find that on PhatPad, the handwriting recognition works fairly well when one is printing but is not useful if one uses cursive. I have better luck with cursive on Write Pad.

It is not productive for note taking or script to text writing. Hard to navigate. Difficult to erase. Doesn't recognize handwritten text well. About a 30% recognition rate. Must hit return after every word or two depending on the length of the word to convert to text.

I absolutely love this app! I use it everyday at work. And I have had several fellow employees ask me, "What app is that? That is so cool!" I have had to adapt my writing style just a bit. But, overall, I am very satisfied with this app.

This program works as promised. Love it. This program cannot be purchased through the Volume Purchase Program of the iTunes store so it isn't easy to deploy to the business users.

Two times I have lost over an hour of notes because the save feature did not work. That is TOTALLY unacceptable

I tried both Phatpad and WritePad on my iPad to do handwriting recognition. WritePad is more basic and I end up using it more often because most of the time I want to generate simple written text files, and writePad is the best suited for this task. Phatpad is for the people that want the ability to draw freestyle and incorporate handwritten text for input. I use this app when I take notes on my iPad during presentations, because invariably, some concepts require drawing. I like the voice record feature too. I'd prefer if we could create multiple recordings per file and manipulate them in the document. When I take notes I'm in the habit of recording as well as writing just in case I miss something.

HWR works great for my needs. The only feature missing that is keeping me from giving it 5 stars is the ability to import and mark up PDFs. Other than that, an amazing app!! Thanks!

I like this app but you have to go through too many menus to work rapidly off the cuff. It is ideal for the mini-iPad though.

HWR is not as good as myscript engine, around 70% correct, and it is hard to input text, (select, draw, click then write). Not recommended

As an added bonus this app can add a handwriting keyboard so you can add handwriting recognition to any app. I wrote this review with this app's keyboard and cheap stylus.

The most annoying part of this software is the periodic crashes that occur every 2-3 minutes when in use.

I use it every day as my presentation app connected to my projector. I especially like that I can use every color of the rainbow and the page duplication feature saves me so much time! I used Educreations until they got greedy and started charging two arms and a leg. This app is ten times better anyway.

Not a bad. OCR is the best I've seen. Not perfect but useful if your willing to alter your handwriting a bit. I find the pen tool is still best when I want to get ideas down quickly but when I'm not pressed for time the text tool is very useful. The sound annotation is great as is the ability to create multiple documents. This could easily take the place of my sketch pad if it only it had a true eraser. The erase gesture is clumsy at best. If they can refine the OCR a little more and add an eraser I'd give it a fifth star.

This note taking and annotation app has a number of excellent features not available on other apps, such an OCR Engine that is quite flexible and gesture shortcuts. Text is box orriented rather than page oriented. These boxes can be moved about on the page and can even be layered! There is access to a huge varriety of adjustable fonts. Ink can be written or drawn anywhere on the page, even on top of inserted pictures. Handwritten text can be OCR recognized at a later time. There is a large library of clipart included that can be downloaded and used. There are a variety of inputs and outputs to the app that are quite flexible, including cloud service in and out and pdf out that can be open in other apps. Audio notes can be added. There will be a learning curve to the many features and options available, but if you like to have more tools and settings at your disposal, you will like this app!

This is by far the best note taking app with hand wiring recognition. I only need to take notes once, and when I am done with my meetings, the notes are already in proper format and I can fire them up to my clients. As a note taking app, all the basics are there, but i would work on the user experience to make this app more easy to use.

This app combines all of the best features of the other notebook and handwriting apps. Shape recognition, excellent Handwriting and drop box. The only thing I'd really like is an eraser.

Just this new version, I'm sure it will be quickly fixed.

This app is terrible, needs allot of updating, not worth the money if you re looking or a good note taking app you should try notability. Don't make the mistake I did say your money.

Classic case of trying to put too many features into what should be a simple app. Is anyone really going to build a full on presentation using phatpad? I would have greatly preferred it if they had simply made it easy to take notes and organize them in folders. Way too cumbersome interface in my opinion. UPDATE: Don't do the June 5 update. Did it and now the app won't launch.