3 ms·

"iPads still fail pretty hard at being useful during math class." I know a couple of people who take notes on their iPads during math talks, they use what Gabe

"iPads still fail pretty hard at being useful during math class." I know a couple of people who take notes on their iPads during math talks, they use what Gabe called an ?eraser tip? capacitive touch stylus and an app that shows you your actual size notes above and has a zoned in box at the bottom where you wrote big. I've tried a similar setup on my Nexus 7 and found it pretty comfortable, I imagine on the larger iPad it's even better.

vxNsr 14y ago
I imagine the issue is brush lag. because it's not a built-in digitizer it down't work as quickly as the surface, there have been a number of tests corroborating this, Gabe actually alludes to this in his review when he says "There was no brush lag at all and the pressure sensitivity worked perfectly." there is essentially no brush sensitivity with an ipad (though I doubt you really need it in math notes) and from my limited use (of friends ipad+pen setups) you kinda have to force the pen against the screen to ensure it always writes... in a head to head competition the surface would win in note-taking though the ipad might win for the price....
- jessriedel 14y ago
  I mildly disagree about the brush sensitivity for mathematics. I write a lot of math notes in the margins of academic papers, and single line thickness on a display is annoying and makes the math less readable.
devcpp 14y ago
Why would you go through that when paper is much more comfortable to write on?
- DeepDuh 14y ago
  Isn't it obvious? When you have your stuff stored digitally it (a) takes care of the organizational aspects of note taking and (b) makes notes reusable. The payoff as a student is exam prep: Now you sit at a powerful desktop computer with, say, 2x 21 inch screen estate at your disposal. You have a file explorer, a layout document editor (I use Pages and/or Keynote for this) and a good pdf viewer open (with your exported notes). Now it's a matter of copy & pasting all the information from your notes, the official class notes, literature, etc. onto your layout document which then becomes your summary. This is of course doable by hand but it's a lot more work and it's not as easy to extend it - you can't just make room for new information on a full piece of paper (and summaries, especially the ones you can take to exams, tend to be very full).
10char 14y ago
Bigger problem is that I can't rest my hand on the screen while writing like I would on an actual notebook. There are some apps that try to filter it out but (in my anecdotal experience) they still miss enough to make it not worth the effort. Writing towards the bottom might alleviate that but it's still like a hack around the fact that natural handwriting on capacitive screens is difficult.
- mkeung 14y ago
  I have a thin glove I wear...looks odd but I can rest my hand all I want

vxNsr 14y ago

I imagine the issue is brush lag. because it's not a built-in digitizer it down't work as quickly as the surface, there have been a number of tests corroborating this, Gabe actually alludes to this in his review when he says "There was no brush lag at all and the pressure sensitivity worked perfectly." there is essentially no brush sensitivity with an ipad (though I doubt you really need it in math notes) and from my limited use (of friends ipad+pen setups) you kinda have to force the pen against the screen to ensure it always writes... in a head to head competition the surface would win in note-taking though the ipad might win for the price....

jessriedel 14y ago
I mildly disagree about the brush sensitivity for mathematics. I write a lot of math notes in the margins of academic papers, and single line thickness on a display is annoying and makes the math less readable.

devcpp 14y ago

Why would you go through that when paper is much more comfortable to write on?

DeepDuh 14y ago
Isn't it obvious? When you have your stuff stored digitally it (a) takes care of the organizational aspects of note taking and (b) makes notes reusable. The payoff as a student is exam prep: Now you sit at a powerful desktop computer with, say, 2x 21 inch screen estate at your disposal. You have a file explorer, a layout document editor (I use Pages and/or Keynote for this) and a good pdf viewer open (with your exported notes). Now it's a matter of copy & pasting all the information from your notes, the official class notes, literature, etc. onto your layout document which then becomes your summary. This is of course doable by hand but it's a lot more work and it's not as easy to extend it - you can't just make room for new information on a full piece of paper (and summaries, especially the ones you can take to exams, tend to be very full).

10char 14y ago

Bigger problem is that I can't rest my hand on the screen while writing like I would on an actual notebook. There are some apps that try to filter it out but (in my anecdotal experience) they still miss enough to make it not worth the effort. Writing towards the bottom might alleviate that but it's still like a hack around the fact that natural handwriting on capacitive screens is difficult.

mkeung 14y ago
I have a thin glove I wear...looks odd but I can rest my hand all I want