Why can't I take notes without an apple pencil?

Why can't I take notes without an apple pencil?

You can only take handwritten notes with a pencil in the native iPad App. To do this, you can select whether you want to use the apple pencil for taking notes in the settings of the app (click on the "Gear" in the app overview) under "Notes" using the slider.

In the browser-based observer interface, only text notes can be made using the keyboard. 

You can learn more about the settings you can make in the observer interface here.