UPAD Lite (with iCloud) Reviews

by Xtreme9k

I updated UPADLitewithiCloud at the end of Aug when their update came out. After that update, a note that I was working (very important) on appeared to be lost. A few days later, they put an info item out in UPADLitewithiCloud store saying they were aware of the problem but the next update would fix the problem and no notes would be lost. I even emailed uPad to ask when we could expect the next release....they were prompt in getting back to me, altho no date was given, they explained that the rev was under review by Apple.
I just updated today to their latest rev, and my note is gone! I loved UPADLitewithiCloud when I first tried it, but if an app loses my data once, it's a deal breaker! Think twice about any app that may lose important info like UPADLitewithiCloud. And yes, I did try the restore function = nothing. Sorry uPad, but the revisions should be thoroughly tested before being published. I will be finding another handwriting app.

by Denver Steveo

If you're looking at UPAD Lite because the full version of UPAD has been removed, I am right there with you!

I downloaded version 2.0.1 right after the update was made available - Around 11pm MDT on Tuesday, September 4. As soon as the DL completed I discovered my data was inaccessible. It appeared to be gone completely. I followed multiple backup steps, to no avail.

I then emailed the PockeySoft folks, and received a nearly immediate response that they were aware and had already sent the emergency update to Apple. This was at approximately midnight MDT.

It has now been FIVE FULL DAYS!
And after dozens of scathing reviews and negative ratings, they have taken UPADLitewithiCloud down. I suppose that's one way to not get bad publicity.

Meanwhile, I (and I'm sure many others) am anxiously waiting for an update that promises to retrieve over a year worth of notes that cannot otherwise be retrieved because we cannot revert to older versions of the UPAD software and our backups (designed with a different file extension) cannot open in the newest version.

I will not negotiate with data terrorists. I want my files back and i want them NOW! Give me the chance to open them, print them, or transfer them to a more responsive organization with a comparable app. I thought UPAD was the note app to trust and PockeySoft had integrity.

I was wrong.

DO NOT make the mistake i did.

by Eye Bee

UPADLitewithiCloud is a mess. The icons are anything but intuitive and when you finally do guess what a given button might do, how it does it is never how you would expect. What's worse is UPADLitewithiCloud is buggy. So when you get an unexpected result you are never sure if its a bug or a "feature."

I really, really wanted to like UPADLitewithiCloud because of the "magnifying input" feature but that turned out to be buggy as well. UPADLitewithiCloud would sometimes advance the writing area and sometimes not. Occasionally, the text would appear on a different part of the page than indicated by the window. Frustrating. The only other app that I've seen with a similar feature is Dan Bricklin's Note Taker HD.

by Xacity

I have a brand new iPad 2 with nothing running I the background and UPADLitewithiCloud has froze 3 times in the past 12 hours. I currently own Notes Plus was looking at UPADLitewithiCloud for the "best handwriting engine in the world". I have to admit, handwriting blow Notes Plus out of the water, I am just unsure about the stability of UPADLitewithiCloud . I am curious if the "lite version" is the reason for this. I am almost half tempted to pay $5 and find out.

What would make this the "perfect" note taker in my mind:
-adopt the Notes Plus method of magnification where it will show you a mirrored image of what you are writing on the left side of the box when you are nearing the edge. It so easy to just move to the image and seamlessly pick up where you left off. I did not like the the auto shift method Upad uses as it actually slows me down. I take screaming fast notes in class and I hate having to wait for the shift; huge setback!

-add the ability to circle parts of your notes to select it. From there should be able to move that portion around, copy, cut, change color, make it bold and etc... Notes plus currently has this feature (w/o copy/paste) and it is extremely useful!

-sound recording synced with the notes you are taking. Notes plus does offer a limited version of sound recording, if UPADLitewithiCloud offered it and did it right... Wow!

by Try And Try Again

It does what it says it does, but not much more. Icons, terminology and interface are sometimes obscure or unnecessarily complex. Features limited or unavailable in lite version not stated - seems to be a five document limit, with the document delete feature disabled. Could be others, but I was unwilling to buy the full version just to find out what lite is missing

The window which displays documents is not where documents are controlled, for some reason. You have to find a folder-shaped icon to get to where documents could be deleted.

Provides numerous types of "paper" backgrounds, including several kinds of graph paper. However, none of them seem to line up with the grid provided for shapes to snap to.

There is a edit icon, which selects a curved or rectangular area, but beyond that I couldn't figure out how to use it or what it does, and there's nothing about it in the documentation.

It has both an undo button and an eraser tool, but they seem to do exactly the same thing, which is to delete an entire drawn line or shape. You can't erase just part of even a freehand drawn line - it's all or nothing.

Is there another app that uses the term "books" to mean PDFs?

Other reviews I saw indicated that PDFs created by UPADLitewithiCloud are unnecessarily huge - 17Mb for a half dozen pages.

All in all, I'll look elsewhere for my drawing app.

by Jenisica

Overall, it is a pretty good app. Lots of functions that make note taking easy. Easy to switch between pen, highlighter, eraser, etc. lots of colors and point sizes to choose from.

What makes it not great- it is slow to switch between pages. You can't rearrange files. They are stored how you downloaded/opened them in upad. So if you opened file 3 before file 4 but after file 7, it displays as 4, 3, 7 and there is no way to reorder them. It is also a little difficult to export files. You also can only have multiple folders (which you can't sort either). You cant have a folder within a folder.

Like I said over all a good app but if they could fix the file/folder sorting/rearranging it would be a much better app.

by PhillyNerd

Update****
The developers addressed almost all of the critiques of the last version. Things are still a bit laggy and slow. And it takes too long for the auto advance to move forward on the handwriting mode. But it's a great app, especially for creating documents or graphs. I still prefer goodnotes for my handwritten notes but upad will definitely get some regular use within my app arsenal.

Old review***
While the newest update at least gave me a chance to see what UPADLitewithiCloud was all about, there are still some major issues. First, when pictures are added, the colors occasionally mysteriously change. A standard picture was changed to an all-blue hue, while another picture went through fine. It happened more than once, so it wasn't a one time error. Another major issue is that the auto-advance feature while handwriting causes UPADLitewithiCloud to erase everything you wrote, any time you touch the pink area. This renders UPADLitewithiCloud virtually unusable if you're interested in using it for handwritten notes (unless you write right to left, in which case this glitch doesn't apply). Finally, UPADLitewithiCloud feels too laggy and slow when switching between features. While I'm still very interested in seeing what upad has to offer, it's currently useless, with several major bugs

by Nsfl

UPADLitewithiCloud is very awesome. But the lite version is missing some things. Here is my pro/con list:

Pros:
1. Free!!!
2. Love how you can zoom in and write perfectly between the lines
3. The hand writing feature is by far the best I have used. Easily readable, looks very neat, is very smooth, and can replicate my handwriting pretty well
4. Can export out to email, photo album, Dropbox, etc in the description...however it is exported as a picture
5. Provides a good amount of templates to use, of course more is always better :)
6. User friendly and simple
7. Can bookmark pages

Cons:
1. Can't export as PDF unless buy full version
2. Only full version will have the type input method for taking notes. But a nice thing the lite offers is a sticky note text box that you can use a keyboard to type stuff
3. The palm rest doesn't work very well
4. Can create only five notebooks so I heard from other users. But if you always export a copy to yourself after taking notes, you don't need to store it in UPADLitewithiCloud , but it would still be nice
5. You can't swipe to scroll between pages
6. No highlighting or bold/italic lettering features in the lite version (well, I can't seem to find it)
7. Says it includes a ruler, but can't seem to find it. Most likely a feature in the paid version.

Overall, it is a great app to get for note taking, especially since it is free. I recommend at least trying it out.

by Thebirdman7

Good product with lots of excellent ideas. Notable omissions include a search feature, the ability to draw filled shapes, no rich text in text blocks, too few font sizes for my taste. I find the document organization to be slow and kludgy to use. I really hate the folder with pictures of documents inside. I know you are copying Apple there but there are many better ways out there of organizing content. Notability is far better on that front, though their image handling can't hold a candle to the many options UPADLitewithiCloud provides. I did figure out how to copy a page -- an essential feature.

Another problem that notability shares is that UPADLitewithiCloud crashes a lot. I've had 3-4 crashes today already, most in the page preview.

I also added a picture to a page from the library and for some reason couldn't make it the same size as the original, even with the same border -- something odd going on there.

Oh and can you tell me why the user guide isn't read only by default -- kinda silly.

The PDF features will come in handy. I would love to buy UPADLitewithiCloud, but for me to consider long term use I have to have better document organization -- easier faster. And it would be nice if the load times on even small notes were improved.

by CelticChaos

I haven't had a chance to use UPADLitewithiCloud too much after downloading it, but it seems really cool. I am interested in comparing the PDF reader on UPAD Lite to GoodReader, as well as use UPADLitewithiCloud to jot down notes and ideas.

I agree with the aforementioned requests for improvements with UPADLitewithiCloud such as adding the ability to utilize Dropbox, but have one additional request I have not come across yet; I noticed there is a palm rest area at the bottom of the page, and think this is a wonderful idea. But to some left handed people like me, this doesn't help much. (I write with my palm at the top of the page and turn my wrist.) I would love to see an option to have the palm rest drop from the top as well as the bottom of the page. Other than those small requests, I think this is a very good application to have on the iPad. :-)

by Untakenyet

I would like to give UPADLitewithiCloud five stars, as I use it for almost everything - I can import PDFs for my AP Gov class and highlight them as I go along (I really need to buy myself a stylus). I can draw (mostly doodles, when I'm really bored, just like a real notebook). And I can type (though I don't use that much).

The only things I would like to see would be:
1. An actual eraser. Yes, I get that the "one stroke" eraser supposedly is faster. It's really quite a nuisance, though. I have to be careful what I touch with it, especially long strings of my messy cursive handwriting.
2. The ability to add pages to my PDF "notebooks," (so that I can write some corresponding notes on those pages without having to cram all my notes in the margins of the PDF), or even smoosh PDFs together gso I have a really long one for me to refer to, instead of having to switch over needlessly several times in a class, depending on the section we're going over).

If these two things were added, UPADLitewithiCloud would be dang near perfect.

by 7Tigger77

UPAD is amazing. The ad is very unobtrusive so its quite usable in the lite version. Thank you so much for that. In fact, the only reason I needed to buy the full version was to support the developers for creating such an amazing product. Without this lite version, I never would have chosen UPAD. Several other handwriting apps looked better due to additional features. After trying UPAD, I had no desire to even look into them. There is no way they could work as well as UPAD. UPADLitewithiCloud is brilliant. With my stylus, I can write as fast as pen/paper. Zooming in allows me to write in normal size and have several paragraphs per page instead of a few sentences. When I'm brainstorming, making lists, or writing just a little bit, I tend to use my hand instead of the stylus. Both work very well. (typing is also available, but I haven't really used it)

Zoom is the clincher. Zoom is the reason UPADLitewithiCloud is brilliant and so much better than the other apps I tried. The variety of pen and highlighter sizes and colors means drawing is also possible. It's nice to be able to doodle...

The photo pad is so much fun! I made a comic out of a picture of my kid and then she started making some comics of her own from other pictures. Easy to share too. Put them on FB and got lots of laughs.

I haven't used the book pad, so I can't speak to that format. Although it looks great and quite useful

by Melaniekorourke

I cannot say enough about UPADLitewithiCloud. I use it for lecture notes and studying and it does exactly what I need it to and I strongly believe it works better than most other writing apps. It is amazing for organization. I would recommend it to anyone.

However I am unsure how to backup my documents through the lite version. obviously having a writing app for note taking is pretty useless unless i can backup my work to the cloud and access it on a larger screen for studying and further editing. there is a gear symbol and button for backup and restoration and i have linked my FB and Google Drive account with my UPAD but I am unsure how to access these files through my accounts. Please help!!!

by Reekatati

I usually don't write app reviews but when I read some of the recent negative reviews for UPAD I just had to weigh in also. I evaluated many other similar apps before selecting UPAD. It has all the features I need and it performs perfectly. Easy to use and completely stable. Never a crash, not even a hiccup. And whether you call it wrist lock, wrist protection, or palm rest, that feature is included and always ready and waiting to be used. I can only guess that those who have experienced problems need to reread the instructions and, if that doesn't help, contact support. I asked a question and received a comprehensive response within hours. UPAD is one of the best!

by AtillaTheCun

Just bought an iPad 2 with stylus and UPADLitewithiCloud is by far the best note writing app I have found. Use it for work regularly. The writing feels natural and looks great.

Ideally would love a daily calendar template as well as the monthly and weekly ones, but with the ability to have PDFs imported in I could probably find one on my own.

Also the ability to paste images onto the notes page and cut and resize would be the icing on the cake. Unsure if these features are already in the full version?