Without a doubt, the Apple Pencil elevates iPad gaming and makes it a handy tool for artists, graphic designers, and people like me who love to write or draw. There are plenty of useful and creative Apple Pencil apps for iPad to make the most of this combination. I have been using some of them for many years.
So I’ve compiled my list of the best iPad apps for Apple Pencil. Browse through each section, select the one you want, and unleash your creativity with these iPad apps to use Apple Pencil when you’re sketching, editing images, or taking notes.
Drawing and graphics apps for iPad for Apple Pencil
1. Autodesk Sketchbook – Editors’ Choice
- Requirements: iPadOS 11.0 or later
Autodesk Sketchbook is designed for both hobbyists and experienced artists and illustrators. It offers a simple user interface, all the necessary tools and professional-level features such as layers and blend modes. If you are a beginner and need help drawing, you can use basic French curves, ellipses, curved rulers, and regular rulers.
I mainly use the Predictive Stroke tool to create flawless smooth strokes. It also detects touch pressure and tilt in response. In addition, Autodesk added support for the second-generation Apple Pencil double-tap and Scan Sketch for subsequent iPad models, making it one of the best Apple Pencil apps.
With 170 customizable brushes, full PSD layer and blending support, and switchable pre-stroke, it can transform hand-drawn lines and shapes into crisp and precise shapes. Surprisingly, it’s free and without intrusive ads or in-app purchases.
pros
- Easy to use
- Over 170 custom brushes
- Natural drawing experience
Minuses
- Screen rotation errors and shortcut options
Price: Free
2. Adobe Illustrator is the best vector graphics editor
- Requirements: iPadOS 14.0 or later
Adobe Illustrator CC’s specialized vector graphics features are a great addition to the Apple Pencil 2. I used it on my 11-inch iPad Pro and got a comfortable and easy-to-use experience. You can create lines, shapes, typography and gradients and convert your sketches to vectors. Also, use your Apple Pencil to quickly merge and cut out drawings.
It offers over 18,000 fonts, over 20 color books, and effects such as radial repeats, dotted gradients, patterns, and symmetry. In addition, the sharing and collaboration feature invites other people to modify your creations. With seamless cloud integration, you can import work from Photoshop and work with all your Creative Cloud apps.
I liked the calligraphy brushes, spot editing, and the live streaming feature. Along with this, there is great community support for professional inspiration. The basic version of the app is free, although you can get a premium with an Adobe Creative Cloud membership.
pros
- Apple Pencil Features
- Cloud integration
- Live streaming support
Minuses
- Subscription based model
- Keyboard shortcuts not working
Price: Free (In-app purchase starts at $9.99)
3. Procreate – for professional artists
- Requirements: iPadOS 14.4 or later
Super HD canvases up to 16k:4k resolution, a simple Apple Pencil interface, 250 levels of undo and redo, over 100 customizable brush options, and more make Procreate one of the best Apple Pencil apps for artists. Using Apple Pencil 2, you can draw and sketch with pen and paper just like you would on paper.
The new 3D painting tools in Procreate 5.2 are great and compatible with other 3D applications like Zbrush and Blender. Many experienced artists and graphic designers use it in their professional work because it is so effective. Although I think it is not very suitable for vector work and graphic design.
You can import data from different systems and locations. As a result, syncing your work from other devices to iPad just got a whole lot easier. In addition, you can zoom in and out with hand movements and adjust layers. It is ideal for beginners who want to develop their abilities and become experts in their field.
pros
- One-time purchase
- 3D drawing tools
- Frequent feature updates
Minuses
- Sluggish after many projects
Price: $9.99
4. WeTransfer paper is easy to use
- Requirements: iPadOS 13.0 or later
While Paper seems like a simple sketching app at first glance, it has hidden features that let you unleash your creativity. It offers highly customizable tools for sketching, drawing, drawing and image editing. The interactive interface supports your creative process and keeps you focused without distractions.
There are plenty of creative tips, how-to guides, tactics and other resources available in case you run into trouble coming up with ideas. In addition, there are no complex layers, which makes it easy to use. You just need to add a lot of photos to the page, cut, attach and move them around to create a piece of art.
You can create charts and custom templates with various responsive brushes. Plus, with simple swipes, you can quickly annotate images or transform text into beautifully organized lists. It’s a great way to write down and organize the ideas and images you need on a daily basis.
pros
- An immersive sketching app
- Organize pages into beautiful magazines
Minuses
- Glitchy updates
Price: Free (In-app purchase starts at $1.99)
5. Sketch Club – Good for artists.
- Requirements: iPadOS 11.0 or later
Sketch Club is a digital notebook with drawing, image editing and sketching tools. You can fully customize your work with hundreds of layers with different blending modes, naming and color coding. Background autosave, large undo history, auto aspect ratio and dual mirror mode features make your work look perfect.
If you’re drawing manga, the pen and text tools come in handy thanks to the great Apple Pencil integration! Excellent layer support allows you to print canvases at high resolutions of 300 dpi and up to 16K with presets. You can create your own color themes and a quick access bar with your favorite brushes and features.
I recommend Sketch Club as one of the best iPad apps for Apple Pencil for its integrated community and fun activities. There are daily challenges, weekly challenges, monthly meetups, yearly prizes, and more to get you inspired and motivated. Tutorials and courses are also great if you want to improve your drawing skills.
pros
- Accessible
- Great community
- Daily tasks for motivation
Minuses
- Animation function is buggy
Price: $3.99
The Best Note-Taking Apps for iPad Using Apple Pencil
1. Apple Notes is the best integrated note-taking app
- Requirements: iPadOS 10.0 and above
The built-in Notes app on your iPad is capable of more than just typing and dictation. You can take handwritten notes, scribbles, and drawings with your Apple Pencil. Just create a new note, select a drawing tool and start writing or drawing! Apple also supports native scanning, annotations, and native OCR search.
Plus, add checklists, photos, and subfolders, and download a variety of resources, including documents, links, and maps. Everything will be synced to iCloud. You can also pin important notes and protect them with the password protection feature. I personally use Siri to take notes and draw quickly with my Apple Pencil.
pros
- Comfortable
- Automatic transcription with Siri
- File sharing and collaboration
Minuses
- iCloud integration only
Price: Free
2. Microsoft OneNote is great for collaboration
- Requirements: iPadOS 14.0 and above
OneNote is one of the best note-taking apps for Apple Pencil if you have a Microsoft Office subscription. Even you can use the free version to write notes, create a digital sketchbook and save notes. It comes with note-taking, handwriting, annotation, and drawing features and works flawlessly with Apple Pencil.
There are a range of pen colors and custom settings for writing handwritten notes and drawings. You can also add rich text, images, music, calendars, and more to your notes. Add TouchID passwords for extra protection of sensitive information. The best part is that you can collaborate by creating a link to your entire digital notebook.
pros
- Convert to shape mode for precise drawing
- Collaborate and work together
- Synchronize your notes
Minuses
- Sometimes crashes
Price: Free (In-app purchase starts at $6.99)
3. Notability is the best digital canvas app for iPad
- Requirements: iPadOS 14.0 and above
For fast, accurate writing, Notability has optimized Ink for Apple Pencil and includes a double-tap gesture for switching tools, erasing, and more. Compared to many other apps, it has a simple and user-friendly interface and enhanced security with Face ID and Touch ID support.
That’s why it’s a popular iPad app among students. It has features such as drawing pens, customizable colors, easy PDF export, voice recording, and the ability to search handwritten notes.
Moreover, you can change and set your favorite background, text size, pen type and ink color. In addition, the virtual notebook will allow you to store, organize and share your notes, as well as import and export notes.
pros
- View two notes side by side
- Voice recording
- Handwritten search across all notes
Minuses
- No landscape pages
- No autoforms
Price: Free (In-app purchase starts at $2.99)
4. GoodNotes 5 – flexible note taking
- Requirements: iOS 13.0 or later
If you regularly take handwritten notes, GoodNotes is for you among the other best iPad apps for Apple Pencil. It offers various forms of digital paper such as lined paper, graphic paper, design paper, and even music sheets. You can also upload your own templates for drawings and flexible digital notes across multiple pages.
Since it is handwriting oriented, you can easily enter complex mathematical and chemical calculations. You can annotate imported PDFs, search for handwritten notes, and convert handwriting to text. It lets you write searchable handwritten notes and turns your iPad into a digital whiteboard during a live stream.
You can access your notes from your iPad, iPhone, or Mac as they sync immediately via iCloud. You can also back up your notes to your preferred cloud storage such as Dropbox or Google Drive. While the free version is only partially functional, the full program costs $7.99.
pros
- Create unique bookmarks
- Dark mode support
- Convert handwriting to text
Minuses
- Does not support hyperlinks
- No free tier
Price: Free (full version for $7.99).
5. Nebo – Improved Handwriting Recognition
- Requirements: iOS 14.0 or later
Do you like writing notes by hand, but want to share them in plain text? Then you should consider using MyScript Nebo for handwriting recognition. You can convert handwritten notes to text with translation support for 66 different languages. Even if the translation is not perfect, you can still keep the handwriting and the original text.
In addition, Nebo offers real digital pen tools for drawing shapes, math equations, and drawings with Apple Pencil. In addition, you can annotate external material and insert diagrams and photos. It supports exporting notes to Powerpoint-compatible HTML, PDF, and text formats and syncing with iCloud or Dropbox.
I use this app for a math solver that automatically solves equations if it’s enabled. You can create drawings on any number of canvases and then copy them for use on other pages. To keep everything organized, you can organize your notes into colored notebooks. Using the drag and drop tool, everything can be found and easily classified.
pros
- Export to multiple formats
- Solves mathematical and chemical equations
- Unique handwriting engine
Minuses
- Crashes when importing documents and images
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $1.99)
Apple Pencil App Annotations for iPad
1. PDF Expert is a great option for copy editors
- Requirements: iPadOS 14.0 and above
Because PDF Expert offers more features than Apple’s built-in Markup extension, it’s the best app for annotating and marking PDFs while taking notes. You can quickly open PDFs from iCloud, Google Drive, or other cloud storage, fill out forms, sign documents, and more.
Several tools include the digital pen, shape tool, underline, strikethrough, and highlight. With the free version of PDF Expert, you can read, annotate, highlight, draw, and fill out forms. You’ll need a Pro membership to change the original PDF structure, add or modify photos, sign documents, encrypt them with a password, create stamps from frequently used phrases, and more.
Plus, it allows you to customize large PDFs with infinite scrolling and packing multiple pages into a single page view.
pros
- Customize PDF structure
- Integrated puncher
- Encryption with a password
Minuses
- Subscription based model
Price: Free (In-app purchase starts at $9.99)
2. LiquidText is the best iPad pro app for research projects.
- Requirements: iOS 14.1 or later
Research on paper or on the Internet, as well as collecting and organizing materials, can be quite difficult. Thanks to its many features, both professionals and students can use it as a research tool. On the Apple Store, it’s “Apple’s most inventive iPad app”for reading and annotating multiple PDFs at the same time.
In my opinion, the best feature is that you can compress a document to compare parts of it, draw a line to link ideas across multiple documents, annotate multiple pages at once, jot down your thoughts for cross-references, and more. You can edit and annotate web pages, Word and Powerpoint documents, and PDFs.
Again, having an Apple Pencil will make it faster and easier to use the app. In addition, LiquidText can resemble writing notes on paper with a pencil’s pressure and tilt sensitivity and greater adaptability. You can take advantage of LiquidText’s custom double-tap compatibility if you have an Apple Pencil 2.
pros
- Create notes and annotations in one app
- Convenient interface
- Support for multiple document formats
Minuses
- Constant updating causes some interference
Price: Free (In-app purchase starts at $4.99)
3. PDFelement – Universal PDF App for Any iPad
- Requirements: iPadOS 13.0 or later
PDFelement is an easy-to-use application for creating, editing, scanning, marking up and annotating PDF files. You can scan any paper to create a PDF, organize pages, and convert existing PDFs to other formats. You can share any edited PDF file as a compressed ZIP file or via Wi-Fi direct transfer. To use all features for free, you need a Wondershare account.
You can manage your PDF library with built-in folders and import documents from any cloud storage. Its annotation and markup pens can perform highlighting, underlining, strikethrough, text boxes, callouts, stamps, and freehand drawing. It also performs various other tasks, including combining PDF files and filling out and signing forms.
pros
- Great interface
- Supports wireless data transmission over Wi-Fi.
- Cancel interactive comments in PDF
Minuses
- Good navigation only with Apple Pencil
Price: Free (In-app purchases start at $6.99)
So everyone guys!
The Apple Pencil is truly a revolutionary addition to the iPad. And all the best iPad apps for Apple Pencil simplify your workflow while maximizing productivity. Have you used any of these before? Which one would you download and use? Let me know in the comments below!