App review: iNapkin

Remember the days when notes were scribbled onto napkins for sudden spurts of inspiration? Seems a bit odd nowadays in the digital age to be seen scribbling on restaurant napkins, but if you’re the nostalgic type, there’s iNapkin.

iNapkin provides the user with a digital napkin, where your ideas, scribbles, and doodles can be captured freely without limitation. The magic with the canvas that is not seen in other apps is that the napkin can be in three different sizes and you can zoom in with pinch gestures with the Hand tool. This enables the user to be able to zoom in to write notes or even create a sketch with finer details. With this, a user can put as much info as they need on a single napkin without really worrying about how cramped the napkin will be.

But how do you fit the entire napkin on the screen? Well, you can’t have the entire napkin in one view of the screen, but then why would there be three different sizes of napkins? Because iNapkin’s Hand tool enables the user to also pan across the napkin canvas as well as zooming. So if you’re out of room on the first space of the napkin, you can move to the other empty spaces and continue scribbling. So if you choose the Large size (960×960), there will be plenty of blank space for you to jot down more.

Since this app is mainly to replicate the old method of quick jots on napkin paper, the pens available do not have adjustable size and are only the basic ink colors of blue, red, and black. Pretty basic, but so is the entire idea behind the app: napkin notes. There’s also a small or large eraser in case you make mistakes. Are you done with your napkin? Then you can tap the icon representing a hard drive to save your note to your photo library.

This is a pretty neat note taking app that replicates that feeling of napkins pretty well. If the other note taking apps don’t fit your bill of being able to freely sketch out ideas if you need visuals or graphs, then this may be a keeper.