[Review] Great Apps for Business Part 2 – Taking Notes

For most of us who use our mobile devices for business a great notes app is an essential piece of kit.   Search for “notes” in the App Store or Market Place
and you will be overwhelmed by the number of different note apps out there.  This blog focuses on those apps I believe make the grade when it comes to taking notes.

Notes
Before we get into 3rd party apps lets not forget the humble notes app on the iPhone and iPad.  Since the release of iOS 5 you have been able to seamlessly sync your notes with iCloud ensuring your notes are always with you which ever device you use.  Notes is quick and easy to use, yes its not feature rich but that does mean its fast.  Dont rule out this nice little app when looking for a notes solution.

Evernote
Probably the “daddy” of note taking on all platforms there is a version of Evernote for desktops, tablets, mobiles and extensions for all major browsers.  Capture your notes on any of these platforms and Evernote’s sync technology ensures they are available on all other platforms within seconds.  Evernote is also feature rich alongside keyboard note taking, you can capture images, audio memos, videos and web pages.  Best of all its free for a basic account which gives you a 60Mb monthly upload limit (something I’ve never reached).  Another great feature  is The Trunk, a growing collection of add on products and services (many free) to extend you use of Evernote even further.

I am fan of Evernote but my only problem is that is probably too feature rich which can make it a little slow at times – sometimes you just can beat a simple notepad.

Evernote for iPhone and iPad can be found here.  For Android devices check out the Market Place here.  For all other platform goto www.evernote.com for details.

Microsoft Onenote
Microsoft’s note taking app has transferred well to the iPhone, iPad and Android platforms.  Coming with many of the same features as Evernote, OneNote is a serious contender in this space.  All your notes are sync’d with your free Sky Drive account, giving you access to your notes where ever you are.  Again the app is free but is limited to just 500 notes (you pay to remove the limit – cost dependent on platform).  Once you hit your limit you can still view, delete and sync your notes.  If you are a user of the Windows Application then this app is a must.

OneNote for iPhone and iPad can be found here, and for Android platforms here.

Penultimate
For many people taking notes with pen and paper still cannot be beaten.  Penultimate is one app that looks to give you that experience on your iPad.

Penultimate provides many of the features of other note taking apps (e.g. image import, Dropbox integration) but Penultimate doesnt have a keyboard interface, instead it captures your hand written notes and allows you to easily share them in a variety of formats and destinations. Whilst Penultimate does work well with your finger it really comes into its own when used with a stylus.  You can organise your work into different notebooks and share your notes via email, Dropbox or even Evernote.  Penultimate also allows you to share your notes (and entire notebooks) in PDF format.  Penultimate takes some getting used to with your finger but is unbeatable with a stylus.

Penultimate is available for the iPad only for just £0.69 in the App Store.   Android users why not consider PenSupremacy, a Penultimate Clone, available in the Market Place here.

Notability
If you are looking for a note taking app with Penultimate’s hand writing capabilities together with Evernotes keyboard, audio and organisational features then look no further than Notability.  Again sharing many of the features of other apps in this review, Notability’s unique feature is the “zoom view” – which allows you to easily use your finger to capture large hand written notes while the notes themselves remain small on the page, resulting in very credible handwritten notes.

The system will sync to Dropbox, iDisk or to a WebDAV compatible location.

Notability is available for iPad only here and worth every one of the 69p asking price.  Full details on the capabilities of this excellent app can be found here.

iThoughtsHD
Whilst not strictly a note taking app – iThoughts is a superb mind mapping app for the iPhone and iPad.  Mind mapping is a quick and easy technique for capturing and organising related ideas and thoughts.   I’ve used iThoughts for meeting notes but it can be used for lots of other scenarios – brainstorming, customer presentations, project updates, design briefs, the list goes on.

There are many Mind Map applications out there but the iThoughts interface really is quick and easy to use.  iThoughts supports, Dropbox, Box and Xmind virtual drives as well as email and WiFi transfers of maps.  Although iThoughts is the  most expensive of my note taking apps (£6.99 for the iPad version) – if you reguarly use mind maps and have an iPad then this really is the app for you.

iThoughts and iThoughtsHD are available for the iPhone and iPad only.  Android Users why not consider  MindJet available in the Market Place.