Ideas from Mark Stout

For years I have used steno pads, filling them with notes of my day, phone numbers, lists, things to do and details of projects.  When I was at work, or anytime I was away from my apartment, I tried to carry a pocket notebook. The notes I took in the smaller notebook did not always make it to the steno pad. And then there was the challenge of finding a specific note. I suppose that is why I have been such a big fan of Evernote. It may surprise many to learn I actually use another app on my phone more than Evernote. Google Keep and Evernote are the two most popular of a legion of smartphone, desktop and web apps for note taking. I began using Evernote on my PC in 2008. Today, I have more than 23,000 notes in it. Evernote has been really good about making apps for Android and iPhones, as well as other portable devices. Google Keep came out in 2013. It was almost toy-like to Evernote’s behemoth. It was colorful, fast and designed primarily for use on a phone, although there ...

When Google Keep first appeared, myself and others thought it was Google’s attempt to make an Evernote type product. I had long thought Google should acquire Evernote, or barring that, create their own personal note storage system.   Google’s mission seems to be indexing all the world’s information.  That should include our own personal information, but before they can index it and let us search on it, they need to give us a place to store information. Perhaps that is still their intent, but if it is, they are getting there at a snail’s pace.  There have been few upgrades to Keep. The only really major upgrade was the addition of reminders; adding a date and time to a note and having the app alert you when appropriate. At our Google+ Keep community a poster wondered if perhaps Keep was not actually intended to replace Google Tasks.

I wrote here on March 23 about my delight the first time I made a Google Now voice note "Note to self:" and how Google Now prompted me to send it to Gmail or to Google Keep. Previously the only option was to send it to Gmail.  I have a Gmail filter to send any "Note to self" emails on to my Evernote account. Now a Lifehacker.com post by Whitson Gordon alerted me that now Evernote is included in that option. Evernote did not appear on my list options before when I made a note with Google Now.  I wonder if it is not a new capability added by Evernote when they released Version 5 for Android about that time. On my Android phone I went to Settings, Applications and brought up the record for Google Search (which is really Google Now). Then I scrolled down and touched the button Clear Defaults . Then I went into Google Now and made a voice "Note to Self".  This time the option box had three choices: Email, Keep and Evernote. I went ahead...