A fan of the legendary notebooks of Oscar Wilde, Henri Matisse, Ernest Hemingway and Picasso? Yes these little blank tomes have long been the preserve of the literary anti-establishment. So why hark after the Moleskine when you have an IPad? Surely the two are a very contradiction in terms… Perhaps not, because the clever people down at Fifty Three have combined their love of literature with their love of technology and boy have they come up with an IPad app to be proud of.

CYNIC?

Yes even the hard nosed amongst you will be hard pressed not to admire the luminous graphics and the easy functionality of this impressive piece of software, that will quite literally transform your tablet into the stuff of which Moleskine dreams are made.

SKETCH, WRITE & MORE

An Apple design award winner and for good reason, this app has the same elegant design aesthetic as our other favourite IPad app, Dunhill’s Day 8. Whether it’s a sketch, an illustration or your most heartfelt notes and poetry, now you can transfer all that emotion to your beloved Apple device.

THE CONFLICT

Isn’t the whole point of the Moleskine that it eschews technology? Well yes but the moment you resign from the debating society you’ll see the magic, because this app takes the Moleskine ethos to a whole new level by allowing you to share your artwork and literary oevres with your entire social network at the flick of a touchscreen. It also allows you to keep all your genius ideas in one place and holds particular appeal for those of you who have long waved goodbye to the old paper and pen but who still hanker after a bit of that old fashioned ‘je ne sais quoi’ offered by the classic notebook company. Further the app has a custom ink engine, which has had some serious thought put into it, reacting to your movements like a veritable robotic third arm.

IPAD FRIENDLY

Yes it’s been specially designed for the iPad’s glorious high retina screen (ahh take advantage), with brilliant watercolour effects and ‘bleed’ technology you can literally paint onto the screen; it’s quite incredible.

THE FIGURES

Try it for free and then decide whether to upgrade. Beware though this is one app that requires a bit of investment to get the full benefits. One free paint tool comes as standard but you may well decide to invest to the tune of £15 for the rest. Maximise or not – you decide.

July 2012