Notability for iPad brings new Pencil feature for improved drawings

Notability, one of the most popular note-taking apps for iPhone and iPad, just got a new update bringing a Pencil feature. With that, drawing in the platform “feels just like your graphite pencil but better and with colors.”

According to the company, its unique, vector-based ink creates the most “lifelike digital pencil experience on the market.”

Notability’s Pencil is perfect for note-taking, idea sketching and illustrating. Complete with pressure and tilt sensitivity when paired with Apple Pencil, the tool provides the most lifelike handwriting experience resembling digital graphite. For the first time, users can add dimension and shading to their notes in Notability. The Pencil tool enables custom colors, and because of the vector-based technology, users can even style and change the color of Pencil ink strokes at any point during the sketch creation.

Notability describes the top features of the new Pencil tool

Vector-Based Ink: The Notability Pencil is vector-based, which means the lines you make are recorded as mathematical points, curves, and lines instead of pixels. This means that your pencil creations can be infinitely resized without any loss in quality.

Change Style and Color: Users can switch up the color, thickness, and style of anything they write with a pencil.

Pressure Sensitivity: The Notability Pencil changes based on the amount of pressure you use. The harder you press, the darker your lines get, It helps for adding variety to charts, diagrams, and sketches.

Tilt-Activated Shading: The thickness of the line changes based on the angle of the styles. The more you tile your styles, the thicker the line is. This means you can sketch and shade without ever switching tools or settings.

The new Pencil tool is available for free on all Notability plans. The app is also free to download but requires a subscription to access all features. It costs $2.99 per month or $12.99 per year.