Seems like it should be simple.

Something like notepad but able to insert a snapshot on the fly.

Ive been looking at houses, and taking notes and pics with my iPad. It would be nice to be making notes, snap a pic and have it show as a thumbnail inline.

Evernote should do this. The app's usability needs a lot of work IMO, but it's wel suited for what you're after.

Evernote - I could use it, but I hate it.

It's twisted. Pay to be able to keep stuff offline.

Plus I'm really against paying $5/mo to get beneficial use of a program such as this. I would not use it enough to justify that kind of cost.

I'm with you on those points. I only use the free clients. The funny thing is, I'd have no problem paying $50 for the desktop app and another $10 for the iPhone version. One time. I'm not interested in subscription service though - I can see paying if one wanted to get the extra storage space, but such an app for me should ideally allow plugging in third-party storage solutions, even your own via established protocols, like SFTP and RSYNC.

So without a data connection on the iPhone at the moment, I don't get as much usage from Evernote as I would otherwise, but it's still my goto app when I need to document something on the road - usually something about product pricing, etc.

I took a third, and fourth whack at the app store.

After a lot of random looking at the results I found "Mental Note".

The only thing it lacks seems to be air print.