One of my favorite PDF annotating apps for iPad, Remarks by Readdle, just got even better with the addition of automatic two-way Dropbox syncing. With the new update, a new, blue folder named Remarks and labeled with Dropbox will appear in your notes once you link your Dropbox account with Remarks. Any notes you create in this folder will automagically sync up with Dropbox -- you no longer have to manually send a note to Dropbox. It works like a charm.

When I compared Remarks with Noteshelf and Notability, one of my complaints about Remarks was that the handwriting wasn't all that spectacular. The good news is that this update has also brought major improvements to the handwriting, bringing it up to par with all the major iPad handwriting apps.

These two additional features are huge improvements to Remarks and I'm looking forward to even more updates. I already know that the next one is going to be pretty awesome.

As mentioned above, I have always been a huge fan of Remarks. As a math instructor, I frequently use it to handwrite solutions to quizzes, exams, and worksheets that I then make available to my students in electronic form.

Giveaway

The good folks at Readdle have given us 5 promo codes for Remarks to give away to you, our awesome readers! For a chance to win, just head on over to the iMore forums and leave a comment in the official giveaway thread letting us know why you'd like to win a copy of Remarks and what you plan to use it for.

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$4.99 - Download Now

WritePad for iPad by PhatWare has been upgraded to 6.0 and is now equipped with a new Multilingual handwriting recognition engine that supports English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

WritePad lets you take notes in your own handwriting with an iPad stylus pen or even your finger. The state-of-the-art handwriting recognition software will adapt and learn your style of writing. You can use simple gestures to select text, cut, copy, paste, and insert special characters.

• Create and edit text documents using the advanced handwriting recognition engine or iPad keyboard for text entry in landscape or portrait mode.
• Improve productivity by utilizing inline gestures, spell checker, context analyzer, and shorthand features.
• Statistical analyzer, which improves overall handwriting recognition quality by addressing common recognition errors. If this feature is enabled, WritePad will learn the user's own handwriting style.
• Email, Tweet, Print, or post Facebook updates directly from WritePad.
• Synchronize WritePad documents with Dropbox, Evernote, and iTunes or upload documents to Google Docs.
• Translate documents to 13 supported languages using Bing Translator.
• Change WritePad's appearance by manipulating text, page, and ink colors using the customizable Styles feature.

WritePad for iPad is available for $9.99.

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Thanks to iPhone developer, forum regular, and troll-slayer extraordinaire cmaier for passing along this gem from McRumors:

Apple has quietly included handwriting recognition for Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) into the latest iPhone Firmware 2.0 beta. When you select Chinese input, you are given the option to use handwriting recognition allowing you to draw characters on the screen with your finger. As you write the character, four possibilities appear on the right side of the screen.

Simplified characters, the official version in Mainland China, is the key to one massive market. Traditional characters, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, regaining popularity in the South of China, and adapted to form parts of the Japanese and some South East Asian regional/cultural groups, is key to a second.

(Not to mention what implications, if any, this has for on-again/off-again China Mobile discussions...)

Having studied Chinese for a few years, and not having found any handset character recognition I've been particularly fond of yet, I'm likewise eager to see what Apple can bring to the table.

What do you think?