Thing #5

I am in the market for an excellent note taking app. Or, more accurately, the perfect combination of note taking and list making app. For two years, I've been using a mix of the Calendar, Reminders, and Notes apps native to my iPhone in addition to a really basic app called Easy List. I also recently read about and downloaded an app called Any.DO. I think I learned about it on a link from the 23 Mobile Things website, but I'm not certain. The issue for me is the crossover. Where exactly does an entry belong? I make appointments in my Calendar, but I could do that as a Reminder or a Note. I use Easy List to keep lists of things, like Christmas gift ideas or groceries, but I could use Notes for that, if I chose. Do you see my problem? I'm a paper and pencil person too so that means I carry a small notebook with me wherever I go. I haven't successfully figured out just how I want to streamline this whole process of keeping track! I'm looking for something simple, straightforward, and efficient.

I downloaded Springpad, Remember the Milk, and Dragon Dictation. I'd downloaded Springpad years earlier, but abandoned it. The same for Dragon Dictation. I played with Springpad for a couple of hours, but determined that it's just too busy. There's too much going on for my needs. I already have places where I keep track of books, movies, images, recipes. Since my iPhone model doesn't have Siri, I was interested in trying Dragon Dictation to use for texting. It was mostly accurate as long as I spoke clearly. It took only a few steps to copy and paste what I'd dictated into a text, but I don't know that it really saves me any time, which is the point for me with this app. For that reason, I likely won't use this app very often.

Remember the Milk might be the note taking/list taking app for me! I'm going to use it for awhile and compare it to AnyDo and see which one I prefer. It has a very simple interface. It's easy to pick options like due dates, priority, how often to repeat, etc. You can view your entire week on one clear and easy page. It would be even better if you could dictate into an app like this. How about combining an app like Dragon Dictation with Remember the Milk? Genius! Maybe Siri already does something like this? I will find out next fall when I update to the newest iPhone model. Until then, I'll continue to use Remember the Milk and AnyDo and report back on the winner.