PopNotes Requires User Account, Location Services
Post-it® PopNotes (Free) by 3M Company attempts to pair sticky notes with social networking.
Digital sticky notes are not a new concept. Stickies has been a Mac app for a long time, and there are certainly plenty of iOS sticky notes to be had. But you would expect the quintessential sticky note, the Post-it by 3M, to stand above the others after making its digital debut.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that way.
The very first step of using this app asks for a user account. “Why on earth would you need a user account for sticky notes?” you may ask. The main reason is that PopNotes uses your location to mark where a note was left. Looking on the map, you can see notes left by your friends or anyone else with the app.
I see this as being handy if you want to leave a note about something at certain locations, but the way this app handles it is flawed. Using augmented reality would be a much better way to view the stickies.
Imagine holding up your iDevice to a building and seeing it littered with sticky notes. Even if 3M didn’t want to go that far, it would still be handy to at least see the actual notes on the map, rather than an icon for them.
Using your location is such a foundation of the app that you can’t even make notes with Location Services disabled.
I wanted to like this app because you would expect 3M to do sticky notes the right way. I don’t know if “social stickies” is necessarily the right way to go, but it certainly shouldn't be this way.
