MN K12 Tech Coordinator Tips & Tricks
This page lists a number of reasonably good note taking apps with a brief description to help you decide on which one may be best for you based on your needs. Read through the related articles above if you are looking for useful information to help guide your decision.
EverNote
Has many nice features (syncing, tags, photos, search - even saved searches!) but has no formatting features (fonts, numbering, outlining) and no search by date feature (although notes are listed by date). The iPad app is probably going to eventually get more sophisticated editing, but currently it is VERY week on the iPad. This app is good for basics, strong sync, and one to keep your eye on.
Circus Ponies NoteBook
Circus Ponies Notebook app looks like it could be the ideal note taking app. It appears to do nearly everything one would want. However it is currently encumbered by two serious flaws: it is slow, and it is buggy. Additionally, while there is an outstanding companion Mac app, there is currently no sync between the two. This app is one that if they can work the bugs out, and add sync, I woudl highly recommend.
NoteBooks for iPad
Notebooks (by Alfons Schmid) is a really, really nice note taking app, although it is one of the more expensive apps in this areas ($8.99). It has hierarchal organization and can store and view many document formats. The keyboard also has an extra row of special keys, such as TAB, Bold, Italic, etc (it can even format using Markdown). It can perform outlining and auto-numering and has a fairly robust To-Do management system built in. For all of its advanced features there are some gotchas as well: The "edit" view of a notebook looks significantly different from the "read only" view. For example. when editing a document, your text formatting is shown in plain text, with Markdown, not styled; and when indenting an item in a numbered list, the indented number series does not start over at "1". However when you are done editing, the numbers are displayed correctly. Also, you can't collapse outlines, and you can't have stylized text (other than knowing MarkDown). You can have a drawing document, but drawings and text can't reside at the same time. Sync is not automatic, you have to tell the app to sync each time.
Awesome Notes HD
Awesome Notes HD has some unique features and an intuitive interface. You can organize notes into folders. Folders can be viewed in multiple formats, including a calendar/journal view, to-do list view, list view, thumbnail view, etc. There is a quick memo feature. You can manage To-Do's, as well as view all tasks from several notes in one place. The interface is really easy to use and thoughtful. Notes can have background and font themes, and you can set a folder to create new notes with your own defaults. A note can include text, images, and sketches. However a note cannot include stylized text or outlining.
ActionNotes
ActionNotes goes in the opposite direction from the full-fledged note taking apps: it is designed to be super simple and quick to use. It is an outstanding tool for taking notes in a meeting and tracking a couple of action items that will need to get done. The important thing is that those action items can be viewed across all of your notes at once, you don't have to hunt and peck at multiple notes to find all of your action items. The app is super easy to use. Since none of the "do-it-all" apps yet really work completely, I am using ActionNotes to quickly take notes in meetings, and then I transfer them to an app on the Mac for archiving. The summaries of the To-Do items I use to transfer into OmniFocus when I get back to the office, and for reference at the next meeting.
OmniOutliner
It's finally out! Anybody who has used OmniOutliner on the Mac, knows it is a powerful and flexible outlining application. It has a great interface for moving items around, and has flexible styles and columns. Watch the video here.
ThinkBook
ThinkBook takes a new and unique approach to note taking. It has the concept of NoteBooks, Pages, and Notes, all of which can be combined in any way in a single view. Notes can be just a traditional note entry, but they can also be "Projects" "To-Do's" and "Questions". Notes can be outlined (although no support for numbering) and collapsed. ThinkBook has a unique (and effective) interface for copying, ordering, and moving notes. Notes can be tagged. You can create templates of note types, such as for taking minutes in a meeting. Finally, ThinkBook has a unique "Dashboard" concept that allows you to create smart finds of outstanding To-Dos and Questions that are dynamically updated. ThinkBook can backup to DropBox and you can import and export text notes. ThinkBook's unique approach to note taking can best be demonstrated by watching their videos on YouTube.
Stick It
There are a lot of note apps that either take the "Sticky Note" approach (Stick It definitely being the best so far), or the basic novelty of adding drawings to a basic Apple-Like notepad.
WritePad
Offers handwriting recognition. But none of them offer any organizational features for people that would have hundreds of notes.
WhiteNote
Comes close. It is a basic notepad interface. You can draw basic sketches. You can have "categories", but it seems they are only supported as tabs at the bottom of a page, so there is definitely some limits there.
AllNotes
Also comes close. It can do outlining and drawing, but the documentation lacks any detail as to how notes are organized.
Comments
@agiletouch (unauthenticated)
Jun 9, 2011
Have you tried WikiTouch? This is our app, a personal wiki app running on ipad, iphone and ipod touch. Sync is done over the internet and you just need a std web browser to manage your notes from your computer. It's a free app available from the app store, with an option to become a premium user via in-app purchase. Please, give it a try and let us know what you think about it.