version 1.0
There are more and more good-looking iPhone apps coming out, and that’s certainly not a complaint. I think it’s actually one of the major advantages of the platform (really sexy apps!), but as more and more of these gorgeous designs hit the App Store, it becomes even more important to have a solid, functional UI underneath all the gloss.
Synotes from Syncode is a shiny new note app that feels very much like a version 1.0. It features a good-looking interface and free, automatic-syncing with the online Synotes web app. Unfortunately, Synotes still has a bit of catching up to do when it comes to the basics, and it pales in comparison to other similar offerings such as Evernote and Simplenote.
List View
There are basically two screens you’ll be using in Synotes, the first of which is the list view. This shows all of your notes in the order that they were added to the app – or at least, that’s how it seems to behave. I’m more used to applications showing the most recently updated notes at the top, but this way might just be a matter of getting used to.
This view was actually what drew me to the app. It reminds me a lot of the Things task management app, which employs a very similar “big juicy button” (my term, not theirs) design. I love how every note looks like it’s an object that stands out from the background, and isn’t simply something sitting between a couple of lines on the screen (like on many other note apps).
The rest of the list view is pretty standard: swipe to delete notes, tap on them to select. There are a few more things that should probably populate this view, but I’ll talk about those in the next section.
Notes View
The list view was what initially attracted me to the app, and it’s a little ironic that the notes view (just one level down, so to speak) isn’t very good. You can flip to different pages, email a note, and delete a note with on-screen buttons lined up along the bottom.
The rest of the notes view looks exactly like viewing a note on the Synotes web app: each note looks like a bordered memo with three tabs on the left side. The first tab features the text, the second lets you choose an icon for the note, and the third has information pertaining to the note title, creation date, and the date it was last modified. This all works well and looks fine on the web app, but it’s quite crowded on a 3.5″ iPhone screen.
Changing the icon of a note is a nifty idea, but it’s not something I fiddle with often enough for it to warrant a tab of its own. The same goes for the information tab: it’s good to know when I last edited a note, but this button could easily be placed elsewhere. In fact, both of these tabs — icon and info — could probably be placed right in the list view and still make sense, ultimately leaving more space for viewing my text notes. This extra space is needed, since my non-scientific tests conducted showed that other note apps (default Notes, Evernote, Simplenote, Notebooks) tend display at least three or four more lines of text than Synotes.
Syncing
I’ve had a fairly erratic experience syncing with the web app. I experienced some intermittent bugs with symbols (sometimes a ‘/’ would be added in front of an apostrophe), and there were also a few instances of duplicate notes. However, the two-way syncing service does work for the most part, and I’m glad there are no subscription fees right now.
There isn’t any native desktop client for Synotes yet, but the API is out there if any developers are interested.
Conclusion
Evernote 1.0 for iPhone (which also features two-way text sync and a web app) was probably similar to how Synotes is now, feature-wise. I can’t say for sure, because I jumped on the Evernote bandwagon a little later. What I can say, however, is that Evernote and other similar note apps are now far beyond version 1.0, and Synotes feels like it has a lot of catching up to do before it can really compete with modern note-taking apps. I realize that it can take a while for an app to learn what it wants to be and build up momentum, but simple mistakes like mimicking a desktop web app design too closely on the iPhone, keep Synotes 1.0 from really shining. I’ll very likely be checking out an updated version of the app once it’s had some time to mature, but for now, I’ll stick to something else.
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Synotes is available for $1.99 on the App Store. You’ll need to create a free web account to use the iPhone app and associated web app.
Synotes was provided by Syncode for review on Just Another iPhone Blog. For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see the “About” page.
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TAGS: note taking, notebook, notes, web app
