Saturday, February 1, 2014

23 Mobile Things - Thing #5

Notetaking...something that I have been trying to use more and more since I got my tablet. I like the fact that I can take notes at meetings and keep them all in one place. I tend to end up with piles of pieces of paper that I have to go through, and hopefully not misplace.

I didn't really like the notes app that was on my phone when I first got that, so I downloaded one. I started with Lino. I was actually pretty happy with it. I can choose different "canvases", including a "someday" one. Great for those daydreams. You can create groups on it, see a calendar view of upcoming tasks, save favorites, save pictures, etc. Oh yeah, and you can take notes. I used this quite a bit for shopping lists.

My husband really likes ColorNote, and it definitely has it's strengths. I do like that you can sort the notes by color, and that there are many different ways that you can use it. Calendars, to do lists, shopping lists, a nice list of all the notes you have as well as the date that you made the lists. I'll admit that haven't really used it, because Lino was doing what I needed it to do. If you are looking for a simple note app, this would be a good one to check out.

My son turned me on to Google Keep. I really like it. It gives me the same kind of digital post it notes that I can move around on the page. I can also color code the notes. It is very simple to start a new note, and I can do this by using the keyboard, or by voice. I can keep pictures - either ones that I have taken, or found. It's very versatile for taking different kinds of notes. The thing I like most about it, is that it syncs with my gmail. It's nice to have all of my Google apps work with each other.

So, I was interested to try the ones that were recommended by 23 Mobile Things. I downloaded 2 out of the 4 apps. One, Dragon Dictation, is an Apple app only. That one obviously won't work with my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. One of the other ones, Bamboo Paper, was supposedly available for Android, but I could not find it using a search of Google Play Store.

The first one I'll talk about is Remember the Milk. It's not a bad app. Fairly basic. It's easy to get started with, and it gives you a good overview of when your tasks are to be completed. Beyond that, I really didn't see much to recommend it for me. I can do these kinds of lists on just about any other note app that I have tried.

The second one was Springpad. I like that this has a lot of flexibility. To me, it kind of seems like a cross between a regular note app and Pinterest. You can search other peoples Notebooks and you can search by category. I can choose to save things like bookmarks, checklists, notes, TV shows, videos, places, recipes, barcodes, music, etc. I played around with the TV shows since this is different from other apps I have tried. I chose a couple of TV shows that I like and saved them. You can put comments on it, save it to multiple notebooks, or choose to tag the show. If you click on the TV show, you can choose to rent at Netflix, or to view on TVDB. If you have either of these memberships, I find it to be a nice shortcut. You can share the TV show, or save it as a favorite. I'm not sure how much I will use the features like searching other peoples notebooks as I am fully invested in Pinterest, but who knows? I do plan to try to use it for some upcoming meetings and shopping trips. We'll see if I like this portion more than Google Keep. If nothing else, I have found another fun toy to play with.

2 comments:

  1. I found that I really liked Springpad too. I love the wide range of apps that you tried!

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  2. Don't forget to email "minn23@gmail.com with your name, region and blog name and we will add a badge next to your blog on the blog list by region" when you complete 5 Mobile Things...

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