The default for handwriting on an iPad. GoodNotes turns the iPad and Apple Pencil into a stack of natural-feeling notebooks, with realistic ink, imported PDFs you can annotate, and handwriting that is searchable even though you wrote it by hand. It is the app most students and pencil-first note-takers land on.
It is built around the iPad, so it is not the tool for typed notes on a laptop, and its own AI and cloud features sit behind the paid tier. For writing by hand on a tablet, it is the one to try first.