I am looking for an Apple Pencil app that does not go to the internet for any reason.

  • I want the convenience of the Apple Pencil.
  • I don’t want data syncing of any sort
  • Same with any analytics

The primary goal is no potential for my notes to be seen by a third party.

What apps allow note taking with these requirements?

  • Are you looking for a Notes taking app for iPad which ensures privacy of your data? – Nimesh Neema Jun 25 '19 at 2:12

I routinely take notes with Concepts app while offline, and as there's neither built in OCR nor forced-synching of anything, my notes are private and secure.

Also worth noting both Apple notes w/out synch and also Pages with a password lock per file can be considered pretty secure.

| improve this answer | |
  • starting to think that I wish there was selective sync on apple notes. maybe I don't mind the canadian border police copying my phone for "matching the description", but I would prefer some of the drawn notes weren't there, since they would be on my ipad somewhere else – CQM Jun 25 '19 at 17:38
  • simplest answer may be to move the files using the Files manager to a location which is other than last opened by the authoring app - take the Notes file and move it into the Acrobat document folder etc. – GerardFalla Jun 25 '19 at 17:52
  • 1
    Good call on pages / keynote / numbers being enabled and able to exist as siloed data stores local to the device. – bmike Jun 25 '19 at 21:13

Apple notes is the clear defacto standard for this use case.

  1. Don’t turn on iCloud syncing for notes or don’t sign in to iCloud and you have pretty much all the items you mentioned.
  2. If you have iCloud backups, by default that does save your content. However if you disable notes to backup, Apple documents that they delete your copies in the cloud when you elect to not back up that data so even if you mistakenly allow that, you should have reasonable control over your data retentionand know what to expect.
| improve this answer | |
  • 1
    thank you, yes this is probably it – CQM Jun 25 '19 at 18:33

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .