Mac

AWESOME NOTE

There are about 40 apps on my iPhone that I actually use in the course of a month, but when it comes down to it there are really only a handful that I use daily, one of the most important ones is Awesome Note.

The native Notes app that comes with the iPhone is lame, too simple and just kind of ugly. I went through about a dozen note taking apps trying to find one that met all my needs, and finally landed on Awesome Note. It’s 99% perfect. I believe its only available for the iPhone and iPad
[iTunes link].

Gorgeous UI

The interface for aNote is simply beautiful. It has a very Mac look and feel that I doubt could be duplicated on any Android phone. It’s bright, and fun and easy to use.

For me, a perfect note app needs folders so I can organize my notes better. So many note apps fail at this. In aNote you can organize notes into colorful folders, complete with icons. They are easy to get to, easy to navigate and are very attractive looking.

The layout of the app is just great. You’ve got your folders front and center, which is great when you need to review a note already written. But more importantly, creating a new note is super fast and easy too. You’ve got two options once the app opens up: the plus icon in the upper right which creates a full note with all the options, or you can click the Quick Memo icon on the left which pulls up a sticky note that you can jot down a quick message either by typing or drawing with your finger. The Quick Memo can be converted to a full note later if you wish. Sometimes you just need an app to open up quick and let you write something down, and other times you want to be able to format a document and save it how you want.

Features

Awesome Note is feature packed, yet still so simple and elegant. There are some neat themes and background options to give your notes some style. Then there’s the many types of notes as well. You can create a diary note, which may include a feeling of the day as well as the weather. Or you can create a simple task or to-do list, with alarms and reminders. While I still prefer to use Remember the Milk for my t-do list, I like that in Awesome Note you can attach a to-do item to any note without having to create a separate to-do list. You can also add a map to any note, as well as attach photos. There are many different layouts and options, which enables you to create a note formatted any way you like. 

It’s also AirPrint enabled so if you have a compatible printer you can print any note right from the app. You can also SMS or Email any note. It would be neat if it published a URL for each note so you could post to Facebook, but I guess they don’t want to get into hosting of notes. Which is where syncing comes in.

Syncing

One of the best features is that Awesome Note syncs with Google Docs and Evernote. It even copies over your folders and keeps them synced up. Its great being able to pull up a note on my laptop by going to Google Docs, or even creating a document in Google Docs and having it sync back to my phone as a note. I find myself taking notes on my phone in meetings, then later polishing them up in Google Docs and saving them as PDF’s that can be printed, emailed around or saved. Being able to save to Evernote is great too, as Evernote has some awesome search features, particularly if you upload a lot of handwritten notes or drawings and need to be able to search them later as if they were typed.

It’s also available on the iPad, which for me is a deal breaker feature in a note app. I use my iPad to take notes in meetings, but I want to be able to pull those notes up on my phone as well. Having an app that keeps notes synced between the two is essential. Awesome Note does this just fine, but it could be better. If you write a note on the iPad you have to sync it to Google Docs or Evernote. Then on the iPhone you have to manually sync the app to Google or Evernote for it to download the new notes. It only takes a second but its a manual process. If I forget to sync at the end of a meeting then I won’t be able to access the note on the other device until I remember to sync again. I wish they would make it automated, but at least the functionality exists and works.

My only other caveat is that it has no option to bold text. You can change the font, the size, etc. but you can’t bold or create a heading. Seems like an easy thing to add, so I hope its in their plans.

All in all, this is a nearly flawless note taking app and one of the most important uses of my iPhone and iPad. It makes taking notes in meetings, or church or seminars much more enjoyable, and I’d be shocked if anything on the Android platform was this beautiful and easy to use.

Andy

NOTE EVERYTHING

There is no app I use more often than my note taking app. Awesome Note sounds, well, awesome; if it was available on Android I might just consider it. Of the many note taking options out there, I’ve a fondness for a dynamic app from SoftXperience called Note Everything.  [Market Link / Amazon Appstore Link]

Fantastic Developer

Android, and its market, are open to anyone – which is a good thing. But it means that it is important to select apps from developers who properly support their software. SoftXperience is an excellent developer, based in Germany, that listens to feedback from users, is quick to resolve the inevitable bugs that arise with so many devices using Android, and is constantly improving the look, feel, and function of the app. Note Everything is very much a work in progress, but as a user I feel very much a part of its development.

Attractive UI

There is no denying that Awesome Note is gorgeous. It is necessary to make iOS apps shiny so they distract Apple users from the fact they overpaid for their devices. Note Everything is not gorgeous, but it is attractive, managing to avoid the awkward clunky geekiness that plagues so many Android offerings. Mainly it is sleek, intuitive, and it ‘gets out of my way’ maximizing the real estate on my screen to actual content. It would be nice to see some of the non-obtrusive features of Awesome Note’s design – such as the ability to color code folders, use my own icons, or change the default view of a folder or note.

Mac is one hundred percent right when he says that any decent note app must have folders. I’ll take it a step further and say that it is absolutely essential to have sub-folders as well. Note Everything excels in this aspect, enabling me to organize my notes and easily navigate among them.

Being able to create a note on the fly is also crucially important – I don’t want to keep a client waiting for even a minute while an app loads. Note Everything has widgets for each note type, as well as the option of having a “new note” option on Android’s convenient drop-down notification bar. However, I never use any of these features because I’m able to open the app, create a new note, save it, and close the app again in less than five seconds. Note Everything is lightning quick.

Rich Features

There are a few features within Awesome Note that are missing from Note Everything. First, and most important is the ability to print from the app. It’s not a huge shortcoming, as it is so easy to share the notes with Google Docs or Gmail, but it would be nice to skip this tedium. Second, there is no way to mix note types, such as adding a photo to a text note or checklist. This is a pretty major flaw, especially once I begin using the app on a tablet. As with Awesome Note, there is no way to format text (bold, italics, headings, etc…). I should also mention that there is no cute “diary” note type, as in Awesome Note. Frankly, I don’t think I would use this feature anyway – but it would be nice to have the option. As I stated earlier, Note Everything is a work in progress and I fully expect to see these, and other, new features down the road.

One of the main reasons I use Note Everything over other note apps is the ability to add a reminder to any note type. I’m a huge procrastinator and have a horrible short-term memory, so it is also nice that I can ‘snooze’ reminders for any amount of time I choose. In addition to in-app reminders I can send any note to Google Calendar, ensuring that I’m not creating conflicts within my schedule.

Note Everything takes checklists a step further and give me the option of making any list “durable” – meaning it can be reset and used over and over.  When viewing a checklist, it is possible to set it so the device does not ‘sleep’ so that I don’t have to keep unlocking the device while grocery shopping.

There are a variety of note types to choose from: text, paint, voice, photo (from the camera), gallery (photo from storage), video, Google Docs, and even creating a note from a scanned bar code. When I’m in Gmail, or using the browser, I always have the option of ‘sharing’ what I’m reading with Note Everything. I can save to Evernote, Google Docs, share with Facebook, Twitter, via email, or as a bar code. Finding notes again is easy as my notes can be searched from the built-in search feature of Android.

It is possible to encrypt a note and then protect it with a password. I never have to worry about jotting down sensitive client information, passwords, credit-card information, story ideas, or anything else I want to hide from prying eyes.

Perhaps the absolute best feature of Note Everything is the ability to make notes “sticky”. This means the note is placed on the Android Notification Bar and can be accessed instantly no matter what other application I may be using at the time. I use this all the time – keeping my daily to-do list at hand. When I meet with a client, I put any information I need for the meeting in a note and make it sticky so I can have instant access. Now that I’ve gotten used to this feature, I doubt I could ever use a note taking app that didn’t offer it.

Awesome Note sounds like a great app – if they ever decide to go cross-platform I’ll probably check it out. However, I’d be surprised if it was able to convince me to stop using Note Everything.