Don't Forget Those Sparks Of Inspiration With Idea Store
Idea Store ($2.99) by Spore Tools Ltd. is an app for your iPhone or iPad that helps you jot down your ideas to remember for later.
One never knows when inspiration strikes, and it can be about anything. How many times have you had a brilliant idea pop into your head, only to forget that golden moment later because you didn't write it down? Idea Store is here to help you capture and store those precious ideas (and even other things).
When you first go into Idea Store, you'll get a screen with three different viewing options. There's Entries, Groups, and Dates. The bottom menubar will have a sync button and app settings.
Before you start pouring your awesome ideas into the app, you'll want to set up Dropbox syncing. This is done through the settings. If you don't put a folder name when you link Dropbox, it will create a generic "ideastore.entrystream" folder. If you decide to name the folder later, you'll have to unlink Dropbox and repeat the process, this time entering in the folder name beforehand.
Once the link is done, it's time to enter in those golden ideas.
On the main screen, if you're the organized type, you'll probably want to go to the Groups and start creating folders. Creating groups is completely optional though, and is only there to help if you need organizing. These groups can also be archived if you no longer need them.
To create a new entry in Idea Store, you can simply navigate to the Entries view or a selected folder in Groups. There's a single button along the bottom menubar that allows you to create a new entry. When creating a new entry, you just simply type away. Whatever enters your mind, just type it out for later. The Add button will save your work and make the entry official.
If you have Dropbox set up, you'll notice that the app will sync whenever there are changes. The automatic syncing is great and gives you peace of mind without the need to worry about stuff like "Did I save it?"
When you accumulate ideas and entries, you can view them all in Entries, or by Group, or even by Date. The Date view separates it by months and days, so you can see when inspiration struck you.
As you view the entries, you'll see the first few lines of each idea in the list, and if it belongs to a group, you'll see which group underneath the preview in grey. Selecting an idea will allow you to view the full note and give you a couple of options. An idea can be moved to a specific folder, emailed as body text, or deleted.
Idea Store is a minimal and simplistic app that will definitely help you remember those elusive ideas of yours for future reference.
However, as I looked in my Dropbox folder on my computer, the app creates subfolders for each entry that doesn't correspond to the groups that I created. Each idea is also stored in a proprietary file format that I can't view on my Mac (.entrystreamentrytext). I would like to see the app create subfolders in my Dropbox that correspond to the groups I created, and save these files in plain text (.txt) format. This way, it would be possible to open the ideas on the computer and even edit them and sync back to the app.
Despite this, Idea Store is a good way to keep track of your ideas on-the-go. The app is universal and will work on both your iPhone and iPad for easy idea collecting, or anything else you may want it to be. Be creative and think of ideas of how to use Idea Store.
