Matt McMillan

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CourseNotes

CourseNotes is a note taking app for students that synced across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and was live at the iPad launch.

Role
Co-founder, DearPanda
Years
2010–2016
CourseNotes 5.0 on iPad, showing a Quick Notes notebook and a Chemistry notebook on the subject shelf

When the iPad was first announced, most reviews called it a big iPhone that nobody would use. My partner Jon and I got together and talked about where an iPad could have the biggest impact, and we landed on education.

That became DearPanda, and CourseNotes was our flagship product: a note taking app for students that synced across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It was live at the iPad launch.

A notebook for every subject

Each subject is a notebook on a shelf. Students pick one, start a note session, and fill it with notes, images, and to-do items.

An early version of the subject shelf, with notebooks in a green felt and wood interface

The subject shelf in a later version, with a shelf of notebooks

Left: an early version of the subject shelf. Right: a later version.

Notes on every device

The same notes followed students from their iPhone to their iPad to their Mac, kept in sync with iCloud. Version 5.0 gave the whole app a flatter, cleaner look.

CourseNotes on iPad showing a subject shelf with a Quick Notes notebook and a Chemistry notebook

CourseNotes on iPad with a list of sessions and a note containing an assignment and a molecule diagram

CourseNotes 5.0 on iPad: the subject shelf, and a note session.

CourseNotes 5.0 on iPhone, showing the Quick Notes notebook

The same shelf on iPhone.

CourseNotes on the Mac, with a subjects sidebar and an iCloud syncing screen

CourseNotes on the Mac, with iCloud syncing.

More than notes

Students could buy study sheets, like a French verb guide or an art history overview, from inside the app and move that content into their own notes. Notes could be shared with friends through Facebook, and any session could be exported to Dropbox.

Premium Content screen offering a French Verb Studysheet and an Art History Studysheet

Export to Dropbox dialog over a shared note session

Left: premium content. Right: exporting a session to Dropbox. Both are design comps.

Apple featured CourseNotes more than once, which meant prominent placement in the App Store. Our ratings were high, and CourseNotes grew to low six figures in revenue.

CourseNotes on an iPad, showing a shelf of notebooks

CourseNotes listed under New and Noteworthy in the Mac App Store

CourseNotes featured in the App Store!

A call from McGraw Hill

McGraw Hill reached out with a big idea: add a card to every textbook they shipped, so students could download CourseNotes for free. We couldn’t pull it off, because of the way the App Store worked at the time.

Doing everything

There were two of us, so I did whatever the company needed. I handled the business side, including managing the LLC and taxes. I also did the design, the UX, and the product work, and I got into the code to create and replace images and make style changes. Jon had a big product role too, and more of the engineering. We both answered every piece of feedback and every support request ourselves.

The next idea

Our next product was Studylicious, a platform of customizable content for teachers, with more control over the iPads in the classroom and a view of how each student was doing. Read the Studylicious story.