alt Hacker NewsI'm curious about everyone's opinion on writing "by hand" with a stylus on tablets like the Remarkable, Kindle Scribe, iPad+Pencil, etc.
I like sketching and outlining with pencil and paper, but my handwritten notes are often illegible and disorganized. I know it's partly process and my poor penmanship, but digital surfaces compensate for this with built-in organization, searchability, and easier integration into projects and knowledge bases.
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My handwriting is roughly legible on paper (but getting worse). It is the same on an iPad+pencil with a Paperlike screen cover. It was impossible to read on my Remarkable 2 - the resolution just isn’t there for me.
I think it’s important to have that friction between the stylus and the screen. And if you have that, I am pretty happy with notes on either my iPad or paper.
I think tablet handwriting is fine. I had some six weeks of down time a while back and took advantage of it to go through the Getty-Dubay book Write Now: the Getty-Dubay Program for Handwriting Success to improve my handwriting legibility. There's a website now https://handwritingsuccess.com/ and for your purposes even more relevant, there's a mobile app. I'm not affiliated, in case you're wondering.
As for disorganization, that's kind of the nature of early notes. There are ways to kind of organize them. One technique I use is writing them on notecards or notecard-sized paper, which I can later shuffle and organize.
I tried for years to make handwriting on the iPad work, but it never clicked for me. I randomly encountered a reMarkable Paper Pro Move recently, instantly purchased it. For the first time in my life, I no longer tote a paper notebook with me. The software, simplicity, low-latency, form factor, writing feel, everything is absolutely perfect for me.