Notability users will no longer lose features they paid for as part of the app's impending freemium switch

Notability Math Conversion (Image credit: Ginger Labs)

What you need to know

Notability has switched to a freemium model and planned to charge existing users from November 2022.
Following customer backlash, existing Notability users will get access to premium features for life.

Yesterday say popular note-taking app Notability switch to a freemium model, making the app free with an annual subscription unlocking additional features. Developer Ginger Labs confirmed at the time that people who already bought Notability would be able to use those features for a year before being forced to join the subscription offering. Today, that plan changed for the better.

Following backlash surrounding plans to remove functionality that customers had already paid for, Ginger Labs has now confirmed that it is going to "correct course," giving customers lifetime access to Notability features and content that they already paid for — regardless of subscription status.

Yesterday, we made a big announcement regarding our transition to a free app with an optional subscription. We heard the disappointment from our existing customers, and we want to correct our course.Today, we are making some changes (coming soon in Notability version 11.0.2). Everyone who purchased Notability prior to our switch to subscription on November 1st, 2021 will have lifetime access to all existing features and any content previously purchased in the app.

The move means that everyone who already owns Notability will continue to be able to use it, as they previously did, without the need to sign up for a subscription. Developer Ginger Labs has come in for some criticism since yesterday's announcement, but it's a positive sign that one of the best Mac and iPad apps for note taking will continue to offer features to people who already paid for them.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.