I’m testing Notebooks, a new iPhone note app. This should be good in several ways:
1. The look is great
While there is no modification possible in terms of how it looks, it sure ain’t look bad at all… Maybe the ability to change fonts might help, but it’s not bad as is. Actually, it looks great in my eyes.
2. Titling of the quick notes
When quick notes are created the titles with “QN <date & time>” are automatically generated, and it sure is great for journaling. I like to have the creation date recorded in every note, and this sure helps when they are imported into MacJournal later.
However, there is a bug in the current version where the date format contains “/” which cannot be used for a title. I contacted the developer and he said about the alternative of using “-” instead. So it should be fixed in the next update.
3. Organize notes using notebooks
Unlike noteskinery, notes can be easily moved from one to another, just like in the Mail app. It is intuitive to organize notes this way.
You know, just create a quick note now, and move it when you have time. It doesn’t require you to think too much about other things like title & category. Just like an inbox item for GTD. Create a note with auto-titling and organize it later. Quite intuitive, isn’t it?
However, adding sort options would be nice, as the current sort only supports the alphabetical descending order. This is the way the sort in WriteRoom is implemented and isn’t bad at all. But, adding this capability sure extends the usefulness for most users.
4. Sync to (or import from) desktop
Notebooks has the ability to import notes from the desktop using SyncDocs, the desktop application that uses Bonjour to transfer files in the network. I haven’t tested this part yet, but text files dropped onto SyncDocs are supposed to be transferred to Notebooks, as the description in the web page states. If it works as stated, maybe I could use it to sync with MacJournal (I need to first export all entries into plain texts in MacJournal, though). I’ll get back to this if it ever works out.
So, all the good things bring the bad. One thing that should be improved is the performance. Scrolling the note up and down is somehow sluggish, though not a dealbreaker. WriteRoom, for comparison, is much faster with no stress at all. But, it could get optimized as more updates are coming in.
So far, I’m quite satisfied. Not sure if I decide to part ways with WriteRoom yet. WriteRoom is simple enough to use while providing some excellent features as Bonjour import/export and font & color change capability. But as satisfied as I am with Notebooks so far, I might think of switching.
