The iPhone Mom

A disclaimer up front – Evernote is such a deeply layered service that there’s no way I can touch on everything it does in my review. I’m still discovering all of its potential. It claims to “Turn the iPhone and iPod Touch into an extension of your brain.” If ever there was someone who needed a brain extension it is I. Mine hasn’t been the same since Baby J was born in July. My husband swears by Evernote and has been suggesting that I try it. So, after stubbornly holding out the appropriate amount of time, I did. What I’ve seen and used so far is impressive.

The Evernote app is free and ties in with www.evernote.com and a desktop version that’s also available for free. It works as a note keeping system. You create notebooks which hold notes. Give them tags and attributes so they stay organized. Using the app you can add notes, snapshots, photos from your camera roll and voice clips. What you add using your iPhone or iPod shows up online and also in your desktop version. So it’s possible to keep everything synced and up to date. A great way to keep track of things in one spot.

With Evernote you have the ability to search through your notes and not just written notes but photos as well. My husband recently took a picture of a Snicker’s Marathon bar that he wanted to look for at the grocery store.  A few days later he did a search within Evernote for “marathon”. It pulled up the picture of the bar because the picture had the word marathon in it. So it scans through your pictures as well as your text. Pretty cool.

Here at our house my hubby is a Mac and I’m a PC. Evernote crosses platforms so it works on Macs, Windows, the iPhone, Blackberries and also on the web. Am I missing anything? With the free service you have the ability to share notebooks but not to modify someone else’s. This means that my husband can send me notebooks and I can see them in my Evernote but I can’t add my two cents. So not the best way to share a Honey-Do list. There is a premium version available for $5 a month (or $45 a year) that allows you to modify a shared notebook. With the premium version you also get an increase in the amount you can upload, the ability to add any file type and increased security. Click here to see how the versions compare. Right now I’m plenty happy with the free version.

There are a few things that I’ve found “awkward” within Evernote. When you use the iPhone app it always starts on the “New Note” screen. Not that big of a deal but it’d be nice to have the existing notes pull up first as that’s what I’m usually viewing.  Also, I found some of the formatting a little quirky when I started playing around with text size and color in a note. Lastly, there’s no easy way to mark a note as completed. However, when you’re creating a note you can insert checkboxes and check them off. We’ve also found a work around that works for us. I’ve got a notebook called “Completed” and when I’m done with a note I move it from my regular iphonemom notebook to the completed one. It’s as easy as dragging and dropping. I could also delete the note but I like to keep them around in case I need the info. later.

So far I’ve been pretty happy with Evernote and I’m looking forward to the promised brain extension. It can’t come soon enough. Anyone out there had any experience with Evernote?

Price when Reviewed: Free

Seller: Evernote