Paper

Paper

Price: Free ($2 for additional tools)

iPad only

Ah Paper. It has all the elements that I want but has no place whatsoever in my appertoire. An app that suffers from a severe identity crisis needs to go through some major updates before it becomes an essential tool.

My sketching is sexy and I know it
Paper is the darling child of FiftyThree, a company with a talented crew of creative individuals who excel at being artistic. That much is obvious at surface level with a beautiful app that looks amazing, works amazingly and feels like real life ink being absorbed into pixels. Paper makes light scribbling look stunning and that's no easy task.

The initial idea was to turn your iPad into a landscape notepad for jotting down ideas, taking down notes or spreading your brain across a page. As I said, the execution is amazing and well done. The problem stems from the lack of tools that would add slight bit of depth to the app in exchange for its uniqueness. Two things I'd like to see are an undo/redo function and a slight zoom.

Undo/redo is an unfortunate piece to exclude since one wrong line or mistake means using the eraser to tediously run your stylus (or finger if you're into that) carefully and backtrack. As for the slight zoom, it's not even that big of a deal. You're not painting masterpieces here and don't need absolute precision. The problem is that you'll be inadvertently swiping down the notification tab. I paint a lot on the iPad with SketchBook, Procreate, Brushes and other such apps. NEVER had this problem before.

I ask for so much
Paper is still a pup and there is much space for improvement. As it stands now, Penultimate is my notetaker of choice. My bones are rattled however. Penultimate looks dull in comparison. The fluidness and incredible design of Paper calls for me to return but everytime the same problems keep nipping at my ankles. One day I'll see it in my updates list. I hope it'll say more than just bug fixes. Those updates piss me off.



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