11 Best Apple Pencil Apps to Unleash Your Creativity

Hey there! As a long-time iPad user and artist myself, I‘m excited to share this comprehensive guide on the best apps for the Apple Pencil. I‘ve tested and researched dozens of apps over the years, and compiled my top recommendations here based on hours of hands-on experience.

Whether you‘re an artist, designer, note-taker or just getting started with the Apple Pencil, these apps will help you create incredible digital work. The Apple Pencil truly revolutionizes the iPad experience – with its pressure sensitivity, tilt support and low latency, it simply feels magical to draw, sketch and write on the iPad.

Let‘s first look at why the Apple Pencil is such a game-changing creative tool before jumping into the apps.

Why the Apple Pencil is a Must-Have for Digital Creativity

Since its debut in 2015, the Apple Pencil has earned the love of artists, students, professionals and hobbyists alike. But what exactly makes it so great? Here are some of the key benefits that set it apart from other styluses:

It feels completely natural. The tip provides the perfect amount of friction and precision on the iPad screen to genuinely emulate the feeling of writing or drawing with pen and paper.

Ultra-low latency. When you move the Apple Pencil, the line appears instantly on screen. This lag-free experience helps you stay immersed in the creative process.

Tilt and pressure sensitivity. The Apple Pencil picks up subtle differences in pressure and tilt angles, allowing you to create variable strokes. Add shading by tilting the pencil or make bold lines by pressing harder – just like real-world drawing tools.

Pixel-perfect precision. The pointed tip enables you to sketch the finest details with accuracy. Add intricate designs, handwrite neatly in small spaces, and draw smooth shapes.

No charging required. The Apple Pencil lasts up to 12 hours per charge, charging quickly when magnetically attached to newer iPad models.

Beyond these core features, the Apple Pencil supports tilt gestures in apps, has intelligent palm rejection so you can rest your hand naturally on the screen, and is always paired and ready to use with a compatible iPad.

According to a 2021 survey of Apple Pencil owners, 98% said it improved the iPad experience while 94% saw their productivity increase. And 87% said it improved their ability to be creative. (Source: Forbes) With such glowing feedback from real users, it‘s easy to see why the Apple Pencil is so beloved.

Now let‘s look at some of the best apps that truly unlock the Apple Pencil‘s capabilities on iPad.

Best Apple Pencil Drawing & Painting Apps

The Apple Pencil shines when used for digital drawing and painting. Here are some stellar apps that provide a blank digital canvas and robust toolset:

Procreate

For many digital artists, Procreate is the undisputed king of drawing apps on iPad. Its gorgeous interface, insanely customizable brushes, and powerful features have earned it a reputation as one of the best Apple Pencil apps for serious illustration and painting.

Procreate excels at line drawing, sketching, and airbrushing thanks to its silky smooth vector and raster brushes. And with the Apple Pencil, the experience becomes transcendent. Strokes are rendered instantly, pressure and tilt feel completely natural, and everything simply works exactly as you‘d expect when putting pencil to paper.

Some of my favorite features include:

Huge range of configurable brushes – Over 200 options with advanced settings for texture, flow, jitter, opacity, and more
Layer support – Build up immensely complex paintings with up to 128 layers
Intuitive UI – Simple, minimal interface puts all focus on creating
Reference and symmetry modes – Speed up your workflow with mirrored drawing and overlays
Gorgeous filters – Instantly apply artistic effects like blurs, glitches, distortions and more with a single tap

According to AppFigures data, Procreate is installed on over 4 million iPads worldwide and has amassed over 28 million downloads to date. This makes it the most popular premium drawing and painting app by a massive margin.

For digital creatives who want a feature-packed environment optimized for the Apple Pencil, Procreate is hard to beat. You can download Procreate for just $9.99 – very cheap for such professional-grade software.

Procreate‘s brushes are endlessly customizable for all styles of digital art

Adobe Fresco

For artists already familiar with Adobe‘s industry standard Creative Cloud programs, Fresco will instantly feel like home. It provides Photoshop brushes and robust drawing tools in a flexible iPad app tailored to touch and Apple Pencil input.

The Apple Pencil precision particularly shines when using Fresco‘s versatile Live Brushes. These brushes dynamically adapt to create natural painting or sketching effects based on how you tilt, apply pressure, and move the Pencil. It genuinely mimics the feeling of oils, watercolors, ink pens and more.

Other handy features for Apple Pencil users:

Huge range of Photoshop brushes – Get access to Adobe‘s ecosystem of creative brushes
Live Brushes – Experience adaptive brushes that act like the real thing
Blend and smudge tools – Seamlessly smear and blend strokes on the digital canvas
iPad/desktop sync – Start drawings on one device and pick up right where you left off on the other
Creative Cloud integration – Your work flows seamlessly between Fresco and other CC apps

For creatives embedded in the Adobe ecosystem, Fresco is a no-brainer companion app for painting on the go. It offers a free tier with basic features, and full functionality through a Creative Cloud subscription.

ArtRage

If you want digital painting tools that truly mimic the feeling of oils, watercolors, pencils and more, ArtRage needs to be on your radar. It does a phenomenal job at recreating the experience of real artistic media thanks to the Apple Pencil‘s pressure and tilt features.

The app is highly customizable too – you can tweak settings like paint wetness, smeariness, blending and colors to achieve precisely the style you‘re looking for. I especially like using the oil paint tool with thinners applied to get that authentic visible brushstroke texture.

Things that make ArtRage ideal for Apple Pencil use:

Realistic tools – The pencils, paints, markers all look and behave like their real versions
Canvas textures – Choose paper grains and textures to paint on
Intuitive interface – Toolbar floats conveniently out of your way as you work
Customizability – Granular control over every tool‘s properties like wetness, smearing, and blending

ArtRage definitely makes digital painting on the iPad more fun and lively. And it really showcases the pressure, tilt and low-lag capabilities of the Apple Pencil. You can try ArtRage free for 21 days to test it yourself before the $9.99 purchase.

ArtRage mimics the feeling of painting with real artistic media

Top Apple Pencil Apps for Note Taking

For students, professionals, and anyone who wants to go paperless, the iPad paired with Apple Pencil is a super powerful – yet comfortable – note-taking combination. Nothing beats the natural feel of writing notes by hand. Here are some great Apple Pencil-optimized note apps.

GoodNotes 5

For gorgeously designed digital notebooks, GoodNotes 5 is a stellar pick. It focuses on beautifully recreating the pen and paper experience with an array of notebook designs, paper styles, writing tools, and intuitive organization.

Everything about GoodNotes 5 is optimized for Apple Pencil and touch input. Writing feels natural thanks to stellar stylus support. And features like smart shape recognition, sticky notes, and quick eraser access further enhance the workflow.

Some of the key features:

Realistic paper styles – Lines, grids, or plain paper with customizable colors and opacity
Handwriting OCR – Search your handwritten notes by converting to text
Audio recording – Sync audio with notes during lectures or meetings
Templates – Reuse elements like grids and diagrams across notes
Security – Password protect sensitive notes and sync securely via iCloud

GoodNotes 5 offers a free trial, with a one-time $7.99 purchase to unlock premium features. For gorgeous note-taking focused on Apple Pencil support, it‘s hard to find better.

GoodNotes 5 focuses on recreating the feel of pen and paper

Notability

For power users who need a single app to consolidate handwritten notes, drawings, web clippings, PDF annotations and audio recordings, Notability is a versatile choice. It combines all these features into an intuitive note-taking environment optimized for Apple Pencil.

Notability‘s smooth writing experience, palm rejection, and handy tools like instant shape recognition and a scanning multitool make note-taking extremely convenient. And features like search, iCloud sync, and organization tools help you easily navigate your knowledge base.

Here are some of the perks for Apple Pencil users:

Seamless writing experience – Notes, drawings and annotations flow naturally
Audio recording – Link recordings to notes for context
Instant shapes – Draw perfect lines, arrows and shapes instantly
PDF annotation – Mark up PDFs and presentations by writing directly on them
Cross-platform – Notes stay in sync between iOS, Android, Mac and Windows

If you like to blend handwritten notes with other media like images and recordings, Notability is a versatile choice. It does require a $12.99 purchase to unlock full features and iCloud sync.

Best Sketching Apps for Apple Pencil

The Apple Pencil truly excels at digital sketching thanks to its freeflowing feel, tilt support, and ultra-low latency. These apps provide great platforms tailored to freehand pencil sketching.

Sketchbook by Autodesk

Sketchbook focuses on delivering a natural sketching and drawing experience. The fully customizable pencils and brushes are optimized for Apple Pencil with realistic pressure shading and textures.

It captures the feel of sketching in an actual sketchbook thanks to the responsive Apple Pencil input. Precision tools like rulers and shape recognition further aid your creativity and flow.

I really appreciate Sketchbook for its:

Highly customizable tools – Fine-tune everything from brush tip shape to pressure sensitivity
Intuitive interface – UI gets out of the way to let you focus on sketching
Powerful layers – Sketch on multiple layers to build complex illustrations
Handy aids – Symmetry mode, custom grids, and other aids to speed up work

Sketchbook offers a generous free plan so you can access many features without paying. It‘s an excellent starting point for digital sketching on the iPad with Apple Pencil.

Linea Sketch

For clean and minimalist sketching, Linea Sketch is a great choice. It provides an uncluttered canvas and small set of versatile tools tuned for Apple Pencil. The simple interface helps you focus purely on sketching ideas.

Linea Sketch really nails the natural feeling of pencil sketching. The pencils create smooth, pressure-sensitive strokes with support for tilt shading thanks to the Apple Pencil. And fluid two-finger gestures speed up zooms, pans and rotations so you stay immersed in sketching.

Here are some of its noteworthy Apple Pencil features:

Realistic pencils – Responsive pressure and tilt create natural pencil sketches
Uncluttered UI – Avoid distractions and focus on your sketch
Palm recognition – Ignore accidental hand touches while sketching
Multi canvas – Sketch your ideas across an unlimited number of canvases
Handy import/export – Get sketches out via PNG, PSD, PDF and more

I highly recommend Linea Sketch‘s free version for minimalist pencil sketching. The full feature set is unlocked for a one-time $4.99 purchase.

Apple Pencil Use Tips to Boost Your Creativity

Here are some pro tips I‘ve gathered from avid Apple Pencil users that can help you get the most out of your creative apps:

Customize pressure sensitivity in app settings to match your natural drawing style
Use tilt for shading as you would with an actual pencil
Learn each app‘s gestures – like two fingers to undo or drag with two fingers to move the canvas
Try a matte screen protector to get a paper-like drawing texture
Use an iPad stand case so you can work at a comfortable drafting angle
Activate the Quick Note feature via Control Center for instant note taking
Keep reference photos handy using Split View multitasking
Use a drawing glove to avoid skin contact and keep the screen smudge-free

With some practice and these tips, the Apple Pencil will become a seamlessly intuitive extension of your creativity.

Closing Thoughts on Unleashing Creativity with Apple Pencil

Thanks for taking the time to read this comprehensive guide on maximizing your Apple Pencil! I aimed to provide lots of value whether you‘re an artist, note taker or just getting started exploring the stylus.

The key takeaway is that the Apple Pencil unlocks a whole new level of natural, immersive digital creation on the iPad. It genuinely feels like you‘re sketching with pencil and paper or painting with real brushes. And paired with these powerful apps optimized for Apple Pencil, you can create your most inspired work on an iPad.

I hope this breakdown of the top drawing, painting, note taking and sketching apps helps you find the perfect creative suite. Let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m always happy to chat Apple Pencil tips and recommended apps.

Now go pick up that Pencil and start making some magic!