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A report out of Digitimes suggests the supply of cover lenses for touch panel modules may influence Apple’s future production rate of its popular iPad 2. Sales of the iPad 2 have exceeded expectation and Apple reportedly shipped 2.4 to 2.5 million tablets in March alone. Conservative estimates predict Apple may ship over four million units per month in the upcoming financial quarter.

Asian supply sources hint that the ability of Apple to meet this growing demand for it popular tablet device hinges on the ability of manufacturers to produce this necessary lens component. Currently, Taiwan-based TPK Touch Solutions, G-Tech Optoelectronics and more are expanding their manufacturing capacity and ramping up production of these cover lenses. In the end, this component may not delay production of the iPad 2, but it does reveal the struggle parts manufacturers encounter when a new device taxes their production line.

Cover lens supply key for 2011 iPad 2 shipment goal originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gary Katz, the same DIY guy behind this cool iPhone shoebox theater, has crafted a delightfully retro-looking case for his iPad 2 out of “about $20 worth of materials.” Calling it “An iPad Case from 1945,” Katz used a bill of materials that just about anyone might find in their garage or basement: a few blocks and squares of wood, an old pair of shorts, screws, a luggage tag, magnets, wood glue and wood stain.

All put together, the case looks like something that’d be right at home in my grandparents’ den, and I mean that in a good way. At the very least, I have to give Katz credit for producing something with a custom retro look without also going steampunk like virtually everybody else. The case does indeed look like it belongs in a film noir from the 40s; if I had even the slightest degree of handicrafts skills (I definitely don’t), I might try my hand at making one of these myself.

Katz has posted full instructions for reproducing his efforts, so if you’ve got the materials, the skills, and you’d like a case that looks like it could go well with a fedora, a scotch on the rocks and a midnight fistfight in a Los Angeles bar, get cracking.

How to make a custom wooden ‘antique’ iPad case originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Miso Music’s Plectrum isn’t a game — it’s a full-fledged guitar playing and learning tool, now available on the App Store. Plectrum has already picked up some accolades from our brethren at TechCrunch. It just recently became available to the public, and for US$2.99, you can check it out for yourself.

The big selling point for Plectrum is that it uses some pretty incredible polyphonic note detection software that will provide real feedback on real instruments. In other words, by listening in through the iPad’s microphone, it’ll tell you if you’re playing the right notes on a real guitar. That’s tough for software to do anywhere, but on the iPad, it’s downright miraculous. You can also play right on the iPad’s touchscreen if you want.

There are some classical pieces to check out, or you can purchase real pop songs from the likes of The Beatles and others via in-app purchase. If you’re good at writing tabs, you can even put some of your own versions in, and if they’re chosen to be sold in the in-app store, you can earn a little money from them.

There are some concerns in the iTunes reviews about the interface, and as you can see above, it isn’t exactly user friendly. Those who know a little more about guitar music and tuning will probably get more out of it than a pure beginner. But the software is very powerful, and with a few updates, hopefully Miso will get together an interface that matches Plectrum’s potential. For those intrigued by the idea of getting some feedback from a tuner while playing, it’s definitely worth a look.

TUAW’s Daily App: Plectrum originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The yellow sticky note of doom has come to tempt Apple lovers around the world with promises of new or changed items in the Apple retail store. While this could be regular maintenance, we will keep you abreast of any changes once the store comes back up.

Update: The store is back up, but so far we don’t see anything new. If you catch something we’ve missed, be sure to let us know in the comments.

The Apple store is down originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 00:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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fring is working on a group video chat implementation for its iOS and Android apps. The update will eventually allow users to chat with up to four participants on-screen at once; fring’s developers are allowing users to sign up for a beta version so that they can test it out before it’s officially available on the App Store.

Group video chats appear to be a bit choppy even in fring’s announcement video (which you can view on the next page), but that could be due to any number of factors from the connection speed to the iPhone 4’s processor. Thanks to Photo Booth, we already know the iPad 2 with its faster A5 processor can display multiple video streams at once without a hitch, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the same is true for apps like fring.

fring offered video chatting long before Skype’s iOS app enabled it (and even before Apple’s FaceTime debuted), so I’m wondering if Skype will follow in fring’s footsteps again and enable group video chats in a future update. Personally, I’ll be happy if Skype just produces an iPad-native app; the iPhone version feels pretty limited.

[via CNET]

Continue reading Group video chat coming to iPhone via fring

Group video chat coming to iPhone via fring originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In this post we’re going to see two interesting controls in Android: ViewFlipper and SlidingDrawer.

View Flipper:

Suppose you want to display a news bar in your activity. this news bar displays a single news item at a time then flips and shows next item and so on, then your choice would be Android’s ViewFlipper.

ViewFlipper inherits from frame layout, so it displays a single view at a time.

consider this layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
<TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/hello"
    />
    <Button
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Flip"
    android:id="@+id/btn"
    android:onClick="ClickHandler"
    />
    <ViewFlipper
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:id="@+id/flip"
    >
    <TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Item1"
    />
    <TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Item2"
    />
    <TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Item3"
    />
    </ViewFlipper>
</LinearLayout>

Just a ViewFlipper container that contains three text views:

Now we want to flip the views when the button is clicked

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        btn=(Button)findViewById(R.id.btn);
        flip=(ViewFlipper)findViewById(R.id.flip);

    }

    public void ClickHandler(View v)
    {

     flip.showNext();

    }

If we want to flip in reverese direction we could use flip.showPrevious() instead we can add animations to the child views when they appear or disappear:

@Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        btn=(Button)findViewById(R.id.btn);
        flip=(ViewFlipper)findViewById(R.id.flip);
        //when a view is displayed
        flip.setInAnimation(this,android.R.anim.fade_in);
       //when a view disappears
     flip.setOutAnimation(this, android.R.anim.fade_out);
    }

We can also set the ViewFlipper to flip views automatically when the button is clicked:

public void ClickHandler(View v)
    {

     //specify flipping interval
     flip.setFlipInterval(1000);
     flip.startFlipping();
    }

We can stop the flipping by calling flip.stopFlipping(); method.

Or we can set the flipper to flip autommatically when the activity starts

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        btn=(Button)findViewById(R.id.btn);
        flip=(ViewFlipper)findViewById(R.id.flip);
        flip.setInAnimation(this,android.R.anim.fade_in);
     flip.setOutAnimation(this, android.R.anim.fade_out);
     flip.setFlipInterval(1000);
     flip.setAutoStart(true);

    }

Sliding Drawer:

Remeber Android’s old versions’ (prior to 2.2) launcher screen where we had a sliding pane at the bottom that when dragged upwards displays the applications menu of the phone, that is called the SlidingDrawer control.

Consider this layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content">
  <SlidingDrawer
  android:layout_width="fill_parent"
  android:layout_height="fill_parent"
  android:id="@+id/drawer"
  android:handle="@+id/handle"
  android:content="@+id/content"
  >
  <ImageView
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:id="@+id/handle"
  android:src="@drawable/tray_handle_normal"
  />
  <LinearLayout
  android:layout_width="fill_parent"
  android:layout_height="fill_parent"
  android:orientation="vertical"
  android:id="@+id/content"
  >
  <TextView
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:text="This is some text"
  android:id="@+id/txt"
  />
  <Button
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:text="Click Me"
  android:id="@+id/btn"
  android:onClick="ClickHandler"
  />
  </LinearLayout>

  </SlidingDrawer>
</FrameLayout>

When the SlidingDrawer is pressed it looks like this:

The SlidingDrawer is a container that when dragged or pressed shows/hides its contents.

As the SlidingDrawer displays one content at a time, it must be declared within FrameLayout
the SlidingDrawer has two key properties:
android:handle: specifies the id of the control that acts as the handle.
android:content: specifies the id of the view that acts as content of the SlidingDrawer, most times will be a container.

you can open/close the drawer from the code like this:

if(drawer.isOpened())
    {
     drawer.close();
     btnToggle.setText("Open");
    }
    else
    {
     drawer.open();
     btnToggle.setText("Close");
    }

You can open/close the drawer with animation using these methods instead

drawer.animateClose();
drawer.animateOpen();

or you can handle the open/close operations automatically using toggle method:

drawer.toggle();
drawer.animateToggle();

you can lock/unlock the SlidingDrawer to enable/disable dragging or clicking of the drawer using these methods:

drawer.lock();
drawer.unlock();

Responding to SlidingDrawer Events:

SlidingDrawer has three key callbacks:

1. When the drawer is open, handled by implementing OnDrawerOpenListener.
2. When the drawer is close, handled by implementing OnDrawerCloseListener.
3. When the drawer is close, handled by implementing OnDrawerScrollListener.

drawer.setOnDrawerOpenListener(new OnDrawerOpenListener() {

    @Override
    public void onDrawerOpened() {
     // TODO Auto-generated method stub
     TextView txtStatus=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtStatus);
     txtStatus.setText("Opened");
     ImageView view=(ImageView)drawer.getHandle();
     view.setImageResource(R.drawable.tray_handle_selected);

    }
   });

         drawer.setOnDrawerCloseListener(new OnDrawerCloseListener() {

    @Override
    public void onDrawerClosed() {
     // TODO Auto-generated method stub
     TextView txtStatus=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtStatus);
     txtStatus.setText("Closed");
     ImageView view=(ImageView)drawer.getHandle();
     view.setImageResource(R.drawable.tray_handle_normal);
    }
   });

         drawer.setOnDrawerScrollListener(new OnDrawerScrollListener() {

    @Override
    public void onScrollStarted() {
     // TODO Auto-generated method stub
     TextView txtStatus=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtStatus);
     txtStatus.setText("Scroll start");

    }

    @Override
    public void onScrollEnded() {
     // TODO Auto-generated method stub
     TextView txtStatus=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtStatus);
     txtStatus.setText("Scroll end");
    }
   });

You can make the drawer appear horizontally from right to left by setting the android:orientation property to horizontal in the xml file.

That was the View Flipper and Sliding drawer controls, stay tuned for another tutorial next week

This is the “Plist” example. There are many ways to implement the Plist in iPhone. I am going to show you the simplest way to create the Plist in iPhone.

Step 1: Open the Xcode and create a new Xcode project using Navigation base application template. Give the application name “Plistinfo”. As shown in the figure below:

Step 2: Expand classes and notice Interface Builder created the RootViewController.h and RootViewController.m class for you. Expand Resources and notice the template generated a separate nib, RootViewController.xib.

Step 3: In this application, we need to add Plist. Just Right-click on the Resources folder and choose Add -> New File. Under Other category, choose Property List. Name it Data.plist. Change Dictionary to Array since we’re going to be adding numerous “namelist” which will be described as individual Dictionaries.

We will be adding information about your Datalist collection to it so the schema of your data set could be something like this:
* name – String
* add – String
* ph – Number

Step 4: We need to add another file. Right-click on the Classes folder and choose Add -> New File. Under Cocoa Touch Class category choose Objective-C class. Name it Dfetch.h and Dfetch.m file.
This will be a very simple class that will take our dummy data file, read it in as a NSArray and provide some utility methods to access the data from the file.

Step 5: Open the Dfetch.m file and make the following changes in the file.

Step 6: Open the RootViewController.h file and make the following changes in the file.

Step 7: Open the RootViewController.m file and make the following changes in the file.

Step 8: Create The Detail view:
After a user selects one of the rows, we want them to go to a detail page where more information about the Data List is shown. We could simply use a UIView and add a bunch of UILables to it to achieve.

Right-click on the Classes folder and choose Add -> New File again. From Cocoa Touch Class category pick the UIViewControllerSubclass.

Step 9: Open the DetailViewController.m file and make the following changes.

Step 10: Now build and run the code and view the Output in the Simulator.

You can download source code from here Plist

As rumors abound that Apple is moving towards an inevitable removal of the beloved home button, a second possibility crops up in the form of a capacitive sensor that replaces the woes of a physical button.

Today we’ll discuss why the home button is a central element of the iOS experience and whether or not it can be replaced with something such as a gesture or touch-sensitive switch without a dramatic reduction in usability.

Simple is Better

Few deny that Apple’s line of multitouch products have a beautifully simple and streamlined design. In just a few years, the iPhone has surely become one of the most replicated cell phone designs of all time.

Despite endless pleas for physical keyboards from Blackberry fans, one of the things that Apple really got right on the iPhone right from the start was a strong emphasis on the gorgeous interactive display. The key way that this is accomplished is through the lack of any distractions on the face of the device; there’s only a screen and a single button. Notice that Apple has been a big fan of simple form factors like this for quite some time. In its day, the Newton was fairly minimal and contained little else on its face than a screen.

The Newton and the iPhone

The single button format has now been carried out across the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, but has recently become a hotly debated topic. Just to give you an idea of the scope of the debate, let’s go over both the pros and cons of our friend the home button.

Home Button: Pros

There are plenty of really strong arguments in favor of keeping the home button right where it is. The simplest and strongest of these is that it makes Apple’s iOS devices extremely intuitive. Almost any person on the planet, whether they’re four or ninety years old, can figure out how to make an iPhone or iPad work in a few seconds or less.

Almost anyone can use an iPad with little or no instruction

All you see when you pick up an iOS device is a big screen and a button. Touching the screen gets you nowhere so there’s only one other option! Pressing the button brings the screen alive where you find instructions for unlocking the device.

From here, things stay as simple as humanly possible. You see a grid of items and when you want to try one of them, you reach out and touch it. This brings up a new problem though, how to go back. Everything in the app is controlled via on-screen controls so once again the user only has one logical action to try: pressing the home button. Again this does exactly as intended and brings the user back to where they started.

You might think this progression is so obvious that it doesn’t even merit discussion, but in reality this is a carefully and ingeniously crafted experience and is a driving force behind these devices reaching a point of saturation far beyond tech nerds.

The argument that many usability fans are currently making is that if Apple takes this button away, they’ll take with it all of the ease-of-use currently associated with the devices. Sure, a four-finger gesture is a fine way for power users to exit an app, but what about new users? Suddenly the formerly intuitive experience would now require a guided walk-through.

Would Apple Really Do This?

I happen to strongly agree with this argument. The iPhone might look better without a button on the front, but it certainly would not be as user-friendly. However, this idea isn’t without flaws.

The main problem with this argument is the assumption that, upon removing the home button, Apple wouldn’t replace it with something equally intuitive. We’ve heard they’re considering complicated gestures, but that doesn’t meant there won’t also be something just as good or even better than the home button.

Apple tends to hide lots of tricks up their sleeve and I wouldn’t bet any substantial amount of money on them ruining the experience of their current favorite cash cow because of a button!

Home Button: Cons

The downside of the home button is of course that it must be physically pressed and is therefore prone to failure. Further, it’s possible that without the necessity of this button, Apple could significantly reduce the size of both the iPhone and iPad simply by cutting down on the outer bezel.

You have to wonder if this is enough incentive for Apple to make the bold move of eliminating the button. If you think about where Apple’s design trends are headed, it almost makes sense.

Apple’s interface designs in OS X aren’t becoming more elaborate, instead the interfaces are disappearing! Apps like QuickTime are attractive in their attempt to be absolutely borderless. Similarly, iOS devices are already nearly all-screen, how much of a leap would it be to have an iPhone that really is only as tall and wide as the screen?

Will the Home Button Become Capacitive?

To make this conversation even more interesting, Tech Crunch has recently posted images of a “potentially leaked” (meaning likely fake) iPod Touch with a capacitive home button. Real or not, these images do bring some interesting ideas for how to eliminate on of the main cons of the home button while retaining most of the pros.

A capacitive home button would respond to touch

One thing that immediately comes to mind is the 3rd generation iPod with its capacitive button strip along the top. These were short-lived and quickly dropped in favor of the click wheel design.

The 3rd generation iPod had a strip of capacitive buttons

Looking back, these little buttons weren’t my favorite, especially when compared with the solid feel of the current iPhone home button. It’s interesting to note that Apple didn’t stick with this design for long. However, they have implemented and sustained similar buttons on cinema displays.

What Do You Think?

To be honest, I don’t see Apple ditching the home button altogether any time soon. They might surprise me with a new and better system, but until we figure out what that would look like, the simply usability of the one-button format is going to be nigh upon unbeatable. A capacitive button is a possible next step, but I’m not sure if the fail rate on the physical buttons is so high that Apple sees this as a necessary route.

What do you think? Will we begin to see an evolution of the home button into something more tech savvy or possibly even an outright removal of it altogether? Tell us both what you prefer and what route you expect Apple to take.

Photo Credits: Blake Patterson, Paul Emerson, Grace and TechCrunch.

Monopoly is a game that we’ve all played. It has a rich history and is the namesake of hundreds of different versions here in 2011. Its success is derived from a simple board game that can be traced back to 1903 where a similar game was created to explain tax theory.

Now, Monopoly is sold in a variety of editions with five of them living in my house alone. But for those not inclined to pull out the board game, there’s a solution available from EA Mobile and Hasbro, who teamed up to bring Monopoly to your iPhone. The game is, of course, available in the regular flavour, but today we’ll be looking at one of these variations: Here & Now.

The main difference between the two games, available on iPad or iPhone, is the place names. Monopoly opts for the regular names whilst Here & Now uses popular cities, such as London and Montreal to replace Illinois Avenue and Boardwalk, respectively. Transport and utilities are also rebranded to include more modern uses such as solar energy.

Game Setup

The game commences with a setup phase whereby you determine how many human and AI players you want to use. There’s a handful of character tokens to choose for up to four players. I’d have loved to have seen some more of the classic tokens added  in this mobile edition but unfortunately, there are only a few to choose from.

One cool feature is the ability to setup your own house rules to determine factors like starting cash, “Pass Go” salary and house/hotel limit. You can also change the backdrop to your game and, after that, you’re all set to play.

You can opt for up to four human/AI characters.

The game can be set up to have multiple human players. This type of setup allows you to pass the iPhone around on each turn but, alternatively, you can setup a WiFi game which allows multiple iPhones with the game installed to work together. It took me several attempts to get this to work, so consider reconnecting to your WiFi network. However, even then, the non-host device tends to lose the connection many times.

Rolling the Dice

The game plays out just like its physical counterpart. You roll the dice by shaking your device and then move along the game, having the option to purchase visited properties on the way. It will take a while for you to get used to the controls, but it becomes natural after a few games.

A tutorial guides you through most of the core features of the game from buying to auctioning to building. The touch interface is executed perfectly so buttons match your fingers in proportion.

If you’re playing against a computer, you’ll take your turn at regular intervals dependent on the amount of players. Note that there’s no way to skip through the NPC plays but I guess it’s important that you watch what’s happening to get a better grasp on the game’s events. After all, there’s no way to skip this in the real game either!

I initially bought the game around midnight expecting to commence a review an hour or so later, purely due to my prior knowledge of the game. I was shocked that I didn’t achieve that since the sheer immersion of the game will eat away hours of your time. And the experience is not something to just comment on in comparison with a hard version, it’s its own adventure.

Full board and the "manage" views.

Other than that, there’s not much else to say about the game’s actual functionality as it’s not unlike the board game. Most controls are well executed with the only disappointment being that the computer seems to have an advantage. Strange how they always seem to miss your properties!

Presentation

Monopoly comes across very well on the small screen and fourth-generation iPhone owners will appreciate the retina graphics added in a recent update. Edges do seem sharp, but this is in line with other games released around the same time. Yet, it still seems very polished and, more importantly, stable.

The game is smooth and stable and I haven’t seen any problems with it. It feels like an iPhone game yet is very intuitive and is designed around a player’s accessibility.

EA Mobile does a good job at converting a table-top experience to your phone. It doesn’t feel “right” at first but will certainly grow on you as you continue to play. It’s an intriguing adaptation that has the strength of being playable anytime due to lack of need for multiple humans.

The use of animation offers another spin on the classic game especially for the AI players. It feels much more than just a theoretical port.

The vanilla Monopoly also has an iPad-optimized version.

Final Thoughts

Monopoly Here & Now is a clever variant on the ubiquitous version and is sure to monopolize (see what I did there?) your iPhone for casual gaming. Animations and a stable AI system suggest it’s a real contender in extending the popularity of Hasbro’s already popular brand.

The game is available in the Here & Now version we have reviewed today, but is also available in the normal, un-themed edition. It would be great to see EA’s mobile division start work on connecting their relationships by combining already-released games into Monopoly brands such as The Simpsons.

When choosing a new game, I opted for the iPhone version due to it’s potential to make a great review here but the iPad edition looks great too. Whilst I haven’t had hands on, you can be assured it will work in a similar way to it’s iPhone counterpart but with presumably better graphics. I’ll be picking it up soon!

In this Quick Look, we’re highlighting Brain Reactor. The developer describes Brain Reactor as a fast two-player reaction game. Play this game to see how fast your brain can react!

Brain Reactor includes 10 brain games, designed to challenge your attention, processing speed, mathematics skills, general knowledge, etc.

Read on for more information and screenshots!

Screenshots

Brain Reactor

About the App

Here are the top five features you can expect to see in the latest version:

• 10 mini games
• Single Player mode (Easy,Medium,Hard)
• Two Player mode
• Available on 8 languages

Requirements: iOS 3.0 or later, iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.
Price: $4.99
Developer: BuzlyLabs Ltd.

Vote for a Review

Would you like to see us write a full review of Brain Reactor? Have your say in our poll:

Would you like to see Brain Reactor reviewed in-depth on AppStorm?online surveys

Quick Look posts are paid submissions offering only a brief overview of an app. Vote in the poll if you think this app is worth an in-depth AppStorm review! If you’re a developer and would like to have your app profiled, you can submit it here.

Note-taking applications are some of the hottest items on the App Store. More and more these utilities make it easy to record data in a fast and convenient way and the fact that this information lives on our phones means that we can access it anytime we need it.

The 100 apps below will help you accomplish all your iPhone note-taking endeavors. Whether you want to collect random bits of information, remember something about a specific place or even record some thoughts about your favorite wine, we’ve got you covered. There’s even a section containing our favorite apps so you can get a good idea of where to start!

Our Favorites

Evernote – Free: Evernote turns the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad into an extension of your brain, helping you remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop.

Simplenote – Free: People are using Simplenote to keep notes, lists, ideas and more. Your notes automatically synchronize with your computer and all your devices. It’s extremely easy to use. For those who want more power, you can also use tags, pins, versions, and sharing.

Simplenote

Awesome Note (+Todo) – $3.99 : Awesome Note is an innovative note taking application and to-do manager that allow you to combine notes with to-do flexibility. Awesome Note enables you to customize its look with themes the way you want it to be displayed with different folder icons, colors, fonts and paper backgrounds.

Nebulous Notes (for Dropbox) – $0.99: Nebulous Notes is a powerful, yet simple, text editor for note-takers, writers, and coders. (If you want to try-before-you-buy, check out “Nebulous Notes Lite.”) Your notes are backed up and available from Dropbox, the best back-up service in the world. Free accounts on Dropbox come with 2GB of space, enough to store 500 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Nebulous Notes has been featured twice on Lifehacker.com as one of the best tools for getting things done.

Nebulous Notes

Springpad – Free: Springpad is a free application that lets you quickly and easily save the ideas and information you want to remember – on the web, on your phone and on your iPad!

Handwriting

Handwriting – Free: From the makers of the bestselling iPad app “Penultimate”. Use our highly-acclaimed inking technology to hand-write quick thank you notes, doodles, or love letters. Then send them by email, post them to Facebook, or to Twitter! Simple and easy to use. Your writing looks like your handwriting in beautiful black gel ink.

Note It! – Free: Take handwritten notes on your iPhone or IPod Touch with Note It! Make note of important to do’s, grocery lists, phone numbers and more with this simple, easy-to use, notetaking application. Note It! enables you to bypass the keyboard and write directly on the display, save your notes, and order your saved notes.

BugMe! – Ink Notepad & Alarms – $1.99: Make quick handwritten ink “postit” notes and reminders on the fly. Set quick alarms, save notes to your Home Screen and share your “sticky” notes by email or Twitter.

BugMe! – Ink Notepad & Alarms

iPenNote – Free: The innovative Mobile Digital Pen enables you to take handwritten notes while being in meetings, classrooms or in outdoor using ink pen and regular paper. Use your iPhone or iPad as a platform to save the handwritten data, keep it, edit it, send it and much more. This is supported by this unique iPenNote application.

PhatNotes – $4.99: PhatNotes for iPhone is the new generation of PhatWare’s award-winning notes organizer that allows to synchronize notes with desktop PC and use cursive and print handwriting recognition for text input.

neu.Notes for iPhone – Free: Take notes and draw on your iPhone with the best app in the store for handwritten notes, sketching, mind mapping, and more! Express yourself with multiple colors, line widths, varying transparency and images. Annotate photos and maps. Unlimited undo/redo. Pinch zoom in and out of details.

Use Your Handwriting – Free: Use Your Handwriting (UYH) is a powerful yet simple way to organize and express yourself. Instead of typing items in, Use Your Handwriting lets you write them by hand (well, by finger) – and with its unique graphic rendering engine, makes what you write look like your actual handwriting!

Use Your Handwriting

Note And Sketch – $1.99: Take note by typing input text and drawing using your fingers. Email text from your note. Export your notes to your photo album. From there, you can sync it with your desktop or laptop computer, or you can email it to any email address.

WritePad Notes – $3.99: WritePad Notes Edition is a simple notes organizer for iPhone and iPad Touch based on the WritePad text editor. You can view and edit your notes in landscape and portrait modes using either WritePad handwriting recognition or the standard iPhone keyboard. You can sort notes by creation date, modification date, or note title in an ascending or a descending order. You can also copy and paste text between notes, or filter notes by characters or words found in the note title.

Note Taker – $1.99: Note Taker makes it easy for you to quickly write down and organize names, phone numbers, addresses, shopping lists, notes, and more. You write directly on the screen with your finger. It’s like having a stack of note cards and a pencil always with you. Pages are flexibly organized by date/time last modified, tags, favorites, and more, with thumbnail images of part of each page to help you find them later.

Notes n More – $0.99: Create and Organize Tasks(todos), Notes, Voice Memos, Freehand Scribbles (draw with your finger on a blank slate or annotate over pictures), Internet (save files, convert web pages to PDF), Pictures and Videos all in one app.

Jungle Scribble – Notes & Draws – $2.99: Jungle Scribble – Notes & Draws is the best tool to make quick notes on the go. It can be used also to finger paint, make sketches or play with children. The program is clean, well done and surely belongs to the handful of must-have applications for the iPhone.

Jot! for iPhone – $2.99: Tired of complicated, unstable, or abandoned whiteboard apps that get in your way? Tap less. Jot more. Jot is a simple, fast whiteboard that lets you sketch out your ideas and share them. Draw, take notes, or wireframe on your iPhone quickly and easily as soon as ideas come to you. Then, share your ideas via email or save them as photos.

Jot!

Private Notes

Safe Note – $1.99: Safe Note is the simple application that allows you to keep password protected notes on your iPhone and iPod Touch. With Safe Note you can create notes, to do lists, reminders and anything else on a ‘no fuss’ text editor and keep them safe with a password.

LockedNotes – Free: Using LockedNotes is simple, just create a username and password by touching the register button and than start entering your secrets. You can also categorize your information by creating different accounts. Until now you had to remember dozens of username and password pairs. With LockedNotes you need to remember just one account and you can forget all the others, LockedNotes will remember them for you!

Signature-Secret Notes & Photos – Free: The app solves the problem of keeping personal information private and safe innovatively by enabling the user to access the private information simply by drawing his/her signature on the screen.Forget trying to type a password on a tiny screen. This method is faster, more intuitive and fun!

Signature-Secret Notes & Photos!

Hidden – $1.99: Are you using Simplenote? If so, you can keep your private notes hidden with Hidden app. It is fast, clean, and simple note taking application that syncs with Simplenote cloud service and it hides all notes which start with underbar_. You don’t need to be embarrassed with private notes when you show your iPhone to friends or families

Sticky Notes

Sticky Notes Pro – with Alarms and Bump Sharing – $0.99: Create fun and creative reminders to place on your lockscreen so you’ll never forget a thing. How is this different from other apps? Putting notes on your lockscreen positions them up front so you don’t have to unlock your phone to view them. Now add alarms to your notes for the ultimate reminder app!

Sticky Notes Pro

Fenix notes – $2.99: Fenix notes the most innovative and easy to use notes app available on the App Store, designed and inspired by the iPhone and iPod Touch. Move and rearrange your notes by pressing and holding just like on the iPhone or iPod Touch. Customize your notes by changing color names and adding additional contexts and criteria’s (Priority/Location/Task, your imagination is the limit). Customize your sort by changing color orders or by changing the sort order.

iMemoBoard – Sticky Notes – $1.99: iMemoBoard is useful sticky note App. Alarms, checkboxes, clickable links, email integration and more.

SmartNotes w/Stickies, ToDo, Photo, Voic – $9.99: SmartNotes is an intuitive way to organize your thoughts. It’s easy to group and combine notes, to-do’s, photos and voice recordings visually with the tip of your finger. SmartNotes uses innovative technology to allow you to group your notes into folders by dragging your notes on-top of each other. This helps you to very quickly organize your thoughts into common areas. In addition, SmartNotes helps you organize your notes by associating them with projects that you create.

abc Notes – $0.99: abcNotes was designed to become your stylish and highly customizable, functional and easy to use assistant in taking notes and managing To Do lists. It takes advantage of unique iOS devices touchscreen preserving realistic look & feel of paper sticky notes.

abc Notes

My Notes – $0.99: My Notes allows you to quickly and easily note your ideas, needs, lists and all you can think about. Then you can post your notes on your iPhone’s lockscreen to have them always in sight.

Note Board! – $0.99: Keep organized with Note Board! We don’t think in a straight line so why have your notes show up like it? With Note Board you have a virtual wall to place notes on. It expands indefinitely as you add new notes – there’s no limit. Resize them, move them or change their color and font – you are in control!

YediNotes – Free: YediNotes is a simple and user-friendly program for taking notes using stickers with different colors on your iphone. The user can also create screenshots of the board and include his/her own images as backgrounds. The stickers are created by pressing the green plus button and they are deleted by dragging
them into the bin on the bottom right.

Cloud and Synced

Catch Notes – Free: Catch Notes is a free feature-packed notepad app that allows you to capture text, images, and locations — with free sync and backups to Catch.com. Passcode protect your notes, share, and keep organized with easy #tags!

PlainText – Dropbox text editing – Free: For editing text on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. PlainText is a simple text editor with an uncomplicated, paper-like user interface. Unlike the default Notes app, PlainText allows you to create and organize your documents in folders and sync everything with Dropbox.com.

PlainText

FastEver – $0.99: FastEver is quick and simple way to make a note in Evernote. You can start typing as soon as you tap FastEver icon.

MobileNoter – Free: MobileNoter is a powerful and multifunctional note taking application which is able to sync with Microsoft OneNote. Although you can use MobileNoter as a standalone application to take and store your notes, its real power comes into play when you start using it with Microsoft OneNote. Now all your Microsoft OneNote data is available on your iPhone.

CloudNote – $2.99: The new notes application for the iPhone and iPod touch that makes keeping your life in sync effortless. CloudNote features a dead-simple UI and free companion software on the web and on your Mac Dashboard. You’ll never open another notes application again after CloudNote.

Notespark – sync and share your notes – $4.99: Notespark is an iOS app and a web app that were built from the ground up to be the best way to sync and share notes on your iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches. Notespark syncs with a web app, not a desktop app, so that you don’t need to remember to sync before leaving the house. Everything happens automatically. As you switch back and forth between the web and your device, the same notes will always be available no matter where you are.

RainbowNote – $3.99: RainbowNote is functional and easy to use notes application supporting true sync with Google Docs.

RainbowNote

Notebook – $4.99: Notebook is a powerful tool which gives you access to your notes anywhere. Use Notebook by itself or synchronize your notes to the web using Toodledo.com, a free online service for notes and tasks. Capture your thoughts and ideas anywhere, categorize them, and synchronize them for safe keeping. Later on, you can browse by Notebook or search all notes by entering key words in the search field.

MomoNote – $4.99: MomoNote is a personal memo application for iPhone/iPad, which can also be managed using the sync with web (http://momonote.com). MomoNote is an ‘universal application’, which allows the access to both iPhone and iPad with a single purchase.

Trunk Notes – $3.99: Trunk Notes is a powerful note taking app and personal wiki. Create notes, format notes, and link notes together. Trunk Notes is the app for notes on the move. Buy Trunk Notes and install it on your iPhone and iPad – only 1 app required! Sync your notes with Dropbox and work with your information on all your iOS devices. Use Trunk Notes as a simple note taking app – or use it’s advanced features to create your own personal wiki with dynamic content, images, sound recordings and more.

Lumen Note – $1.99: Easy and Instant. Lumen Note is the fastest way to take notes and get them instantly transferred to your Desktop or Laptop, your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

Lumen Note

Notesy for Dropbox – $2.99: Notesy is not just a simple Dropbox file editor that only works when you’re online: it’s an over-the-air syncing note-taking app that you can keep on using even when you don’t have a signal.

Microsoft OneNote – Free: 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.

SwiftNote Pocket Organizer – $0.99: SwiftNote is a powerful organization and task management tool designed to be quick and easy to use! Powerful, quick sync feature with your Google Calendar and notes on your device’s home screen, without unlocking the device.

Nocs – $1.99: Text editor with Dropbox & Markdown. Browse, edit, & organize your notes & docs.

MaxNote – $2.99: Max Note is a novel notes application , it is simple, practical and quickly to use. It helps you write down ideas, messages, or anything else. It is not complex, but is powerful. It integrates text words, pictures, sound recording into one memo note. In other words, at the same time you can be writing words, showing pictures, and recording voice. It also can sync notes with your Google Docs.

JotAgent ~ quick Dropbox notes – $0.99: A simple and efficient solution for today’s users who are always on the run with nothing but their handheld devices at hand — JotAgent is the quickest way to get your notes and ideas into your Dropbox account. Just write something, and with a single tap of a button it will be saved.

Underscore Notify – $1.99: Launch Notify and immediately start jotting down a reminder, write an essay, slice’n’dice a photo of a whiteboard, draw a diagram, type a bulleted list, build up a moodboard, scribble directions on a map, or read and annotate a lengthy document. Notify easily imports an extensive range of formats (including PDF, Word, Excel & Powerpoint and many more) either directly from an email or from files stored on cloud servers such as Dropbox, Box.net, Google Docs or Evernote (iDisk coming soon).

Underscore Notify

Niche

PhotoNote – $1.99: See something that sparks an idea, like something in a shop, find an article in a newspaper of magazine, or spot a new book or CD? Are you taking photos for your business and need to add context to them? Snap a quick photo and tag it with a note, so you’ll remember to action it later. Use it to take a picture memo or use it as a diary.

Tiki’Notes 6 keys friendly keyboard notepad – Free: TikiNotes is using our exclusive Tiki6Keys mobile keyboard technology which has been developped specially to provide the user with an efficient typing interface.

Wine Notes – Free: Wine Notes is the mobile application for any discerning wine drinker. Keep track of wines that you’ve loved, wines you’ve hated and wines that you’re still searching for.

Wine Notes

Snap-it Notes – $0.99: Snap-it Notes is a versatile, reliable and simple to use photo note app in your pocket. With Snap-it Notes, creating notes is just a snap. See something important? “Snap it”, add description, select tags and save. In a hurry? Simply snap it and save. You can always add the description and tags at later time. Want to create a quick note without taking photo? Click “Write a note”, add description and save.

FlavorNotes – Free: The first app on the scene for the flavor industry, FlavorNotes is designed to help you build flavor profiles. It lets you record flavor descriptors when tasting samples or whenever flavor inspiration strikes. Use this business tool to easily select flavors and descriptors, refine levels, type comments, save profiles and email them to others. It will help the entire product development team share a common language of flavor descriptors — while working together in a new and exciting way!

DreamNotes – $1.99: DreamNotes is another thing you have to take with you for sleep. It intelligently distinguishes talking and snoring during your sleep. It memorizes your sleep period together with time counting for talk and snore. It saves your dream talk thus you can see how amazingly you perform on your dreamland.

DreamNotes

Contact Notes – $0.99: Do you use your iPhone’s Contact’s notes field to jot down important notes about your contacts? Do you wish it was easier to go through all the notes you’ve taken over time, instead of going through your huge contacts list one-by-one? If so, then this app is for you!

inClass – Free: inClass, the amazing student organizer, is here to help you survive school. No matter how complex your school schedule is inClass will help you keep track of all your courses and even alert you before class so that you are never late again. Not only that, but it will help you keep track of your tasks by reminding you that one is due soon, so no more procrastination.

Notes & Tasks

DulyNoted – Free: DulyNoted is a simple task manager/todo list application. You can create and edit notes, add detailed information, and attach relevant images to your notes. Delete and reorder notes rapidly from the overview list, or drill down into specific notes for additional details.

Easy Note + To Do – Free: Easy Note + To Do is a simple yet effective notes and to-do app. It provides good basic functionality with an attractive and clutter-free design.

This Is Note – $2.99: This Is Note is different from other notes – it is a 4+1 types in one! You can select one among the four themes of Note, Album, Diary, To-do and Calendar. Then you can complete your style of note by choosing from various designs of note covers, fonts, and stickers.

This Is Note

MiniNote – Free: Mini-note was designed to write memos faster and easier. It has simple To-Do function and it can be used for various ways. For example shopping list and homework and works and so on. The bookmark function makes Type a note and read more quickly. We note a more useful features for managing the update is going to be.

NoteMaster – $3.99: Text, Images, Lists, Headers…you’ll never be limited to boring notes again! Images are inserted right into the note where they belong, without resorting to clumsy attachments. Add a variety of lists to any note easily. Bulleted lists, numbered lists, and checkbox lists are all supported.

Location

Visual Notes – $1.99: Visual Notes makes it easy to create location aware notes using the camera, photo library, or keyboard. Notes are geo-tagged using the iPhone’s built-in Location technology allowing you see when and where they were created. The intuitive and easy-to-use interface makes it easy to manage all of your photo and text notes in one place and remove the clutter from your photo library.

Visual Notes

Location Notes (Drop & Drag) – Free: Location Notes makes your iPhone and iPod Touch to remember & share your memories by locations. This app allows you to make notes by GPS locations, taking pictures, images on photo library. You can also view list of notes by distance, dates and map points. Moreover, you can share your notes by email. Drop Pins & Move Around & Write Notes!

NoteWhere – $1.99: Organize your life geographically. NoteWhere is a location-aware notebook that records where you are when you make a note. Keep track of places you’ve been, things you’ve seen, and people you’ve met. A great app for house hunters, comparison shoppers, gift buyers, travelers, those who want to remember their favorite bars and restaurants, and others who simply need to know where they were when they took note of something.

MyMapNotes – Free: MyMapNotes is a Location-Based-Service that connects notes with specific GPS locations. The MapNote triggers a notification when the iPhone is approaching the geotagged coordinates – right-in-time.

GPSnote – Free: With GPSnote you can easily add, edit and delete notes on the map. You can create a note at the current location or by searching for a location by clicking the magnifier icon, a green pin will be shown that you can click revealing a plus icon that opens the keyboard for typing a note. You can also create a note at a arbitrary location by tapping and holding for 1 second with one finger.

Pin Drop – Free: Have you ever found somewhere cool and thought “I must come back here” and then forgotten where it was? Or wanted to tell a friend but couldn’t direct them on where to go? Pin Drop helps you to keep track of all those brilliant coffee shops, indie record stores, great restaurants, tiny boutiques, amazing beaches, free wifi locations.

Pin Drop

GeoNoto – $0.99: Ever wanted to do something when you got home but once you got home you could not remember what you wanted to do? With GeoNoto you can create a custom location-aware note that alerts you when you get within 200m of that note! If just a simple note is not enough to remind you can also add a photo from your library or camera to the note! You can also add the note to your calendar which can let you be reminded on a certain date and time. In short this is a simple note taking app that can remind you based on location,
with an image, and on a certain date and time.

Crumbs App – Free: Crumbs helps people leave notes and photos anywhere in the world for their friends (or themselves) to find. Only when the recipients arrive at the selected location, they can “find” the note!.

Journal & Diary

Chronicle – $1.99: Chronicle is the perfect way to keep a journal or diary on the iPhone. Also great for writing and searching notes. Features: landscape editing, add pictures, change fonts, background colors, upload to Google Docs, privacy lock.

Day One (Journal) – $0.99: A journal / diary / text logging application that makes it easy to log your thoughts and memories. Day One is well designed and extremely focused to encourage you to write more. Featuring Dropbox sync with the beautiful Day One Mac desktop application.

Day One (Journal)

Momento (Diary/Journal) – $2.99: Momento is a unique diary/journal writing application which provides a quick and easy way to privately record moments throughout your day. Connect with popular web services, such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Foursquare, Gowalla, YouTube, Vimeo, Digg and Last.fm, to collect and display your online activity as part of your diary.

MacJournal for iPhone – $4.99: Organize, chronicle and edit all your important information fast and on the fly. Best of all, unlike other journaling apps out there, you can blog to any of the popular blog sites using MacJournal. Not a blogger? Use MacJournal on its own or sync it up to your desktop version of MacJournal when you get back to your Mac. Either way, MacJournal has you covered.

LiveJournal – Free: LiveJournal is a unique social network that allows users around the world to find each other through journaling and interest-based communities. LiveJournal App for the iPhone offers many of LiveJournal’s core features. You can read your friends page, manage your friends list, post entries to your journal and communities, upload photos, communicate with other LiveJournal users and more!

Raconteur — The Everyday Journal / Diary – $2.99: Do you keep a journal, but forget to write in it? How often do you take the time to reflect on what you’ve written? Raconteur solves both problems. Ever wish you could remember what you did on a certain day? Raconteur reminds you of entries you need to write to ensure that you’ll never miss a day. With a complete record of your life you’ll remember what you did, and you’ll never forget your favorite memories.

Raconteur

General Purpose

Mental Note – the digital notepad – $2.99: Mental Note allows you to capture ideas as they happen: use photographs, dictate, add text, sketch on anything. Ideas clarified. Creativity captured.

Meteor Notes – $2.99: Meteor is a revolutionary note-taking tool. It will completely change the way you take notes on your iPod/iPhone/iPad. Meteor is highly visual and instinctive! Efficiently classify your memos in a more familiar way. Divide them into folders instead of a plain list. You can create an unlimited number of folders and subfolders.

Meteor Notes

Notebooks – $5.99: Notebooks is the one and only notebook that you’ll ever need. It allows you to conveniently write, capture and organize your ideas, notes, reminders, journals, diaries or details of life that you want to keep close at hand. If you need to take an important note, or search for one, you’ll always have the ultimate notebook at your fingertips!

ThoughtPad – $1.99: ThoughtPad was designed for the person who needs to write things down. People who are emailing themselves long lists will also find this app useful. ThoughtPad is a notepad designed for organizing notes with a simple one level hierarchy. Organizing notes is as quick and easy as capturing.

Note To Self – $0.99: Capture that thought before you forget it! Note To Self is a tiny app to quickly send notes to yourself by email. It’s useful when you must remember something quickly and don’t want to fumble with your iPhone for too long. Far fewer taps compared to launching Notes, Calendar or Voice Memos, and you won’t forget something that is in your email.

Fliq Notes – Free: Fliq Notes is a full-featured note-taking app that lets you create and categorize notes and memos – large and small. Organize and find notes easily. And, send notes over Wi-Fi to other Fliq Notes users.

Scribe Notes – $0.99: Elegant multimedia notes for your iPhone Attach photos, videos, sketches, and maps to your notes! Scribe is an awesome new notes application that enables you to create notes with photos, videos, maps, and sketches. Each note is also geotagged so you know where you were when you composed it.

Scribe Notes

QuickNote – Free: QuickNote is the fastest way to take notes on your iPhone. Loads and ready for typing in about 1 second. Other note-taking apps can take 5-10 seconds to load. I got tired of waiting, so I made this app.

Note Me – Free: We developed Note Me not just to help you jot down ideas, meeting notes, personal memos etc., but also to be able to organize them in such a way that you can find the information you are looking for easily. Note Me uses a tagging system that allows you to assign multiple tags to a single note and then look up notes based on any combination of such tags.

AudioNote – $4.99: By synchronizing notes and audio, AudioNote automatically indexes your meetings, lectures, or study sessions. Need to review the discussion about deliverables on your next project? Trying to remember what the professor had to say about a key point? With AudioNote there is no need to waste time searching through the entire recording to find out. Each note acts as a link directly to the point at which it was recorded, taking you instantly to what you want to hear! Didn’t take any notes during the meeting? No problem, you can add them later!

SplashNotes Outliner – $2.99: Whether you are taking notes in class or a meeting, planning a project, keeping track of vehicles or health, or just outlining your ideas, SplashNotes is a very powerful assistant.

mAgiNotes – $0.99: mAgiNotes, in a nutshell, is the most suitable notepad to generate a list. mAgiNotes is designed to write down a short note quickly and to read it at any time. mAgiNotes can not input photos, sounds and handwriting images. In addition, mAgiNotes does not have a detail screen. It has only a list screen. Therefore mAgiNotes is not suitable for a use to record complicated information. But mAgiNotes is good to a use to write down the idea that you hit on suddenly in a short note, and a use to make a little checklist.

Meemo – Free: The Meemo – note and memo application – is equipped with core functions that are needed for you to write down and manage your todos/ideas efficiently. You can easily organize your notes by categories and manage urgent or important ideas separately. If you are a person who just want what you really need, then Meemo will fit to your needs.

Write 2 – $1.99: Write 2 is an ultimate note taking & text editing app. you can type in full screen with auto text, change themes & fonts, apply pin protection, share & sync & back up via Dropbox, organize your files in folders, and many more. It utilizes all of its great features to give you the best experience while typing on your iPhone & iPod Touch. Write 2 is simple but also very powerful at the same time.

Write 2

ProfNotes – $4.99: ProfNotes is a professional note taking application and note manager that allow you to do all audio, text, photo and map in your notes.

NoteMinder – $2.99: The first touch free reminder app for the iPhone & iPad. In need to send Mom a card… you open NoteMinder you shake the app and it starts recording your reminder, you shake it again and your reminder appears in your inbox. We designed NoteMinder to do one thing and do it well – Remember for you, so you don’t have to.

MobisleNotes – $0.99: You love the simplicity of Apple’s note app but you feel it’s missing some crucial features? Then MobileNotes is for you. It’s a simple and straight-forward combined notes/to-do app for your iOS device. It is designed with productivity and ubiquity in mind for easy note-taking on the go, letting you write simple as-you-go notes or checklists seamlessly.

WhiteNote – $1.99: WhiteNote is an easy to use digital notebook application for the iPad that supports free-form text positioning and basic free-hand drawing as well as support for images and sound. It is designed to replace a physical notebook but applies technological advantages such as searching, real-time collaborative white boarding and content sharing. With WhiteNote, like a real notebook, you can create subjects to categorize your work. Then insert as many pages as you need using one of the many optional paper styles.

PrestoNotes – $3.99: PrestoNotes is a Note management tool which turns out to be also a practical task management tool. It aims to replace in the use Note app making one central Notes database in place of the actual dispersive four different locations (Contacts, Note, Mail and Calendar). Notes created in PrestoNotes maybe easily linked to Contacts and Calendar event.

TagNote – $0.99: Tagnote makes the management for a great deal of information very fast and easy by using a convenient and strong tag input control. Didn’t it take too long a time and processes to organize information only in terms of its categories? Use tags instead of the categories!

Sundry Notes – Free: Text, images, audio recording, tables, real-time WiFi collaboration, wireless sync with the cloud, and much more!

NoteLife – $4.99: NoteLife is a media-rich note manager for iPhone and iPod touch. With NoteLife, you can securely keep the details of your life with you wherever you go. It supports photos, movies, voice memos, note encryption, web bookmarks, and more.

notes + u – $0.99: notes + u is an easy to use app, that will allow you to record audio, notes and pictures at the same time. So whether you are in a lecture, meeting or out looking for your next dream home, you can use notes + u to record everything you need.

notes + u

DEVONthink To Go – $14.99: DEVONthink on the Mac keeps your documents organized. But what about when you are away from your keyboard? Put your documents into your pocket with DEVONthink To Go, the DEVONthink and DEVONnote companion for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. DEVONthink is the #1 pro tool on the Mac for document and information management and is used by information workers in education, research, law, consulting, and governments to home, small, and medium offices.

Simple Notes – $0.99: Simple Notes allows you to group your notes into notebooks and add tags to your notes.

Notica – $1.99: With a highly intuitive interface designed specifically for photos and videos, Notica is your perfect visual memory companion. It stores text, location, time, date and your photos or videos on beautiful notecards, and allows you to organise them in stack-like groups, with the fastest and most efficient search that goes over all text in your notes in blazing speed and pops up just the right note at the right time.

Conclusion

The 100 note-taking apps above represent the best of what you’ll find on the App Store. Even with all of these though, it’s possible that we missed a few gems. Leave a comment below and let us know which note apps you use on a daily basis and which of those listed above you like best.

We’d like to say a big thank you to this month’s iPhone.AppStorm sponsors, and the great software they create! If you’re interested in advertising, you can order a slot through BuySellAds.

You could also consider a Quick Look submission, an easy way to showcase your app to all our readers.

Billings Touch – Billings’ simple workflow and intuitive interface makes quoting, invoicing, and time tracking effortless.

Cretouch – Dress your device with Creative Touch, a series of delightfully designed iPhone cases and protective covers in a wide range of styles.

Ideas to Apps – A complete step-by-step guide on how to create a killer design and outsource the development at a price you can afford.

CopyTrans TuneSwift – Changing PCs or switching to Mac without losing your iTunes library? CopyTrans TuneSwift is the easiest and safest way to move iTunes data to a Mac or any PC.
Backup the entire iTunes library including iPod Touch, iPad and iPhone backups. Save the latest changes of your iTunes library by using the incremental backup feature. Import the iTunes library from an external hard drive and restore it from previous backups. Anytime & anywhere your iTunes library just a flap away!

AppSumo – AppSumo partners with people who make the coolest apps out there to offer you exclusive price deals on their products. Mom would approve.

SpeechTrans Ultimate – Magically Speak and Understand Different Languages within a matter of Seconds with 99% Speech Recognition Accuracy Powered by Nuance! Have you ever met a person you really like but due to the language barrier you wouldn’t be able to start a chat? SpeechTrans is here to help you out!

iPhone 4 and – The best collection of iPhone 4 cases, full body protection and skin protectors.

iPhone Unlock Service – We are 100% dedicated to bringing you the best solution possible when it comes to Unlocking and Jailbreak. We have completed thousands of successful unlocks or Jailbreak and all our customers have been completely satisfied.

iPhone Dev Secrets – Have you ever dreamed of creating your own great game or application for iPhone or iPad with no programming skills in just 4 weeks and hit pay dirt with it in the App Store?

CopyTrans Manager – Sick of iTunes? Is it too complex and slow for your needs? Looking for a faster, lighter and free alternative iPod manager? CopyTrans Manager is the perfect iTunes replacement for your iPhone or iPod. Add music & videos to iPod, edit song tags and artworks, create and organize iPhone playlists, preview tracks with the integrated music player. It has never been this simple!

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As a child, some of my favorite books were the little Beatrix Potter books about the wonderful animal world of Peter Rabbit, Jeremy Fisher, the tailor mice, and more. Whenever I see those original books at the library, I’m immediately reminded of sitting by my Mom as a little guy and reading those tales. Beatrix Potter’s books have a timeless quality to them, just like the original Pooh book included with iBooks for free.

Sideways Apps has brought several of Beatrix Potter’s books to life on iOS, first with Peter Rabbit: Buddy Edition and most recently with The Tale of Jeremy Fisher. Each of these turn the original text and beautiful artwork into an interactive experience. They also include the innovative Buddy Reader technology that lets you read the book to your child from anywhere. Let’s explore the Jeremy Fisher app to see how the Buddy Reader works and the direction this tech could take dedicated eBook apps.

Beatrix Potter’s Work Comes Alive on iOS

The Buddy Editions of Beatrix Potter’s books take the original tales and combine them with beautiful classic graphics and fonts to give a vintage elegant look to the apps. On iPhone, you can read through the Jeremy Fisher tale on your own, listen to it with a clear recording of the book, or read the book to someone else on another device anywhere around the world.

This last feature is the neatest part of the Buddy Edition books. With just an internet connection and a free iOS Game Center ID, you can read the book along with your child, grandchild, or any another special children, even if they don’t live anywhere nearby.

The Tale of Jeremy Fisher app keeps a classic and elegant feel

Of all children’s books, Beatrix Potter’s books seem custom made for the iPhone form factor. They’re traditionally printed as 5″x4″ small books, which is only marginally larger than the iPhone or iPod touch’s screen. Each page includes text and images specially formatted for the iPhone. The only problem is, you can’t change the font, size, or brightness like you could in iBooks or Kindle, and text cannot be selected or copied either. For these children’s books, however, this works fine.

To navigate the book, swipe left to look closer at the pictures, the swipe again to switch to the next page. Alternately, tap the arrow icon on the bottom to open a next and previous page button. Many of the pages include interactive elements that children can move around the page, such as the dragonfly in the image below. Many pictures also include hotspots with vocabulary words; tap the spots to hear the word read. These all make the book an immersive and educational experience for children.

Most images are interactive

Setting up Buddy Reading

To read the book along with someone else on another device, you’ll have to have the same app installed on each iPhone or iPod Touch. Each device will need to have a unique Game Center ID, and you’ll also need to add each other as friends in Game Center. Once this is done, tap Buddy Reading in the app’s main screen to start reading together. The device that starts the connection will be the one that reads, while the second device will be able to listen to the first.

By default, the Game Center will try to Auto-Match you with another player, but to read together, you’ll want to select an individual friend. Just tap Invite Friend, then select the friend you want from the list and tap Next to set it up.

Invite one of your Game Center friends to read the book together

Now enter an invite message, and tap Send to invite your friend to read together. The second device will then receive a push notification that you’ve invited them, and can choose to accept or reject it. As soon as they’ve accepted, you’ll see it on your game screen, and can tap Play Now to start reading together.

Oddly, by default it asks if you want to "play" Jeremy Fisher together

There’s just one more step needed. On the device that started the Buddy Reading connection, you’ll see a security code. This needs entered on the listening device, so if you’re not nearby you may need to text the code to the listener or call and let them know what to punch in. The good thing is, once you’ve done this, you’ll never need to enter the security code in again to read together between these two devices. So, you could, perhaps, setup your device and your grandmother’s at a family gathering, and then she could read a book to your child later without this step.

Enter the code on the listening device to activate the connection

Reading Together

Once the new reading session is started, you’ll immediately be switched to the book view. The device that started the connection will control the reading experience; you’ll read out loud and turn the pages, and the listener will hear the reading and see the pages turned automatically. Just like reading along with a kid sitting beside you, you can share the book through your iOS devices seamlessly no matter where you are. The only thing that doesn’t stay in sync is the movable parts of the pictures such as the dragonflies. Otherwise, it’s just like screen-sharing from a PC designed around the reading experience. The performance and audio fidelity were great in our tests, too.

Read together just like you were sitting side by side

iPad Extras

All of the Buddy Edition books are universal apps, so you can use them on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. Jeremy Fisher: Buddy Edition on iPad includes a couple extras that aren’t in the iPhone version. It has a number of high-quality coloring pages and connect-the-dot games for children that go along with the story. The coloring pages include a variety of colors and a virtual eraser, as well as a magic crayon that just uncovers the original color in the picture. You can then save the picture to your Photos app or email it to friends or grandparents. These are definitely a nice addition to the book, and I only wish they’d made a small version in the iPhone app as well. The only problem is, it’s yet another app that will get your kids to beg to use your iPad more!

Coloring in Jeremy Fisher on iPad

Conclusion

The Buddy Edition books are a great example of how traditional books can be turned into a much richer experience as eBooks. Unlike Kindle or iBooks eBooks, these Beatrix Potter books come alive and are fully redesigned for the touchscreen experience.

After Steve Jobs stated a couple years ago that people never read anymore, developers are showing that the touchscreen interface can bring excitement back to reading even for kids. Whether you’re wanting your kids to read the classic Beatrix Potter books or would like a way to read to them or other special kids in your life when you’re away, the Buddy edition books are an exciting new way to experience these classic animal tales.

We’ve collected the top four reviews, roundups and how-to articles from across the AppStorm network in March. Whether you’re interested in Mac, iPhone, iPad, Web, or Android apps, there’s bound to be something you didn’t spot over the course of the month.

Don’t forget that we also launched a brand new site last week – iPad.AppStorm. As part of the launch, we’re giving away a free iPad 2 – you only have until tomorrow to get your entry in!

Thanks for reading AppStorm, and I hope you enjoy looking over some of our favourite posts from last month.

Best of iPad.AppStorm

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