Ok, so (I've decided to start all my blog entries with "Ok, so...". This will probably last about 4 entries, and then I'll forget to do it completely for the rest of my life. But I digress...)
Ok, so I've been looking at more note taking apps for the iphone, because so far I don't seem to have discovered the nirvana of notey-ness. And the problem really seems to be speed of interface.
There are in fact three levels of speed. There is fast - the voice apps live in this level. You open the app, you speak, it's done. It's as fast as you can think it. But these apps have a major con, and that is that you have to speak out loud. Of course, if you could actually transmit thoughts directly to your iphone, that would open up a whole new world of strange and wonderful potential. But I guess we'll all have to wait for that one.
After recording your voice, the next problem is that you have to then listen to it. And you have to transcribe it. Unless you've purchased speech to text software, which I haven't. I want it in an APP Goddammit!
So we drop down to level 2, which is medium speed. It's as fast as you can "type" on your iPhone. I actually tried touch typing with both hands the other day. It was interesting, but pretty wrong. The time taken to correct it negated the usefulness of the initial speed. Plus I had no idea what I'd intended to write in a few cases.
What I did like about the notes app that I tried - which is called Awesome Note was the visual aspect of it. It had coloured folder tabs and icons. What can I say - I know better, but i am always swayed by the packaging!
The next pro with this app was that I could export and import my notes to google docs. Although the fact that I don't use google docs was a slight impediment. I logged in and disovered loads of docs I'd forgotten about from a client long ago! Then I tested the import and export system and got myself a bunch of duplicates. Annoyed.
The third level I thought would be fast. But it failed failed failed. It was an app that lets you write with your finger. It was like watching a slow child copy your movements. Waiting for the little dot to catch up with what I'd written was too frustrating for words. It made me wish for a stylus - something I always do when I am sitting at my computer with my Wacom pen in hand is absent mindedly try and use that on the iphone rather than my finger. It never works.
The upshot of this is that level two is currently the most useful one for me when in a crowded space, but I don't think that I've found the perfect app within that level. I was thinking of using WriteRoom, which is also an online program. The app isn't free, but my main reason for considering it is that it works with Scrivener, which I use to write with.
The real question is - how much do I think I'd really write on the iphone? I don't even find touch typing to be fast enough to keep up with my thoughts - so how creative could I be trying to write on a 3 inch screen?
Or maybe I should just be ballsy enough to start dictating in public, shouting my muses out loud and generally holding my phone horizontal in front of me like they do on the apprentice (oh that drives me wild).
I think I might hold off until I can think my thoughts straight into the iPhone. Why ISN'T there an app for THAT?
