Replacing Japanese Paper with Aluminum and Glass

Over the past year, I've used many different notebook apps for the iPad, and though I tried to love them, none really felt right. Penultimate, a great, highly rated app, has many things going for it, but it lacks the precision that a detail-oriented designer needs. Some apps such as Note Taker HD and Notes Plus also come close to paper, but they're both missing things.

However, iPad owners: I've found the answer — my favorite "notebook" app is "MUJI NOTEBOOK." if you haven't seen it, check out more information. Granted, the style might not suit other so well; the Japanese influence is clear, down to the paper types and formatting.

For true "pen and paper" feel, get a capacitive touch stylus. WACOM recently released a Bamboo stylus, but I haven't used it yet — the demand seems high, and there's a several month wait (I do have one on my Amazon Wish List, however, and my birthday is in three months!). I own styli by Ten One and Boxwave; either is good, but the Boxwave is easily my favorite.

It's not perfect—paper isn't perfect, either

MUJI Notebook has text, writing and drawing support with multiple methods of input. Some are slightly cumbersome; for instance, English handwriting to text is difficult to use effectively because the system doesn't detect letter shape, it assesses stroke order. That said, it's still easily my favorite, and I now take notes in ways I didn't — and couldn't — before, because my iPad 2 is near me so often.

For typed notes, I recommend Nebulous Notes... but my favorite iPad writing app is iA Writer.

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I'd love to hear about your favorite iOS apps, productivity tips and tools, or whatever else you use to get things done on mobile devices. Coming soon: the team behind Day One (Journal) for iPhone and Mac desktop PC released a universal version of their iOS app. Ive played around with it, and believe that there's room for improvement, so I'm going to hold off on a formal review. One of the main new features is the inclusion of "reminders," a feature from the desktop app, designed to help the user remember to write throughout the day at set intervals. Hopefully, I can review OmmWriter for iPad soon as well.

I'll share some more photos and artwork soon, too. If you're curious, you can check out Antipresto, my Tumblr, for photos, videos, links, and other cool things.