I found myself drifting back to Notability as my main app (here’s why I left in the first place), almost like returning to an old friend you haven’t seen in years. And of course, the first thing I did was pull out my dusty 2020 wish list. Six years later, I thought, surely the developers have ticked off a few boxes. Surely.
The sad reality
But the reunion wasn’t exactly what I hoped for. Proper page rotation—the feature I’ve been begging for—still isn’t here. Six years, and I still can’t rotate native pages, and for PDFs, the annotations refuse to rotate with the page. New apps manage this effortlessly, but Notability? It’s like they’re allergic to the idea.
The few tiny wins
There were some small wins. Auto‑deselect for the eraser showed up, which is nice, though honestly it’s one of those features I could live without. Hyperlinks? Still missing. We can add web links, which feels like step one of a marathon, and I feel like we might be stuck here for another six years. If the current pace is anything to by.
Cross‑platform support? Not yet. There’s a web version, but it’s still in beta. Meanwhile, Goodnotes and Noteshelf are already enjoying life on Android and Windows. Notability, as usual, is taking the scenic route.
Working with PDFs
PDF outlines finally arrived in Notability 16, but they’re half‑baked. You can’t add your own items, which every other handwriting app figured out ages ago. Tables? Nope. Video support? Nope. And here I am celebrating text alignment for body text like it’s a major breakthrough. That’s how desperate I’ve become for ticks on my wish list.
So here we are: six years later, and I’ve got four ticks. Four. Snail pace doesn’t even cover it. The biggest heartbreak? Still no proper page rotation. At this rate, we’ll probably wait a whole decade before a few more boxes get checked.
And backup? I didn’t even bother testing it. At this point, I’m too drained to risk diving into yet another potential disaster. But if you’ve tried it recently, let me know how it is now. And until next time, fantastic human, stay fantastic!