Your calendar, your Top 3, your to-do list and your handwriting in one place, on your iPad, your phone and the web. The notes stay yours: they live in NorthStar and never go back to your calendar.
The Day view, as it ships, with a demo week in it. Whatever you draw stays in your browser.
Write here. A mouse, a finger or a pen all work.
Outlook sync every 15 minutes
Works fully offline
Stylus native
A day in your week
One ordinary Tuesday, as five different people might live it. Three of these you can try yourself.
Thirty-six seconds of the real app, with no sound: the calendar arrives, a note in your own hand, the Top 3, the pen palette, and the same day on your phone.
07:10
The day is already there
Paste the link from Outlook or any other calendar, or sign in with Google. From then on your days arrive on their own, every 15 minutes, and the calendar itself is never changed.
A teacher
14
15MathematicsMathematicsForm periodPhysicsMathematicsStudy support
16
17
18
09:50
A note on the lesson, in your own hand
Open a lesson, a meeting or a shift and write on it. The handwriting lives in NorthStar and never goes back to the calendar.
A student
12:30
Three things that matter today
The Top 3 sits beside the day it belongs to. Tick one off and it is ticked on your phone too.
A parent
Top 3
Try it: tick one.
16:30
Something of your own
Add an event into NorthStar, or into a Google calendar you connected, from the day you are already looking at. A calendar you linked by address stays read only.
A freelancer
16:30Client call
18:00Choir rehearsal
Added. It will remind you 15 minutes before it starts.
17:30
A sticker for a good day
Anything you draw can be kept as a sticker and stuck straight onto a day.
You
Try it: drag the star onto a day, or tap a day.
Month, week, day
The real app, at its three zoom levels. Pick one.
Top 3, to-do and notes sit beside the calendar you already use.Top 3, to-do and notes sit beside the calendar you already use.Top 3, to-do and notes sit beside the calendar you already use.
Features
Everything else it does. Pick one to read about it.
Top 3 and a to-do list
The three things that matter today sit beside the day they belong to. Give the three lines your own names, or take the numbers off altogether. Set one to run from a Tuesday for a week and the same three show on every day in between. The to-do list carries on until you tick it off.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Write by hand on the page
Handwriting that behaves like handwriting: a stylus on iPad, a finger on your phone, a mouse in the browser. Undo, erase and lasso included, and what you write straight onto the month grid turns up in that day's notes.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
A page keeps its shape
A page stands up or lies down, and you choose which when you make it. Turning the iPad no longer moves your writing, your pictures or your text boxes; it only changes how much of the page you can see. Zoom out far enough and the whole page fits on the screen with room around it.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Turn pages, or scroll them
The next page is there the moment you swipe to it, instead of an empty sheet that fills in afterwards. Pages turn one at a time, or you can set them to scroll past each other the way a PDF does.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Paper straight into your notes
Take a picture of a sheet of paper and it goes in as a page. Several sheets in one go, and you say where they land: a notebook, the day's notes, or an event. Each one is cleaned up to look like a scan, and the photograph itself is not kept.
Platforms iPad · iPhone
A reminder before it starts
Every event tells you fifteen minutes before it begins, and any one of them can be turned off on its own. An all day event tells you the evening before, at a time you set.
Platforms iPad · iPhone
Writing from your other device, as it happens
What you write on the iPad turns up on the phone while the day is open in front of you, instead of only after you leave the screen and come back to it.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Your own names for the hours
Name each hour of the timetable yourself, and name it differently on each weekday. The time and the lesson number have their own text sizes, set apart from everything else.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Typed notes on any day or lesson
Text, checklists and tables, attached to the lesson they belong to. None of it is written back to your calendar.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
It works with no connection
Plan on a train. Changes wait on the device and go up the moment you have a network again.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Your paper, your colours
Paper presets, accent colour, font and text size. Set it once and your other device follows.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Notebooks, page by page
A notebook has its own name and its own cover, and it is only for writing. Add a page, bring in a photo or a PDF as pages, reorder them, and turn with a swipe. Past the last page, hold at the edge for a moment and let go to make a new one.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Take one page, or everything
Export the page you are looking at, the whole notebook, or every note you have ever written - as PDFs with the pictures beside them.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Pictures, stickers and typed labels
Put a photo on a page and crop it, write over it or lift it above your writing, add a typed label at the size you choose, and keep anything you draw as a sticker to use again, on a page or stuck straight onto a day of your timetable.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Your day on the Home screen
The next lesson, the whole day, your Top 3, everything still to come, and the day's to-do list, which you can tick without opening the app. Two more sit on the lock screen, and tapping any of them opens the place it came from.
Platforms iPad · iPhone
Every calendar, in its own colour
Link a timetable by address or a Google account, name each calendar yourself, and give it a colour that carries into the timetable.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
A picture behind your week
Seven backgrounds come with NorthStar, or bring your own from your photos or your files on iPad and iPhone. Two sliders say how strong and how blurred the picture is, and every panel keeps its own readable ground, so nothing you have to read sits on a photograph.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Events you add yourself
Write an event into NorthStar, or into a Google calendar you have connected, from the day you are already looking at. A timetable you linked by address is read only, so your school's lessons stay as they were sent.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Write on the month, read it on the day
What you write on a day in the month view turns up in that day's short notes, and what you write in a short note turns up on the month. Each side keeps your own writing; only the copy is cut where a mark crosses from one day into the next.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Month, week, day
One calendar at three zoom levels, on the same grid as your school day. Today is one tap away from wherever you are.
Platforms iPad · iPhone · Web · Windows
Platforms
Windows runs the same web app in a browser (no native build).
Which capabilities work on which platform
Capability
iPad
iPhone
Web
Windows
Top 3 and a to-do list
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Write by hand on the page
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
A page keeps its shape
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Turn pages, or scroll them
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Paper straight into your notes
✓Yes
✓Yes
No
No
A reminder before it starts
✓Yes
✓Yes
No
No
Writing from your other device, as it happens
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Your own names for the hours
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Typed notes on any day or lesson
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
It works with no connection
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Your paper, your colours
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Notebooks, page by page
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Take one page, or everything
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Pictures, stickers and typed labels
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Your day on the Home screen
✓Yes
✓Yes
No
No
Every calendar, in its own colour
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
A picture behind your week
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Events you add yourself
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Write on the month, read it on the day
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Month, week, day
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
✓Yes
Shared whiteboards (Planned)
No
No
No
No
Outlook two-way link (Planned)
No
No
No
No
How it works
1
Create your account
It works the moment you create it. There is nothing to wait for.
2
Connect your calendar
Paste the link from Outlook, or sign in with Google. Add as many as you keep, and give each one its own name and colour.
3
Plan your week
Write your Top 3, your to-do and your notes beside the days you already have.
Meet Tasky
NorthStar's pocket companion for today's tasks, your lists and reminders. Same account.
It runs on a server I pay for every month. If you use NorthStar, please put something towards that.
Free for everyone
All of it, on every device, whether you pay or not. Paying adds no features and lifts no limits, and nothing here is held back from anyone. It decides whether the server stays on, not what you get.
I built NorthStar for my mother, who teaches. It only works because a server of mine is on all day, mirroring calendars and carrying notes between her devices, and that server costs me money every month whether anyone uses the app or not. Registering it properly costs money too. If you use NorthStar, those two are what you would be helping with.
Maj Mohar, Slovenia
If you use NorthStar, this is the part where I ask you to pay
3 EUR5 EUR10 EURor any other amount
29 EUR a year is what I would ask for, and it is the one that actually helps me plan. A smaller amount every month, or a single payment, is welcome too. Anything that repeats can be stopped whenever you like.
How to do it
From anywhere
By card, wherever you are. A one-off, or the same amount every month or year if you would rather it repeated.
An Outlook link is read only, so that calendar is never touched. A Google calendar you connect can be changed from inside NorthStar, but only by an event you add or edit yourself. Your notes are a separate thing: they are stored on their own and are never sent to Outlook or to Google.
What happens offline?
Everything keeps working. Changes are queued on the device and sync when you are back on a network.
Who can sign up?
Anyone who wants it. You create an account and it starts syncing straight away.
Do I have to pay for NorthStar?
No. Donations are voluntary, and paying changes nothing about the app or about your account.
Who runs NorthStar?
One person, Maj Mohar, on hardware he owns in Slovenia. The Terms set out what that means for availability, and the Privacy page lists exactly what is stored and for how long.
