This proposal summarizes optimization issues that include chronic overheating, performance degradation, and user experience problems occurring in the GoodNotes iPad app, even on high-performance Apple Silicon devices such as the M1 iPad Pro and newer models equipped with M-series chips.

The core objective of this proposal is to respect the hardware constraints of the iPad’s fanless design while fully leveraging Apple Silicon–specific hardware accelerators, including the Apple Neural Engine (ANE), through a truly native architecture approach. By optimizing GoodNotes in accordance with Apple Silicon hardware characteristics, the app should regain a “Pro-level” stability where users no longer need to restart their device simply to restore normal pen input performance.

During long-term usage (e.g., university undergraduate students using GoodNotes continuously for 6–8 hours or more while attending classes), performance gradually degrades. As a result, users are forced to quit the app or reboot their device to recover a usable writing experience. Despite updates released after the introduction of GoodNotes AI, these issues persist repeatedly. This strongly suggests severe internal memory fragmentation and resource leaks.

Due to these unresolved issues, many users who wish to use GoodNotes 6 are compelled to downgrade to GoodNotes 5, even after purchasing both versions, simply to maintain basic usability.

The following issues are still observed:

• Blurred page rendering when zooming into scanned documents or large PDF files

• Charging repeatedly stopping around 80% due to thermal protection (thermal throttling) during use

• The iPadOS system forcibly reducing screen brightness due to excessive heat generated while using GoodNotes, resulting in very dim displays

• Severe scroll stuttering when AI responses are being generated, while recording audio, when scrolling text content, or when interacting with page layouts—scroll lag occurs across nearly all scrollable UI areas

• Unintended page jumps to the very top or bottom when scrolling through document pages

• AI analysis (indexing/preparation phase) frequently remaining stuck at 0% for extended periods

• Severe pen input lag and intermittent stroke interruptions

• Excessive device overheating

• For students who must use GoodNotes for extended periods on campus, enabling Low Power Mode combined with audio recording, simultaneous handwriting, and GoodNotes AI usage causes critical issues such as pen input interruptions and uncontrolled scroll jumps

• When deleting pages, importing images, or adding/removing pages via the page layout feature, deleted data is not properly removed from the GoodNotes archive. “Ghost files” remain, and imported documents (entire files or partial pages) are duplicated in full, resulting in massive storage bloat and triggering AI network errors

Additionally, it would be highly beneficial to introduce an automatic resource-aware control mechanism. When Low Power Mode is enabled, or when the device begins to overheat or approach critical thermal thresholds, background-intensive processes such as AI indexing, document analysis, and spell-checking should be automatically paused or temporarily suspended. This would prevent unnecessary thermal throttling, reduce system-wide performance degradation, and preserve core interactions such as pen input and scrolling responsiveness during active use.

These issues have been present since the release of GoodNotes 6 and remain unresolved to this day. As many of these problems also existed in earlier versions, meaningful optimization and fundamental architectural improvements are urgently needed rather than continued deferral.