By 
Less than two weeks after the major Notability 14 update, we’re already seeing a flood of bug fixes, which isn’t a great sign. While the update brought a more modern and minimalist design to the app, making it look sleeker, it also introduced several issues that have impacted the overall user experience.
The updated interface on the homepage and workspace initially feels intuitive. The placement of the settings icon and search bar, along with the new way of creating folders, makes sense. The addition of tabs for recent and favorite notes is also a welcome change. However, things take a turn for the worse from there.
One of the most frustrating changes is the inclusion of the gallery on the sidebar alongside folders and notes. The gallery, which has never been particularly useful, is now more accessible than ever—something that feels counterproductive in a productivity app. It’s easy to imagine accidentally tapping on the gallery and wasting time scrolling through it instead of focusing on work.
Dividers, which were already hard to see in previous versions, have become even more difficult to spot due to the large dots now used for subjects. For those who don’t rely on colorful subjects to organize notes, this change makes navigation even more challenging.
While the minimalist design looks clean, it doesn’t necessarily improve functionality. In fact, many features now require more steps to access. The recycle bin, for instance, is no longer available on the homepage, even though there’s plenty of space for it. This overly minimalist approach sacrifices usability for aesthetics.
Selecting multiple documents has also become more tedious, adding unnecessary steps to tasks that were previously simple. The ease of use that once defined Notability seems to have been lost in this update.
Creating new notebooks is now confusing, with page template options appearing at the bottom of the screen. These options don’t always work as intended, often failing to override custom default templates and instead creating a mess that requires undoing.
Importing documents, which should be a straightforward process, is now unreliable. The app failed to correctly import a digital notebook, skipping the cover page and ruining the topic pages. This level of dysfunction is concerning for such a popular app, and it suggests that more bug fixes are on the way.
The new full-screen mode, which creates an illusion of an infinite canvas, feels empty and makes it harder to navigate within notebooks. Simple tasks like renaming a notebook now require extra effort, as you have to scroll or zoom out to find the notebook title.
The new icons in the update look awkward, and the floating toolbar, borrowed from Apple Notes, feels out of place. Moving the toolbar around the screen is less smooth than it is in Apple Notes, adding to the frustration.
The audio recording feature, which used to be easily accessible, now requires scrolling through the toolbar to find it. This adds unnecessary steps to start or stop a recording, which was previously a one-tap action. The same goes for accessing other features like the tape, laser pointer, and ruler tool.
While the ability to customize the color palette for each writing tool is a nice addition, it’s limited to eight colors, and accessing pen thicknesses requires additional scrolling. The favorites toolbar, which many users relied on, has been removed, making the new setup feel more cumbersome.
The new keyboard toolbar is one of the few highlights of the update, offering presets for headings and text formatting options. However, the inability to edit favorite text styles is frustrating, and issues with custom fonts add to the overall sense of dissatisfaction.
The removal of the plus icon for adding items and its replacement with a photo icon that groups stickers, GIFs, and sticky notes is another questionable decision. The new layout feels awkward and less intuitive, especially since sticky notes no longer offer the page options they used to.
The note switcher now allows access to all folders without exiting a note, which is a thoughtful addition. However, the search tool is less accessible than before, requiring more steps to use. While the app looks less cluttered when multitasking, the improvements are overshadowed by the overall negative impact on usability.
Multiple-page selection has improved, but the large thumbnails take up too much space. Offering the option to zoom in and out on thumbnails, as seen in other apps, would enhance this feature. Once again, the update falls short by tucking away important icons like bookmarks and notes.
The zoom window has also been buried under several layers of options, making it harder to use. The lack of clear demarcations in the interface makes the app feel unfinished and less user-friendly.
Search functionality has taken a hit as well, both from the workspace and the homepage. The removal of the count for found terms is a minor change, but combined with all the other issues, it contributes to a sense of frustration. The lack of title and content results on the homepage is particularly disappointing.
While Notability 14 did introduce a redo icon, it still hasn’t addressed the long-standing issue of page rotation not rotating ink. This oversight, along with the other problems, suggests a lack of attention to user needs.
Overall, Notability 14 feels like a step backward. The update has introduced more problems than it solved, making the app less user-friendly and more frustrating to use. The developers would do well to reconsider some of these changes and prioritize functionality over form.
