Review: Awesome Note
May 11, 2010
The Overview
Awesome Note is a note taking app that includes calendars, to do lists, folder organization and other powerful organization features. Winning a "Best of 2009" award and being featured by Apple, it touts itself as being 'Beyond Awesome.' And if user reviews are any indication, that is not far from the truth. It has consistently gotten 4 stars from users and is a strong seller in the App Store.
BRID has been steadily adding features since the app's initial release almost a year ago. And they have been very faithful to their users by listening to their ideas and providing great customer support.
The Features
Awesome Note has more features than you can shake a stylus at: calendar and diary view for every folder; a home screen badge that shows the number of ToDo items you have left to do (which ones it shows is customizable); the ability to insert photos and maps into notes; password protection for individual folders and the app, itself - the list just goes on and on.
The Breakdown
The Good Awesome Note syncs with Google Docs and Evernote, though the Sync button will only work with the service you set as default. If you want to sync up with the non-default service, you need to either set it as the default or go into Setting and manually sync files.
Awesome Note is pretty...sometimes a little TOO pretty. Many of the backgrounds are a bit...umm...much. But then I like simple and functional for my Productivity apps. I am also the type of person who never install skins or themes into my browers or other programs....so I put 'Pretty' under Good. :)
The Bad
For me, a To Do app is all about getting things done, which requires priorities and due dates. Yes, Awesome Note has calendar view available in every folder. But it is a calendar...why doesn't it sync with my Calendar app? Which can sync with my Google calendar...which can sync with my company's Exchange server...which syncs with my Blackberry (yes, I have to use one of THOSE), etc. etc.
The Verdict
I am not a real fan of "swiss army knife" solutions, e.g. 5 Jillions Apps-in-a-Box, 18 Awesome Games-in-a-Toilet, etc. I prefer things that hone the one thing they do to perfection rather than doing a bunch of little things half-assed. That being said, I like Awesome Note. It does try to be too many things at once, in my opinion. But it does most of those things fairly well.
Note taker? ToDo app? Both? Awesome Note is definitely a great note taker. Syncing, the extremely customizable folders, the quick-note feature...these all make it great for taking notes and organizing ideas.
As a ToDo app...I prefer Things and the desktop syncing. Awesome Note isn't quite there yet in setting up projects and priorities with frequently used tagging, etc....not to mention Gantt charts- but then pretty much nothing does that well for the iPhone.
Is it worth the money? Maybe. It does quite a few things well. It just comes up short for me in some areas. Grab the lite version and take it for a spin...that should help you decide if the full version is for you.
