will there ever be Handwriting recognition for Dorico on the iPad? Seems a no brainer… thanks in advance!
[Irony mode on] Yes, it needs only a couple of lines of code inserted somewhere in the app…It will be implemented… tomorrow [Irony mode off]
HI @Michael_Young1, and welcome to the Forum!
The Team generally doesn’t reveal what will be implement in the future, but your request have been made several times. Let’s wait and see what will come 
(If you wish you can also check the feature request tag, editing the title of this thread.)
The Dorico team apparently prepared the iPad app using much of the code from the desktop application rather than by starting from scratch to prepare a dedicated iPad version with its own code. I suspect this means that adding handwriting to the existing iPad app would be difficult and hardly a “no-brainer”.
…or it would be just as “easily” added to your touch screen desktop!
Let’s assume that it’s the need for Handwriting recognition that is the “no brainer”, rather the task itself.
Personally, I’m much faster typing/playing than I am drawing notes, but it’s true that a lot of people want to use a pencil on the iPad form.
I use StaffPad when I need/want to, having purchased most of the sample libraries, I get a reasonably good playback also. By using Apple Pencil, you do not need some of the Dorico features/buttons because you are drawing them in.
Export audio stems to my DAW or xml to Dorico.
If I need to record myself playing from one of the parts, I use their Reader (showing that instrument part on my iPad, which updates as you update the notes on the score.)
StaffPad has not been updated for a few years (the Musegroup purchased it a while ago) but the last time I used it, it worked as well as it ever had (not perfect, sometimes the handwriting recognition does not understand my messy lines—it took a while to practice the pencil lines for it to automatically replace it with notation), but I have sat in a café, put on my AirPods and spent a happy hour writing my score.
I am slightly reluctant to suggest it however, because we do not know if they will continue development or even release updates for new versions of iPad OS as they come out. If you haven’t already tried it, in theory, you can get a refund from Apple as you know, although the default sounds are quite basic.
I appreciated all the non-snarky comments…Sorry I asked…I’ll stick with Fender Notion
Hi @Michael_Young1, I really didn’t intend to be snarky or offensive. If it came out like that, I apologise (I stroke through my ironic text).
I hope the second part of my reply (after my unhappy attempt to say something witty) was somehow helpful.
I searched the forum for request of handwriting recognition and post them here with some of the Team replies, in chronological order.
(But as I said, who knows what the future holds for us)
2021
2023
2025
I agree—my sentence should have ended 4 words earlier.
@Michael_Young1, don’t be sorry that you asked! And if my comment came off as offensive, I apologize.
An iPad isn’t the only tablet format that can run a version of Dorico. Many laptops (my old Lenovo Flex could flip the keyboard under and use the touchscreen like a tablet) and devices like Surface would benefit from adding this technology. Maybe it’s a feature that could be added (although I think it’s a big ask, not an easy add – though I may be wrong).
Like @arco, and yourself, I have used a 3rd party app for notation but, after a time, I have found it as easy (or easier) to use the piano keyboard in the bottom panel. (Although I now wonder if I could use my phone as a Stream Deck mobile for the iPad….)
Please forgive us if we get carried away with a little banter – I’m sure no offense was intended, and we should be more cautious responding in print as if we were hanging out together over some beers — oftentimes it doesn’t come off like it sounded in our heads!
I wonder, though, if a 3rd party plugin could be devised as an input device (and how it could/would interface with Dorico. (Thinking about this, it seems like a harder implementation than just adding it to Dorico natively!) 
— Jim
FYI, Dorico’s touch interaction is generally horrible on Windows devices, very hit-and-miss.
Can’t recommend it, unfortunately!
Having tried all the handwriting iOS apps over the last several years (and I do mean all of them!) I’d conclude they’re a huge time-waster unless you have nothing to do except fiddle around while sitting on your couch.
Very ‘hit and miss’, and totally unsatifying. I love pencil and paper, and the idea of being able to accomplish the same work flow and scoring flexibility on the iPad is totally elusive.
The best portable solution is definitely the Dorico iOS version. You want a simple dotted eighth-sixteenth figure? Easy. Streams of sixteenth notes? Done. If you were using handwriting recognition, you’d have to cross your fingers and hope that your intentions are actually translated. Usually, they’re not. Then you have to spend minutes trying to ‘trick’ the app into recognizing what it is that you want. Clocks ticking… waste of time. Just use the Dorico iOS, get it done, and then you can even transfer that work to your big ‘mother-ship’ Dorico via iCloud or even AirDrop to continue the work.
I think it wise for Steinberg not to waste their resources on trying to develop any handwriting for iOS.
Hey! Maybe the idea of being a Music Copyist will truly be revived! If anybody wants their hand-written score to be published or printed (whether for actual publishing or just for rehearsal band use) then the services of a good old-fashioned Music Copyist might return! Maybe the ‘film score studio system’ is the best example for everyone. Hand written score goes to copyists who get the parts engraved and out to the musicians.
Oh yeah…Dorico already lets us do that pretty easily by ourselves! Hah!
Fiddling around sitting on my couch is how I learned how to input with StaffPad. After a few weeks fine-tuning my scribble, the number of corrections decreased to the point where I was using it for painless sketching daily. I don’t compose much anymore so I’m sure my scribble skills have waned.
That’s my main mode of operation. 
Jesper
I would love to have a couch to sit on
Am I right that most of these apps use specific shapes that you have to learn, rather than actually ‘reading’ your scrawl?
No, it just needs to look like actual notation – which takes considerable practice to achieve with an apple pencil. (edit: but once you gain the fluidity, it is really an efficient way to enter notes and very pleasing for those of us raised on pencil and paper.
Some of us have trouble with a #2 pencil… LOL
Some more than others! They all vary in usefulness and what they’re capable of.
Even if you have very decent ‘normal music notation by hand’ skills, the amount of effort and time it takes to get to the point where it may even have a higher than 50% average of recognizing your notation will test your patience.
StaffPad can drive you batty without reason. Just when you think you’ve ‘got it’, it will fail to input an eighth rest. (…sixteenth rests will really test your resolve!)
And, again, just time wasted. When you’re used to quick and excellent final results (and with the ease of getting those great results from either Dorico, Sibelius, Finale, or even Notion) you’ll quickly find out what the limitations are of any of the hand-writing notation apps in their current state.
Like…why did David Hearn really quit working on his beloved StaffPad? Really? Did he run up against ‘the wall’? Did he see that it really wouldn’t ever be able to compete with Dorico or Sibelius as totally professional notation software? (certainly not for a wide breadth of musical genres; StaffPad is really only good for fairly standard musical forms and genres). Did he get a buyout offer from the shady investors (whoever they really are) of MuseScore that he couldn’t ignore? Why did he quit development of his baby? Maybe it frustrated him, being a composer wanting to be able to be more diverse in his creative output? Fair questions!
I think ones’ time is best spent just trying to master Dorico.