Ever since my first Franklin Planner, I've been a big believer in PIM (Personal Information Management). Boy, was I ever glad to get rid of the paper and go digital with my Palm Pilot. I went through a succession of Palm products, including the Sony Clie and a Treo. When I heard that Palm was giving up on smartphones after the Pre, I was devastated; I had no idea what I would do when my Treo finally broke down.
The decision was forced upon me, shortly after I took my Treo for a swim. (Note to self: ziploc bags aren't waterproof, even three layers deep.) I'd seen Apple's idea of PIM from my wife's iPhone: barely functional, unless you paid for their Mobile Me service, in which case it was tolerable. I decided to go with Android and got a Samsung Galaxy S.
Good lord the AT&T Samsung Captivate sucks. But the hardware itself is a post for another time; right now, I'm considering the Android PIM software independently. I rate it about equal to the iPhone: barely functional. The one big advantage is automatic sync with Google Calendar.
Notes are a big piece of PIM, though. Over the next few weeks, I intend to run several note-taking apps through my personal PIM wringer. The winner will get the coveted "place on my phone" award. And I'll have a record of what made the losers... well, losers.
Let's get to the rules!
What do you want in a note-taking app? Chances are it's a little different from what I want, which is listed below:
- Text Entry: The basic functionality. A notepad app needs to take notes. It should perform well with both short and long text.
- Data Synchronization: The big problem. Android doesn't have a computer backup program, like Palm and Blackberry. The data has to be stored somewhere OFF the phone, where I can restore it when necessary. Google Docs would be fine with me.
- Search Integration: The second big problem. I've got years of notes on my phone. They're no good to me unless I can search through them. And I don't mean from the program itself; I want notes to be searched from the main Android search button, duh.
- Import/Export: I've got LOTS of notes from my Palm days. Wait... Palm years. Whatever I use needs to import them, because I'm NOT entering them again. Likewise, I realize someday I'll need to switch programs; exporting to CSV or some other format will help me when that day comes.
- Data Hierarchy: A big word for "tags". It should be easy to categorize notes. Palm used categories, a one-level hierarchy, like allowing a single tag on each note. I like hierarchies (like directories) and multiple tags on a single note.
- Data Integration: When I enter a phone number, it should be recognized as a phone number; when I click on it, it should dial the phone directly from my note. Same sort of thing for URLs and GPS coordinates.
- App Integration: I should be able to attach a note to an appointment in the calendar, or a task in the to-do list. This is where I'm likely to be most dissapointed; I don't think there's any such integration anywhere on the Android platform.
I think that's the basics of PIM. I suppose I could go looking for extras like images in notes, or icons, but those aren't essential to the task of managing my data. Everything else is subjective: ease of use, interface colors and icons, and so on.
Since I've got so many Palm notes, I exported them to CSV so other programs could import them. Unfortunately, that includes a lot of weird characters, and the title was saved in a separate field from the note. I actually gave up Starcraft 2 in favor of 8 hours taking care of all the abnormalities. When I was done, though, I had several different formats of my Palm notes, including OpenOffice and Excel spreadsheets, and three different CSV files. Earlier programming efforts gave me a directory full of individual notes that I'm not sure really reflect my memos... I'll have to spend another couple of hours tweaking that code to make sure it works as I want.
I've already searched the market for notepad apps, but if you think yours will beat my current champion on these grounds, let me know! I'll be happy to give it a fair shake. Links to the programs will appear below. Let the best app win!
Currently reviewed apps:
First up in the Android PIM Note App Review (I've got to think of a shorter name for that): Note Everything. Sorry it took me so long; I was fooling around with saving my Palm notes in a format suitable for multiple programs, and I didn't want to revie
Tracked: Jun 06, 09:28
Continuing the Android PIM Note App Review, we've got AK Notepad. (That's right, I spent so much time massaging my data that, to make up for the delay, you get two reviews in one day!) AK Notepad is the stripped-down, streamlined predecessor to Catc
Tracked: Jun 06, 10:25
I'm on a quest to find the best PIM notepad app for Android phones. If reviews are any indication, Evernote just might take the crown from Catch. Evernote is free, as is its web service, "Evernote Web". However, you have to pay for premium servic
Tracked: Jul 12, 13:19