According to Global Education Technology Market Report 2023, the students’ notes app penetration rate has reached 65%, in which Notability has occupied the top position with 32% market share, its core advantage is to offer handwritten notes support and recording synchronization function, students’ review efficiency increased by 40%. For example, a study at the University of Cambridge found that students who used Notability remembered 27 percent more information when reviewing material in class than users of the traditional paper notes. Evernote, a mature player, holds on to 22% of the academic scene with cross-platform compatibility (12 device types) and AI keyword search (0.3 seconds average response time), but its free model limits uploads to 60MB per month, while the premium version ($7.99 / month) is more expensive for budget-minded students.
In terms of functionality, OneNote is the best among engineering students with its free and open API interface and boundless storage capacity (2GB per note), and its handwriting formula recognition accuracy level is 91% (source: Microsoft 2022 Technical White Paper). Obsidian, the Markdown-based application, is utilized for its “knowledge graph” function, where the users can build subject relationship networks through two-way linking. Based on a survey by Stanford University’s Department of Computer Science, students who used Obsidian reduced the project deadline by 18% on average. In addition, GoodNotes 6’s “Automatic correction of mathematical symbols” feature, which can automatically correct more than 500 symbols, reduced the error rate of STEM students’ note-taking by 34%.
When it comes to pricing, students are especially sensitive to price. In 2021, Notability transformed from a buyout model (originally $9.99) to a subscription model ($14.99 / year), resulting in a 72% drop in downloads that month (Sensor Tower data). On the other hand, Bear 2.0 has been renewed at a rate of 85% through a tiered subscription model ($1.49 / month for the basic and $4.99 / month for the Pro). Of the free applications, Google Keep adds 19% of the market share with concurrent collaboration (50 individuals support to edit at once) and cloud synchronizing speed (average 1.2MB/s), but its lack of OCR text identification (only picture label classificatory support) is an essential shortcoming.
Data security is another essential metric. Proton Notes uses end-to-end encryption (256-bit AES protocol) to offer zero risk of leakage of academic research data and complies with EU GDPR standards but has a synchronization latency (approximately 1.5 seconds) higher than the industry average (0.8 seconds). Roam Research’s server failure caused a 12-hour global user data loss in May 2022, which caused 23,000 student user notes directly, and its market share fell from 8% to 3% thereafter.
On the technical iteration level, the AI-based feature of notes app has become the focal point of competition. For example, MarginNote 3 achieved a 89% accuracy in AI-generated mind maps (41% increase from 2020), and its “automatic document summary” function is able to reduce the reading time for a 100-page PDF from 15 hours to four hours. Meanwhile, LiquidText’s “dynamic folding” technology (touch response time 0.05 seconds) improves case retrieval efficiency by 60% for law students. Gartner predicts that apps with AI correction and syntax correction will penetrate 90% of higher education users by 2025, and accuracy in error labeling will reach 97.3%.
Finally, user ecological construction affects long-term stickiness. With Notion’s community of template sharing (more than 5 million UGC content) and cross-school collaboration (200+ university-dedicated groups), the average student user spends more than 420 hours each year (as per App Annie). Local application of Wolai through localized design (Chinese OCR recognition rate: 98.5%) and collaboration with universities (with Tsinghua, Fudan and other 30 universities to sign a course embedding agreement), in 2023 Q1 user growth rate: 173%, its “timeline backtracking” function can restore the revision history of the note correctly (error ±3 seconds), eliminate the risk of academic controversy.