Name: Synapse
Price: 1.99 EUR

v0.4.4 Latest

Tags and finding pages with AI: the AI suggests tags for your pages — you tick what stays. And via Menu → AI → “Find pages” you search by content, not by word.
Beautify handwriting (beta): what you write is recognised and re-set in a font — eight to choose from. Turn it on under Settings → Drawing & Tools; “Back to handwriting” brings your original back. Android only.
Link pages to each other: select something with the lasso and tap the chain icon — a tap then jumps to the page, the notebook or the web. An arrow at the top brings you back.
Create a planner: under “Add” on the home screen, create a ready-made calendar as a notebook — year, months, weeks or days, all linked together.
Links in text documents: select a word, tap the chain icon — there is your clickable link.
Formulas in text documents: via “Insert → Insert formula” you put proper mathematics into your text. You write in LaTeX, with a preview and a row of buttons for anyone who does not.
Outline and word count: an icon at the top of a text document lists every heading with its page number — one tap takes you there. Above it: words, characters and pages.
Set the line spacing: next to the heading selector there is now one for line spacing — tighter or airier, per paragraph.
Read aloud: the app reads typed text to you — in a text document via the speaker icon, in a notebook via “Read page aloud”. Adjustable speed, works offline.
Tasks travel with you: a task list now belongs to its notebook and is the same on every device. The ⋮ menu on the home screen shows every open item at once under “Tasks”.
References to this page: the page menu ⋮ shows you which spots jump here. One tap takes you there.
Tags on individual pages too: via the page menu ⋮ → “Tags”. The notebook’s drawer lists every tag you have used with the pages behind it.
Archive notebooks: via ⋮ on the notebook it leaves the home screen, the tasks and the learning stats — everything is kept. Back via ⋮ on the home screen → “Archive”.
Two pages side by side: on wide screens, like an open exercise book. The toggle sits in the drawer next to the zoom lock.
Get deleted pages back: a deleted page stays in the bin for 30 days. You find it via the page menu ⋮ → “Deleted pages”.
Order on the home screen: sort by name, by change, or your own order. “Select several” in the ⋮ menu moves, exports or deletes several at once. And every notebook can carry a symbol.
Share to other apps: the export menu sends a notebook or text document straight on as a PDF — into a message, an email or another app.
Tables in text documents: via “Insert → Insert table”. You edit it in its own sheet; it is typeset properly in the PDF.
Voice notes in text documents: via “Insert → Record voice note”, record up to ten minutes right inside the document. The recording travels along with the sync.
Find and replace in text documents: via the magnifier, across every page. Replace one at a time or all at once.
More tools in text documents: buttons for superscript, subscript, monospace and code blocks. Markdown shortcuts work as you type. Plus four templates and headers and footers in the PDF.
Translate: select with the lasso, pick “Translate” in the ✨ menu. The original stays, the translation appears next to it.
Have your pages read: for “Find pages” to find anything, the AI has to have read your pages once. You now start that yourself in the AI menu.
The search finds more: several words that do not stand next to each other. Missing umlauts (“Muller” finds “Müller”). Several hits per page, ordered by how well they match.
Learning stats: in the ⋮ menu on the home screen — your run of days, your best streak, what is due and how much already sits.

v0.4.3

Version history: from now on every notebook remembers its earlier states. The notebook menu has a new entry, “Version history” — it lists the states that have been kept, with date and time, and one tap brings back the way things looked yesterday evening. A restored state always arrives as a new notebook next to the existing one: your current notebook stays untouched, so you can look at both side by side before deciding. Kept are the most recent changes plus one state per day for the past week — so even in the evening you can still find what was there in the morning. This requires a plan that includes cloud sync, because the earlier states live on the server. Images and PDFs come along — including the ones you have removed from the notebook since.
Photos straight from the camera: where you could only pick a ready-made image file before, the app on phone and tablet now asks first whether you would rather take a photo. The whiteboard, a page from a book, a handout from the person next to you — one shot and it is in your notes. This works everywhere images can go: on a drawing page under “Insert Image”, in a text document, and as an attachment in the AI chat. “Image to Text” accepts the camera too — photograph the sheet and the recognised text lands as a text box on your page. Your photos are automatically scaled to a sensible size, so a single picture does not take up more room than a whole notebook of handwriting and syncing stays quick. On PC nothing changes: you go straight to the file picker.
Photographed at an angle? Now pulled straight: a sheet you photograph is rarely lying flat in front of the camera — usually it is tilted a little, and it stays crooked in your notebook. Tap an image and next to cropping you will now find “Straighten document”. Drag the four dots onto the corners of the sheet, everything around them is dimmed, and one tap stands the page up straight — as if you had scanned it. There is a “Scan look” switch to go with it: it takes the colour out and pushes the contrast so the paper really turns white instead of grey. Handy for handouts, book pages and anything you quickly snapped off the table. You place the four corners yourself, and that is deliberate: automatic detection often gets it wrong on a busy background, and you would have to correct it anyway.
Search now finds what is inside your PDFs, too. Until now you would only find your own note in the margin, not the passage in the script next to it. Search for “Laplace” and from now on you also get the page in the lecture notes where it appears. This costs nothing and needs no particular plan — only scanned pages without a text layer need text recognition, which comes along with the AI features.
Move pages to the right notebook: a page’s menu now offers “To another notebook…”. You pick the target from your folder overview — with folders, colours and indentation, so you spot “Chapter 3” straight away even among eighty notebooks. The page moves in full: handwriting, images, shapes, text and PDF background. It leaves the old notebook and lands at the end of the new one. Locked notebooks and ones shared with you are deliberately not offered — there the page would either vanish behind a PIN or never reach its owner.
Share whole folders: the folder menu’s “Share folder…” now shows the entire contents as a list — notebooks and subfolders — and you tick what should go along. Everything is ticked by default. The recipient is asked once — not once per notebook — and a yes puts a real folder labelled “Shared by …” under “Shared with me”, not a loose pile of separate notebooks. Put another notebook into one of the chosen folders later and they receive it automatically on the next sync. Untick something here and access is revoked — whereas merely taking a notebook out of the folder does NOT revoke it.

v0.4.2

Tutorial extended: the new features are now covered in the tutorial. You can start it anytime under Settings → Info.
Fixes in the areas of pen selection, tutorial and signing in.

v0.4.1

Present: open a notebook, choose “Present” from the menu (or press F5 on a computer), and your notes fill the whole screen — one page at a time, with no toolbars. Drag a finger or your pen across the page for a laser pointer that fades away on its own; a tap on the left or right turns the page. On a computer and with a Bluetooth presenter the arrow keys, page up and down and the space bar all work, and “B” blanks the screen to black for when you want everyone listening rather than reading. Nothing in your notes can be changed while you present — not even by accident with the heel of your hand. The screen stays awake throughout. Press Escape, F5 or the button in the bar to finish.
Refer a friend: under Settings → Account you will now find your personal referral code. Pass it on, and when someone takes out a paid subscription with it you get 2 GB of extra cloud storage — for every friend you refer, right after their purchase. From three friends on, 50,000 AI tokens come on top. The code is entered at checkout, in the app just as on the website. The bonus lasts for as long as your friend's subscription runs; if they cancel, it keeps counting for another two weeks so your storage does not shrink without warning. You can see how many friends currently count in the same place. The storage bonus requires a plan that includes cloud storage, the tokens a plan that includes AI.

v0.4.0

Display name: every account now has a name you pick yourself — and that is the only thing other people see, in your friends list, on shared notebooks and while working together. It is also what you search for when you want to add someone as a friend or share a notebook. You no longer need anyone's email address for that, and nobody gets to see yours. Each name exists only once, and capitalisation makes no difference. You can change it under Settings → Account → Profile; after that it stays put for two weeks, so your friends do not suddenly lose track of you. Existing accounts already have a name and can adjust it there right away.
Conflicts resolve themselves: if you wrote in the same notebook on two devices, or together with someone else, you used to have to decide which version wins — and the other one was gone. Now the app compares both states page by page and brings them together: whatever was added on one device stays, and so does whatever appeared on the other. It only has to ask in the rare cases where two changes genuinely contradict each other — and there the choice is still yours. Your changes also go up the moment you leave a page or a notebook, instead of up to a minute later.
You can see what has not reached the cloud yet: a notebook with changes that are still waiting now carries a small cloud marker on the home screen. As long as you can see it, something exists only on this device — handy if you have been writing without a connection. Once it disappears, everything is up. The app remembers pending changes permanently: they survive closing the app and are sent on their own as soon as there is a connection again.
Less storage: handwritten notes now take up only about half the space they used to, and syncing moves just over a third of the data it did before. That spares your cloud storage and makes a real difference on slow connections. Pages also open faster, especially in well-filled notebooks. Nothing about the way your notes look changes.
Smoother function plotter: equations such as x² + y² = 25 and inequalities are now drawn many times faster. When you pan and zoom, the plot keeps up with your movement instead of lagging behind — the difference is clearest on a phone. Curves are also drawn without gaps now: spots where small pieces used to be missing are continuous.
Erasing without the wait: the eraser, lasso selection and tapping through overlapping strokes are now 134 times faster on well-filled pages. Where the eraser used to visibly lag behind on a dense page of notes, it keeps up with your pen. The fuller the page, the bigger the difference.
Six times faster syncing: notebooks now travel to the cloud and back six to seven times faster. A well-filled notebook of 60 pages used to take around 1.4 seconds; now it is just under 0.2. Just as important: the app no longer stalls while it happens — syncing runs in the background, so you can keep writing while it works.
Quicker opening: the home screen and individual notebooks open faster — most noticeably if you have created a lot of notebooks. Pages holding a great many strokes also appear sooner.

v0.3.8

Create summary: from a notebook's side menu, the AI now summarizes your notes — the whole notebook, a page range, or just your bookmarked pages. "Overview" gives you an outline with a few sentences per topic, while "Detailed" actually examines the pages and goes into specifics. Save the result as its own editable text document or as new pages at the end. In text documents the same function sits in the ✨ menu. If a run gets expensive, you see what it costs before it starts.
Flashcards with a learning mode: from a notebook's side menu, the AI turns your notes into question-and-answer pairs — from the whole notebook, a page range, or just your bookmarked pages. You either set how many cards you want or leave it to the AI. Every card can be edited, deleted or added by hand. When you learn, you only get the cards that are due today: what you know comes back in a few days, what you struggle with comes back right away. The home screen shows how many cards are waiting in each notebook, and the app can remind you in the evening — switch it off under Settings → Saving & Export. Cards and progress travel to your other devices; if you generate again later, existing cards keep their progress.
Assign the stylus button: until now the button on the barrel was fixed to the eraser. Under Settings → Drawing & Tools → Input you now decide what it does: eraser, selection, the tool you used before — or undo with a short click while the stylus hovers over the page. If you keep hitting it by accident, set it to "Off". Holding it switches tools only while you press, then it switches back.
Performance improvements for AI

v0.3.7

New "Very strong" step for vibration strength (Settings → Input). Previously "Strong" was the end of the scale, and on some devices that was barely noticeable. Louder is not technically possible — the motor is already at its limit there. Instead the new step gives a double thump rather than a single pulse, and that you can feel. On iPhone and iPad it is two short taps in quick succession.
Tags: a notebook lives in exactly one folder — but it often belongs to several topics. From a notebook's menu you can now give it tags like "exam" or "semester 3"; they show up in small type under the title. Tap one and you see everything carrying it — across ALL folders. Open the search without typing anything and your tags are right there as an overview, with counts. While typing, the app suggests tags you already use, so "Exam" and "exam" do not become two separate piles. Tags sync across your devices.
Move in instead of starting over: the plus button on the home screen now offers "Import files", where you can pick SEVERAL files at once — each becomes its own notebook, named after the file. Works with PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel and .syn. Coming from another app, just export everything there as PDF in one go and bring it in here in a single pass instead of notebook by notebook. If one file fails, the import carries on with the rest and tells you at the end what did not work.
Three small things that were missing day to day: (1) "Export as images (PNG)" in the export menu — save single pages, a range or the whole notebook as images without going through a PDF. (2) Page numbers in PDF exports: a small "3 / 12" now sits at the bottom edge; switch it off under Settings → Saving & Export, where you can also add the notebook title as a header. (3) Notebook colors: give a notebook a color from its menu — much easier to spot in a long list. The color syncs across devices.
Reminders: to-dos with a deadline and the countdown now speak up on their own — even when Synapse is closed. Until now the alarm only appeared while the app was open. Under Settings → Saving & Export → Reminders you can choose whether to be reminded at the due time or 15 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours or a day earlier — or turn it off entirely. It all runs on your device, nothing is sent anywhere.
Lock individual notebooks: in a notebook's menu on the home screen you will find "Lock with PIN". Its tile then shows a padlock instead of the preview, and opening it needs your PIN (or fingerprint). Important: the app itself does NOT have to be locked for this — the PIN and the app lock are now separate, so you can protect single notebooks and still open the app normally. The lock deliberately applies only to the device where you set it — locked on your tablet, open on your own PC. Locked notebooks are also left out of full-text search. Forgot your PIN? Confirm your account password, nothing is lost.
Razor-sharp PDFs — and much faster: the PDF export now writes handwriting, shapes and page rulings into the PDF as real vectors instead of a picture. Zoom in as far as you like and everything stays crisp, files get many times smaller, and exporting is noticeably faster — including when backing up lots of notebooks. Photos and imported PDF pages are pictures by nature, but they are embedded cleanly at the resolution you picked.
Full backup you can restore: under Settings → Saving you can now back up ALL folders, notebooks and pages into ONE file (.synbak) — and bring it back later. When restoring you choose whether the backup is added to your notes or replaces your current content. New: "Automatic backup" — enable it once and pick a folder, and the app drops a fresh .synbak there daily (older ones are cleaned up) — on Android even at night in the background, even when the app is closed. Ideal when switching devices or without any cloud. The PDF backup (view-only) is still there – now manually via a button or automatically after you close a notebook.
Template gallery: when adding a page you now get "Browse all templates" with five new layouts – dot grid, Cornell notes, music staff, isometric and to-do list – shown as previews in portrait or landscape. Your own PDF templates now live here too: view, add and delete them all in one place. Line colour, spacing and width still follow your settings.
Bookmarks: mark important pages with the bookmark icon at the top. Open "Bookmarks" (in the menu) to see all marked pages at a glance and jump straight to them — handy in long documents.
New pen type — pencil: switch to it right in the quick-select bar (next to pen and highlighter) or in the pen dialog under "Pen type". The line is soft and grainy like real graphite on paper — and looks the same in exports and PDFs.
Search inside your notes: type in the search box on the home screen and pick "search the text of all notes" — Synapse now searches content too (text documents and text boxes on drawing pages) and jumps straight to the page. Pure handwriting is not covered yet.
Keyboard shortcuts on desktop: Ctrl+Z/Y to undo, Page Up/Down to flip pages, Ctrl+F for the page overview, Ctrl + +/− to zoom and keys 1–5 for the tools. The full list is under Settings → Info → Keyboard shortcuts.
Search your settings: there is now a magnifier at the top of Settings. Type "PIN", "vibration" or "dark" and jump straight to the right place.
Settings reorganised: nine tabs became seven – "Language" now sits in "Appearance" and "Export" with "Saving". And the app lock (PIN) is finally where you would look for it: under "Account & Security".

v0.3.6

Tidier menus: the press-and-hold menu (for images, audio, text and shapes) and the lasso menu are now more compact and stay the same small size on large screens.
Menus stay visible: if an object sits at the very top, its menu no longer disappears behind the quick-select bar — it moves just below it.
Undo shows the change: undo and redo now scroll exactly to the affected spot — and do so before applying, so you can see what is being undone. This now works reliably on all devices, including PDFs and while zoomed.
Optional: under Settings → Input you can turn off "Jump to change on undo/redo" if you prefer the view to stay put.
UI density: under Settings → Appearance you can set how tightly menus, buttons and lists are packed – Compact, Normal or Spacious.

v0.3.5

Freely move objects in text documents: tap an image, shape or table and drag it anywhere with your finger — they float freely over the text.
Stretch in width and height: drag the edge handles to resize images and shapes in width only or height only; the corner handle scales proportionally and keeps the aspect ratio.
Objects now sync: images, shapes and tables in text documents sync across all your devices and in shared documents — moving them shows up live for collaborators.
Fixed the image bar in the notebook: the menu of a selected image or shape no longer disappears behind the top toolbar.
Move folders: top-level folders can now be sorted into other folders and subfolders too, via the ⋮ menu → "Move".
Black pages & PDFs in light mode too: "Invert pages" and "Invert PDFs" now work independently of dark mode — so dark pages/PDFs work even with a light app theme. Plus more paper shades for inverted pages.
Grid view for the home screen: under Settings → Appearance → "View" show notebooks and folders as a grid with large preview tiles. Long-press and drag to reorder tiles or drop them into folders.
Distraction-free lasso: the press-and-hold ring no longer flashes every time you circle a selection — it only appears when you actually hold still.
Import files: via "Insert" → "Import file" pick the format in one window — Word, PowerPoint, Excel, PDF or .syn. Office files are added as pages automatically, just like a PDF.
SVG images: when inserting an image you can now also pick SVG vector graphics — they are embedded crisply.
Clearer notices: if something goes wrong while inserting a file, you now get an understandable message window instead of a brief technical note at the edge.

v0.3.4

Shapes in text documents: via "Insert" → "Insert shape" you open the full shape catalog (2D, diagrams, 3D, components, logic gates, flowcharts and your own) and drop a shape into the document with a single tap.
Resize by dragging in text documents: tap an image, shape or PDF page in a text document and drag the corner handle to the size you want — no more sliders.
PDF & .syn for everyone: during the trial and on Bronze you can now insert PDFs and .syn files as notebook pages (locally, without cloud).
Pan on tablet: at more than 100% zoom you can now move the notebook left and right with one finger, not just up and down.
Smoother drawing: auto-save now runs gently in the background (2 seconds) instead of on every stroke — the laggy "Instant" option is gone.

v0.3.1

Reorder pages: from the page menu (⋮) you can now "move" a page and choose which page it should go after.
Theme: light/dark can now follow the system or switch automatically on a schedule (e.g. dark in the evening).
Color themes: ready-made accent + background combos (Sepia, Nordic, Forest …) with a single tap.
More paper fine-tuning: softer dark-mode paper shades plus adjustable line thickness, spacing and style (dashed/dotted).
Home screen: pick the size of the notebook previews (compact, normal, large).
Global undo/redo: you can now step back through ALL your changes in order — across pages and including page actions (duplicate/delete/move). History is kept even while you scroll.
Lasso settings: tap the active lasso again and choose freehand or a rectangle drag — plus what it captures (drawings, images, shapes and everything else, each toggleable).
Layers & precise select: tap a single stroke with the lasso — if several overlap, each further tap steps to the one beneath. Use "Layer" to move the selection forward or back.
Smooth opacity: set opacity with a slider from 1% to 100% instead of fixed steps (pen, highlighter, shapes, laser).
Select shapes as one: multi-part shapes (e.g. inserted components) are now always captured as a whole by the lasso — no more circling every single stroke.
Shared notebooks without cloud sync: during the trial and on Bronze there is now a refresh button to receive share invitations and shared notebooks.

v0.3.0

Forgot your PIN? No problem: the app lock can now be reset with your account password — without losing your notebooks.

v0.2.9

Feedback right from the app: under "Settings → Info → Send feedback" you can now send us ideas, wishes or problems.
More reliable cloud sync: a single problematic notebook no longer blocks syncing of all the others.
Tutorial updated: the guided introduction now covers all current features and settings.

v0.2.8

Keep screen on: the display no longer dims or locks while a notebook is open. Enable it in Settings under "Appearance".
Tactile feedback: a short vibration when a shape snaps into place, a line locks onto an angle, or you select something with the lasso.
More stability: the app now reports crashes automatically and anonymously (no note content), so we can find and fix problems faster. Can be turned off under "Info".

v0.2.7

New straight-line mode: a pen that draws only straight lines and snaps magnetically to 15° angles. Configurable per pen — create your own "line pen".
Reshape shapes: tap a shape or selection, "Edit points" — handles appear on the outline that you can softly warp. Drag between two points to add a new one.
Duplicate selection: the lasso menu's "Duplicate" copies drawings, shapes, images and audio with an offset — instantly selected so you can move it.
Better shape detection on hold-to-snap: rectangles and squares are now recognized reliably (instead of sometimes turning into a circle).
Pen thicknesses in the quick bar are customizable: long-press a thickness and pick freely — just like the colors.
Scribble-to-delete is more precise: removes only what you actually scribbled over, and already on the first stroke-through.
Recolor with a real color picker: recoloring a selection now shows the full picker with HEX input — and below it all your pen and quick-bar colors, so you can match an existing color exactly.
Smart Highlight for PDFs: the highlighter detects text size and adjusts the marker thickness automatically (thick for headings, thin for body text) and snaps neatly to the line. Enable it per highlighter.

What's new?