MindBoard 2019 ( for S Pen )

It doesn't write... Pens just leave a trail mark but don't write

Love this but sick and tired of no support and subscription being returned after a few days hence hard to keep premium features active. Just have to keep on subscribing.

App destroyed by the fact that it keeps expanding the maps every time opened, making a mess. (On Android 11 Boox). What a joke!

App destroyed by the fact that it keeps expanding the maps every time opened, making a mess. (On Android 11 Boox). What a joke!

👎

👎

This app is brilliantly simple, and pretty much exactly what I wanted. I wanted a nice, tiny, and organized way to chart my thoughts using my S-pen. Other flowchart/brainstorming/mind mapping apps have tended to be too specific to some other field, such as software timelines or organization mapping. I really just want a freeform concept mapper. MindBoard 2019 fits the bill quite well. You insert nodes and draw lines to other nodes, but the actual writing or design of the node is done freehand using the S-pen. This means that you have individual drawings that exist as nodes that can be manipulated and moved around. Any styling is entirely up to you, and not dependent on any standard. For my purposes, since I chat theological and philosophical concepts, I often need an abundance of space, where for example I sneak in a tiny definition under a larger heading. This isn't usually possible in other apps, since the font size is unified for the entire node, and such a layout would be bad form anyway for an org. chart or software timeline. In MindBoard, I can do whatever what I want. I can write a big heading and small text, I can do it in cursive, block letters, color it in, etc. There's a few caveats. First, the other reviewers are right: there is no guidance whatsoever in the app, and it's not at all intuitive at first glance. You have to check the web site in a browser for the user guide, and even then it's not very helpful. Once you figure it out, however, the app is so simple that it's not a problem. Just press the bottom-left icon to create a node. Single-tap to select the node, double-tap to edit it with your pen. Secondly, there's two apps: MindBoard, and MindBoard 2019. The latter one is the newer one. I don't know why the dev split the project into two, or why they still keep the old one up, but on their web site it makes it clear that MindBoard 2019 is the newer one, which you should get. Thirdly, given that the app is designed for freehand writing and illustration, it does not convert your handwriting into text. Thus there's no easy way to export what you've written as text. The Premium version (in-app purchase) does allow PDF export, but I would wager that it only exports as an image, not as text. Lastly, the Premium features don't seem worth it yet. It's $1/mo., which would be cheap for some apps but is expensive for something as simple as this. I don't like subscription apps to begin with, and the options that the subscription adds aren't worth much. It allows you to change background and pen color, for example. I would rather the developer release the Premium version as a standalone purchase for $2 or $3. I don't want it to be an in-app purchase because that can make it unsharable with my Family Library, and I don't want it to be a subscription because that just seems silly for an app that is not constantly updated. In sum, I highly recommend this app for those with an S-pen and ideas to write down.