Evernote and Springpad reviews

Evernote (Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, Mac, PC)

Ideas can come at anytime, and Evernote wants to help you remember them. Using voice, text or picture notes you can be sure to have them kept safe across all your digital devices.

Evernote is primarily a note taking app, with syncing capabilities across your devices. However, the team of developers expanded on that with voice and picture notes. You can collaborate with friends or colleagues on documents, and you can even plan and have your trip itinerary with you wherever you have your smartphone.

The Evernote team's most recent feature is Evernote Clearly, a extension to the Chrome browser, with more to come later, which converts a Web page for reading on your mobile device for later. With two clicks of a button, the Clearly extension will send the Web site to your Evernote account which will sync on your device. That way you can read that article you've been meaning to get to on the road, on a tablet or from a more comfortable setting.

The app syncs well across various devices with an Internet connection. The Android version is simple, intuitive, and aesthetically pleasing, but doesn't go much farther than getting the job done well.

The app, again, can leave you wishing you had more advanced features and capabilities if you're a heavy note taker. It's a free app, and it offers what it promises, though not much more.

If you're looking for a simple app, which will keep your notes (audio, text and picture-reminders) synced across many devices, this is a very efficient and easy way to do so.

 - Daniel Ostrowski

Springpad (Android, iPhone, Mac, PC)

Springpad is a productivity app that saves and synchronizes all of your Web content across multiple platforms. In the words of Springpad's creators, it "is a free app that helps you remember stuff today so you can make better decisions tomorrow"(from their Web site).

Essentially, once you begin using this app, everything you chose to bookmark, index or save from the Internet will be kept in a shared repository between your computer (it works across Macs and PCs, but the Chrome extension is particularly good), iPhone, iPad or Android.

You can also save notes (like recipes, driving directions, etc.), tasks (for your to-do list) and events (however, there is no calendar). Where it shines is the way it allows you to input these reminders.

From anywhere (someone else's computer, a Smartphone, etc.), you can E-mail your Springpad account with instructions to add a new note, task or event. For example, if you need to remember that you have a Christmas party coming up, you E-mail your account the following:

"Topic: Event: Christmas Party

Message: 12/04/11, 5:00 p.m."

Then, when you get home, or find your Smartphone, your Springpad app will have the event logged and waiting.

It is these features that make Springpad awesome. Unfortunately, the seamless interactivity the Springpad leads you to depend upon is in reality not all that seamless.

First off, the lack of a calendar — or at least the option to sync with a different one — is an issue for a personal organizing application.

Furthermore, if you want to add a bookmark (say a gift idea from Amazon.com for that Christmas party), you would have to do so manually.

While Springpad gets a lot of things right, it is subscribing to a new style of app that boasts more fluidity between different features. It is however, a step in the right direction, and definitely worth a shot if you're one with a poor memory.

 - Tim Stacey