Notion App Reviews

I bought this app a while back but seldom used it. When hand writing became available I figured I would give it a shot again. All I can say is good luck if you think you can be creative with this new feature.Both writing and erasing is somewhat functional. You better off with a pen and manuscript if you need to jot down ideas. I,m sorry that I paid the extra for this feature. Notion should go and do there homework before releasing this semi functional feature. Sometimes it will erase notes after scratching around with finger and stylus. It will put different notes in the bar than what you write,and wrong values as well. For instance. How can a program add a whole note plus other notes to a 4/4 bar that already has 3x1/4 notes in it?That just one instance.There are many more issues with hand writing.As it stands its a waste of time .

I just got the new handwriting feature which works really well, however for some reason it just stops working at certain points after working on part of a piece. At that point Ill write in notes and nothing appears on the screen afterwards. Please fix this!

Simple to use and looks great. My only real issue is the filing system for the scores. It would be nice to save into folders, or make playlists. It makes life so easy when performing live not to have to scroll through hundreds of scores to get to the one you need. A search pane would be nice too.

Been playing the the piano for over 3 years, and this app just keeps getting better. I use it to figure out difficult passages when learning a new song. The handwriting component is worth every penny. I use an iPad 3 with no problems. Adding notes, moving them and etc is very easy. The bottom line it works. I only have two wishes. I wish when you play back music, looking at the keyboard on the app needs more contrast on the black keys to see them easily. The other is occasionally when the music is very busy, the sound on my iPad locks up and distorts. Otherwise its a must for anybody learning music. Keep up the great work guys.

I just buy my new iPad pro and try to use the handwriting what I already buy previously ($7.99) not including the $14.99 that I pay for the app.. But then found it that I have to buy again .. What ???? Really?

I first want to say, all in all, this is a great app. I personally just mess around with it and eventually make something decent. It has great sound quality compared to other apps similar to it. I can see its use in teaching. However, there are a few things I would like added. First of all, DEAD NOTES ON BASS!!! Come on, half of bass is slapping and popping, and you cant have slapping and popping without dead notes! It irks me that you added dead notes on guitar, but not bass. On a smaller note (no pun intended), a pick scrape would be a nice addition to the array of sounds in the app. But I am really hoping to see an update with an option for dead notes on bass.

This app is the best notation app I can find. But holy h*ll there are problems. I spent time notating for days on a score and then I opened it later to find that it deleted multiple files by itself including the one I was working on. I have now backed up all my files to Dropbox to make sure this doesnt happen again. Notion is stable most of the time but when it corrupts, it takes everything with it including the hours of your life you spent on it.

This program is an absolute failure,cumbersome,overpriced gadget for anybody who is a serious musician who is using programs like Finale or Sibelius. I wish to have refund but I dont know how to get it.

Not accurate import of midi files, if you need additional sounds (piano is included) you have to pay $$$.

I love notion but it has a large number of bugs and it doesnt seem that it gets updated often. For example, there are bugs with the handwriting feature as others noted. You cant have key signatures with non-standard half-flats, half-sharps etc, the inability to manually join notes or break them is annoying especially as the app sometimes formats notes in a strange way.

The product description promises lyrics. I cant find a lyrics tool anywhere. Can someone comment?

Disappointed with the sound (violin section). Sounds ugly! The app is buggy. It still displays the old sound even though you have changed it.

What would be awesome for this app, for general study would be Roman numeral notation. I would really love to see this as a feature. I would totally buy it as an in app purchase even. Great handwriting feature btw. Its very seamless. Roman numeral notation please!!!!

Ive tried a bunch of notation apps for iPad and Notion is the best by far. Its easy to input notes on piano, outstanding for inputting tab for guitar, and the new handwriting function is very accurate. Ive found the handwriting in Notion to be much better than Notate Me which is an app solely dedicated to handwriting music. Anyone giving this app 1 or 2 stars must have no idea what they are doing. I will also say that its silly to compare a $15 iPad app to a $500 desktop program like Finale or Sibelius. This is the best app for music notation on iPad.

I use this app on the go. If necessary, I export to MusicXML and continue my work on MuseScore or other desktop apps. I find it very easy to use with MIDI recording, and the playback is better than I expected.

Love this app on the phone. What a value and very stable. I have used Notion on the Ipad and my Laptop for a few years so this was a welcome addition. My biggest gripe is still the way it forces slurrs above any multivoice staff, such as those used for classical and solo guitar music. They should allow an option to place them near their respective note heads. There are no slurrs on the tab at all, unless viewed alone without standard notation staff, then the stems get pretty cocky looking, as well as the slurrs still being improperly placed. We could do without the circles around the long notes in the tab. If there are separate voices on adjacent strings in the tab, the circles often overlap making things difficult to read. Tab rhythm should be above and below with such things down there and the option to turn it off and on. Slurrs on tab itself. All said, I can always import the .xml into another program and tweak, so I would rate the app 4.5 and round up to 5 stars, since nothing else comes close.

Please add a virtual drumline! Even if its an IAP I will pay for it! I need a drumline on this app.

Im a 25+ year music pro. Using this on my iPad pro with Apple Pencil, and absolutely loving it. I highly recommend it.

(Updated review). Notion is best notation app on iOS. Im now telling everyone I know and am about to make a series of YouTube videos about my Notion/iPad Pro workflow. Im loving being able to start and finish an almost fully realized orchestral score on my iPad Pro, then saving it to iCloud and opening it on my desktop version of Notion. Bravo for that! If youre thinking of buying, make sure to buy the Handwriting feature and the maybe sounds upgrade too. Theyre worth every penny. There is one problem though. Notion has some stiff competition. StaffPads hand/pencil writing is amazing with its full screen capabilities. Its currently and unfortunately only available on MSs Surface. Big bummer. But it does make Notion look half-baked. So is Presonus going to give us full screen handwriting? Thats question number one. Number two, is Presonus going two fold Notion into its DAW (Studio One) and cancel it as a stand alone? Please no! Im loving Notion for iOS and OS X! Its a nice break from Finale and Ive been composing "pen and paper style" again for the first time in years. So does Presonus care enough to give us the full screen feature? Because if they do they could own the tablet/desktop market which seems to be really taking off. Finale and Sibelius currently dont an iOS solution yet (I doubt Finale ever will). So this is what I want and why. When in Pen mode the entire screen needs to turn into the score paper arrangement for whatever ensemble I select (have I said that enough?). I started out composing with pen and paper (chalk and chalkboard actually) and Im dying for an app for iOS that will allow me to work that way (like StaffPad). Finally, Notion iOS has changed my entire workflow. I now start on my iPad Pro about 80% of the time. When finished I save to iCloud as a Notion or Music XLM file. I then either clean a few things up with the OS X Notion, then Rewire it or export it to Digital Performer and mix a final MIDI mock up in DP and Vienna Ensemble Pro on my MacPros. Thats a seriously wonderful and powerful workflow. So, Ive now got a lot invested in Notion as an iOS and OS X product. I just hope Presonus is listening to the full screen handwriting requests. That feature would make Notion for iOS a KILLER app and Id pay premium prices for that Notion. Lastly, is it possible to add the drag and drop drum beats like the OS X feature has? That would help a lot! Great work so far Presonus. Just, for the love of God give us full screen handwriting. Otherwise this is a 5 star app. One of the elite apps on the App Store.

The new in app purchase for$7.99 which was designed to allow note input by Apple pencil is poorly designed and laden with bugs. It needs a considerable amount of work to become useful. I would advise the developers to withdraw and refund until they have a product that is useful.