Penbook: Paper Planner & Notes

What people write about

Direction describes a theme in aggregate. An individual review may differ — select a theme to inspect its star profile and every text.

loading the rest of the reviews

1. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Content Deleted. All of my content was deleted that I’ve been storing for over a year

2. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

   It should be easier. This is the least intuitive app I’ve used. I want to like it. It works with the pencil very well. But selecting templates, creating custom notebook designs and working with PDFs either simply don’t work or the features are impossible to find. I paid for this, but it frustrates me every time I try to use it.

3. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   ⚠️ Journal Editing is Very Limited. Once you create your journal whether or not you use pdf to start it, you can't add more pdf files as new pages, nor can you delete pages once you make any new ones. Back to Goodnotes 😞 And I was really loving the simplicity of it

4. ★★★★★crashes, freezes and errors

   iCloud sync not working, & no way to manually sync?. I have loved this app for years—it’s so much more intuitive for me than its competitors, who all seem to focus much more on barely usable bells and whistles than the actual experience of writing in a notebook! However, for several months now, iCloud sync will not work between my devices. The app consistently displays a red cloud with an “x,” and tells me that iCloud has to be signed in and enabled for Penbook. I have checked my iCloud settings on both devices and it definitely is; other apps using iCloud sync are working just fine. The only solution I can find is to create a manual backup of the most current version, delete the app on the other device, and reinstall there with the manual backup. This is not a solution! I’d hoped a fresh install would solve the issue, but it has not, even when done on all devices, and I keep losing data—often several days worth or more at a time. As I said, I love this app in every other way, but until this is fixed, it is virtually unusable for me. There is no option within the app itself to adjust syncing settings that I can find. I would love to give this app 5 stars, but I just can’t. Please help!

5. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   One star. I hate because i could not even draw or write of my day idk why i buy it for nothing but i hate it!

6. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Terrible terrible. Terrible. Terrible. Not letting you do anything it is not letting me draw it’s not letting me do anything it’s not even letting me read anything and it says Burke Burke, Burke, Burke. It’s not even letting me draw and there is a pen on the cover.

7. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Asked me to review twice in first 30 mins. It’s a great app otherwise so far, I just rate anything that interrupts me to rate it one star cause developers should stop adding that if they want good reviews and not annoyed ones ❤️

8. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   HORRIBLE!. Whenever I try to write something down it just moves the page position! (°_°)

9. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

   Horrible. I t made me. Pay memberships

10. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Cloud sync is unreliable. I’ve been using this app for about a year or so and there’s really nothing like it (when it works). It is so great for my ADHD brain being able to have different notebooks for my different writing needs. I keep a payroll journal and my book writing notes, business ideas, and my investing notes and they’re all in their own notebook within the app. However I’ve had a couple times where the cloud sync stopped working and I didn’t realize it until I’d already lost some of my data. You can back it up to a file like its 1995 but if it’s already lost that doesn’t help. There’s no way to troubleshoot and get the cloud sync working. I did go ahead and do a backup and then deleted the app and reinstalled but I can’t figure out if it’s backing up to the cloud now. My app and my iPad are always all up-to-date so that’s not the issue. I also emailed customer support three days ago and still haven’t gotten a response. Disappointing because it’s such a great app otherwise. I paid for lifetime access bc I loved it so much. But I’m giving it one star until/if I hear from customer service. Will try to remember to update my review.

11. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Why DID I GET THIS. so, when i try to write in the book, IT DOESNT DO ANYTHING. I’m using an apple pencil and it wont work. my setting “only draw with apple pencil” is on, and my pencil is fully charged! Please fix this big!

12. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    NEWEST UPDATE RUINS IT!!!!. This used to be a great app. They have a community page that the developers USED TO actually reply to questions and seemed like they cared. The newest update has so many glitches and the developers stopped responding to their community page. I’m not sure what happened!!!!!

13. ★★★★★data, history or progress disappears

    I LOST 2 Years Worth of work. I Friggin hate this app, it’s laggy, glitchy and I need to get my stuff back, Horrible do NOT download. Truly a waste of time. The new update erased EVERYTHING.

14. ★★★★★an update broke a familiar workflow

    Lost everything. After the new update I lost seven notebooks worth of notes. Literally all of my notes are gone. The new update not only looks ugly but is also super impractical and the app is completely unusable now. I used this app for years but will be deleting it. Its sad to see the only good note taking app turn into trash.

15. ★★★★★crashes, freezes and errors

    Not working since “update”. This app WAS great. Since the latest update, I can’t create a new notebook. When I try, the app just crashes. Every time. Please fix this.

16. ★★★★★a needed feature is missing

    Lost everything with “update”. The latest upgrade has lost all of my important information and I can no longer use the app on my iPad. I had to delete the app and reinstall it, I can get into the app but only for a very short period before it closes itself out. When I do initially open it, there is no option to “restore purchases” or to login. Only options are to buy a plan. I had everything in there, calendars, important information I needed access to recently, passwords, This has been completely devastating! I can open the app on my iPhone, but the cloud did not save anything from the past year or so… :( I guess, lesson learned! Going back to hard book organizers and notebooks! Pen and paper !

17. ★★★★★subscription and paid restrictions

    Looks like a 5star app but. I need to be able to try it. I understand you work hard at your app you deserve to be paid, but I can’t even try writing one page without paying. I can get a free week if I sign for a year. In the prices there are options for unlock, 1 week, 2 months, 6 months but in reality I am only getting one yr option and not even get a trial to see if this is what I need.

18. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    This app is super glitchy.. There are too many issues that hinder work flow. For example, on the M2 iPad 13 inch, share NEVER works. There are no sharing options. Just a blank box. Then pdf templates do not populate correctly. Meaning you write on the pdf, then later the writing is all moved. This is incredibly frustrating to use and wastes so much time.

19. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    You have too pay. It’s way too much money and it really is ant worth it

20. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Unusable. The app doesn’t even fit my phone screen and I can’t see anything that I’m doing in the app. Basically unusable.

21. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Awful app.. No comment.

22. ★★★★★crashes, freezes and errors

    App stopped working. Deleted, redownloaded, never opens again

23. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Why?. But still why does it make you “purchase”(not ACTUALLY purchase) the free version??? Also VERY glitchy (I can’t even make a notebook)!!

24. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Penbook. At first you are excited to get started but then I found out that it’s not free. It’s $2.50 a month!!! I wouldn’t get if I were you it’s just a waste of time and money

25. ★★★★★desktop is the workshop, phone is the display case

    I lost everything. I am on the free version of the app, and i have been using the app for the last few months. I use it to take notes for all my university classes and my internships, i was trying to access my notes today, and nothing is here, they are saying that the shelf is empty. I had 2 semesters and an internship worth of notes and now i have nothing, i will fail because now i have no notes to use for my studies, i am never one to give bad reviews but if i could i would give you a minus 10 for the inconvenience. I am so mad right now i can’t even begin to explain it.

26. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Great except it deletes my pages. I love this app except once I am done with about half of a page. It will just delete it and it’s gone. I don’t know how to fix this. Very disappointed.

27. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Bruh. How do I use this app

28. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Eh. Pretty boring

29. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    It’s horrible. It’s very difficult to use and I’ve wasted too much time trying to navigate it and get it to do what I want I could’ve been learning.

30. ★★★★★negative experience without a specific reason· unspecific

    Telling the truth. This is a horrible app