Pear Note for Mac

For students or professionals who often have to take notes during lectures, organizing them can prove difficult. Pear Note for Mac works well to track audio and typed notes in one program for later reference and organization.

While the full program costs $39.99 to purchase, a free, 14-day trial is available. Download and installation of Pear Note for Mac were fast, and startup occurred without any user interaction beyond accepting a licensing agreement. No instructions were easily available, but the interface is fairly easy to interpret and use. The program's basic graphics were a disappointment, but the layout of buttons along the top row linked to appropriate functions. Users are able to press Record, which tracks all audio coming through the computer's microphone. A box below the buttons allows users to type in notes as the program records. They can also highlight important notations. When the user plays back the recording, a marker tracks what was typed during a particular part of the presentation. Users can save these files for later reference. Additional features allow the webcam to record along with the sound, and users can also incorporate PowerPoint slides. Overall, the program's functions are well tailored for students who attend lecture classes and take copious notes.

For students who attend multiple lectures, Pear Note for Mac works well to track the lecture audio, video, and notes taken.

Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of Pear Note for Mac 3.1.

• Fixed issue that caused 3.2 to fail to update itself, requiring users to manually download updates to it
• Fixed compatibility issues with OS X 10.11 El Capitan
• Rework layout and animation to be smoother
• Other miscellaneous bug fixes