Microsoft’s OneNote has hit the App Store today. If you’ve not used or heard of OneNote, here’s a slice of its App Store description: Microsoft OneNote Mobile is the easy-to-use, powerful note-taking application for all of your ideas, brought to you by Microsoft Office. OneNote Mobile lets you create and view notes and lists whenever […]
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Microsoft’s OneNote Hits the App Store, and Looks Good

Jan 18th 2011 by

OneNote iPhone app

Microsoft’s OneNote has hit the App Store today. If you’ve not used or heard of OneNote, here’s a slice of its App Store description:

Microsoft OneNote Mobile is the easy-to-use, powerful note-taking application for all of your ideas, brought to you by Microsoft Office. OneNote Mobile lets you create and view notes and lists whenever you need them. Sync your notes with free Windows Live online storage and access them from virtually anywhere using your phone, PC, or almost any web browser.

OneNote is one of my favorite ever Windows apps. One of the very few that I can honestly say I miss – a lot! – since switching to Mac. Even though I now use Evernote on the Mac and on my iPhone and iPad, and think it’s a brilliant app and service, there are things about OneNote that I always liked better. For starters, its interface is far, far nicer than Evernote’s.

Up until now I haven’t ever thought about using it since I switched to Mac, because it had no iOS offering and I didn’t think it had a web app / presence. Now all that has changed. It’s got an iPhone app, and a web app that I’ve discovered works very well in my Chrome browser and is a pleasure to use.

I have to say, despite my fondness for Evernote and Simplenote, this app is a sight for sore eyes so far. It looks very good, and feels great to work with in just a quick test run this evening. I created a quick notebooks structure for myself via the web app and started playing with adding notes via the iPhone app, on both my iPhone and iPad.

It’s easy to add text notes, create bulleted lists and to-do checkboxes within them, add existing or new photos, and all within a nice UI as well. The notes editing area already feels much nicer to me than Evernote’s does.

OneNote for iPhone

I’ve only spent a short while with the app, but I’m already tempted to get OneNote installed on my Windows 7 virtual machine – now that I can sync with my iPhone and iPad.

A couple not-so-hot things to note among my early impressions:

— Sync is not automatic, and doesn’t even occur when you exit and relaunch the app. It has to be done manually via the Settings area within the app.

— It’s not a universal app and there is no iPad version yet. Although it’s OK to work with in 2X mode on the iPad, I’m already looking forward to a proper iPad version.

Here’s more detail from its App Store page on features and requirements:

With OneNote Mobile, you can:
▪ Create flexible notes that can include text, pictures, bullets, and checkboxes
▪ Check To Do items off on the go
▪ Save time with quick access to your most recent notes
▪ Work with confidence—OneNote Mobile automatically syncs your notes with Windows Live in the background
▪ Organize your notes into sections or create new notebooks using OneNote 2010 or OneNote Web App and access them from your iPhone

Requirements:
▪ iPhone or iPod touch must have iOS 4.2 or higher
▪ A free Windows Live ID is required to use OneNote Mobile —use an existing one or let OneNote Mobile help you sign up
▪ Web functionality uses the free OneNote Web App available on Windows Live, which requires a supported web browser
▪ OneNote Mobile opens notebooks created in Microsoft OneNote 2010 or the OneNote Web App
▪ Customizing section colors requires Microsoft OneNote 2010

OneNote is free for a limited time, and you can find it in the App Store now. [Editor’s note: We’ve also heard from some sources that OneNote may be US-only for now. We know for certain it’s not available in Canada yet.]

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